QA:

To see how authentic a Hadith was, the Imams such as Bukhari and Sahih checked two of the main
things of and Hadith, the Text, and the Chain of narrators/Transmission. This ensured the authenticity
of a Hadith completely. The Sahih and Bukhari books classify as Sahih (Correct/Authentic).

The Chain of transmission also known as the chain of narrators, is what the collectors of Ahadith
checked. They mainly check for the character and personality of the Narrator and based on that,
decide if a Hadith is authentic or not. There were many Qualities that the collectors of Ahadith were
looking for, these include:  The narrators must be adults and Muslims, the narrators should have a
strong memory, The narrators should be known for being pious, the narrators never have lied and not
commit a major sin, The narrators should be famous for their knowledge, honesty, and
trustworthiness, and last but not least, they should never have been convicted for a crime in their lives.
Furthermore, the collectors were not satisfied from just this. They also wanted the narrator to be
generally well known. They also wanted the Narrator to be alive in the time when the previous
narrator was alive, and they should have met. And the chain of narrators should always end up to the
Prophet Muhammad PBUH being the first narrator. Apart from that, the collectors of Ahadith didn’t
accept anything from a child, person of special needs/Insane person or a non-believer to completely
verify the Ahadith.

Once the collectors of hadith are satisfied with the chain of transmission, they check the content/text
of the hadith itself. Again, strict measures were taken to ensure the authenticity of the Ahadith. First
and foremost, the Hadith should not contradict the Quran or basic teachings of Islam. The Hadith
shouldn’t be contradicting any of the previous Sahih (authentic) Hadiths. Since the Ahadith is the
wordings of Allah and the Rasool ‫ ﷺ‬there shouldn’t be any grammatical mistakes, nor should it defy
common sense. And also, it shouldn’t contain an expression that is not expected to be used by the
Prophet ‫ﷺ‬.

After all these criteria have been checked, the hadith can be written as valid/authentic. This is the car
that Muslims have taken to preserve the wordings of the Holy Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬so no one in the world can
doubt it unless some changes are made.

QB:

Both of these components are important to establish the authenticity of the Ahdith because they really
confirm weather a narrator is even worthy to have said a hadith. Moreover, this strict checking allows
for people who want to destroy Islam to have a hard time doing so as with this methods none of the
fabricated Ahdith will ever reach the books of Islam. These methods help preserve the words and
meaning of Ahadith from the prophet ‫’ﷺ‬s time till today. The reason that both the Isnad and matn are
equally important is because they both make complete sense. Its true that if all the Qualities of the
narrator are available then more Muslims are likely to believe that the Hadith is authentic. However, if
the text is not making sense at all then no one will even follow the hadith much less believe in it.
Because these both support each other it makes them equally important when checking the
authenticity of a hadith.