Introduction

Knowledge of ahadith is essential in an effort to understand Islam. They contain rules and regulations, when implemented, would give cause to a better understanding of everyday life. This is applicable, to the individual of a society and also to the society as a whole. The messages within the ahadith are for the benefit of both, individual and society.

Among many missions of the Prophet (peace be upon him), one was to set a pattern of conduct. The conduct of the Last Messenger (peace be upon him) can be found in the voluminous sahihs. We should make an attempt to abide by these rules.

It is unnecessary to mention that research of Islam is beyond the scope of a single individual, a task unattainable in a man's lifetime, not to say, impossible. To narrow my scope, I had decided to restrict myself to ahadith (even this is a large area of study within Islam). I decided on making a small collection of ahadith. This decision resulted in a minor project that essentially consisted of reading diverse Islamic literature and reading different aspects of Islam. I could, of course, have bought one of many voluminous compilations of ahadith, but I was convinced that I would learn more by finding and compiling them myself and indeed it has been a most fruitful experience. During the compilation, I was becoming aware of the meaning and importance of ahadith and soon realised that others too could benefit from this compilation. With this in mind I was determined to share this collection with my fellow Muslims.

All ahadith in this collection have been, so to say, copied from my source ^A). Every hadith is followed by the Arabic source. It can be found in (e.g. Bukhari, Muslim) along with the source I have written it from (e.g. Sayings of Muhammad (pbuh) by Prof. Ghazi Ahmad). If the reader feels uncertain about a particular hadith she/he can easily trace it to my source.

All the footnotes in the ahadith are not my insertions, but the author's of my sources. The titles, which are given to the ahadith, are also titles found in my source; they too, are not my insertions. The same applies for brackets (() or []) found within some ahadith. (These comments do not apply to the titles marked as "Introduction" and "Introduction to Ahadith") The ahadith are all randomly compiled. The ahadith have been written down as I have encountered them in relevant literature.

Since I have used different literature, there have come cases where two authors use the same title, e.i. "marriage" hence the title will appear twice. This is not to be regarded as a misprint. There is no personal preference as to the choice of authors of my sources. I have obtained these books from different libraries and local mosques.

A problem which was encountered was when two authors wrote on the same subject matter, but from different sahihs, both sahihs had their own wordings but giving the same meaning. I have tried to keep these sort of ahadith to a minimal as I wished to have as many diverse topics as possible. Faith, knowledge, marriage, sex, divorce, rights of wives/husbands and hospitality are a couple of areas covered in this compilation.

I have, to the very best of my abilities, tried to be as careful as possible when writing from the source, this in order not to endanger the real meaning of the hadith, nor to give cause to misinterpretations. As far as spellings are concerned, I have thoroughly checked it. The spellings of Arabic names and places have been written exactly as I have encountered them in the source.

One of my sources, "Hayaat-ul-Muslimeen" written by, Mohammad Ashraf Ali Thanvi, has consistently used the term "Rasulullah" when addressing Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him). The Arabic term, "sallallahu alayhi wasallam" has also been used throughout the book. For the ease of non-Muslim readers, I have replaced the Arabic "Rasulullah" by "Muhammad" and "sallallahu alayhi wasallam" by "may the blessings and peace of Allah be upon him." I have treated similarly the terms "radiallahu anhu" and "radiallahu anha." They have been replaced by "Allah be pleased with him" and "Allah be pleased with her." I have used the term "peace be upon him" throughout the compilation as most authors have used similar attributes. The same author has also mentioned the narrators' Arabic names for most ahadith, I have done likewise. The English "Allah" has been replaced by the Arabic proper noun "Allah".

Considering the fact that I am a computer science student (August 1993), with access to Internet, I thought this would serve as a most remarkable media for distribution of this collection. It is recommended, to those readers who have the possibilities, to print out the file and ^B) send a copy to the local mosques that might wish to include this compilation in their library etc. If mosques have the possibilities to print copies of this collection and have it distributed among the visitors/guests to the mosques, it would be appreciated. Thus the collection will not only be restricted to people with network access. The more people who read it, the more it will benefit and also the one who passes on the words of the Prophet (peace be upon him) will also be rewarded by Allah. There is no doubt about this. This compilation is dedicated to the loving memories of my maternal grandfather with whom I spent my first years of a precious life.