to reach expression in the great digests of law; not even the most zealous fixer of life by rule and line would condemn his fellow-religionist because he preferred to carry a different kind of walking-stick from that approved by the Prophet, or found it fitting to arrange his hair in a different way. But still, all pious Muslims paid attention to such things, and fenced their lives about with the strictest Prophetic precedent. In consequence of this, there early arose in Islam a class of students who made it their business to investigate and hand down the minutest details as to the habits of Muhammad. This was a separate thing from the study of law, although fated to be eventually connected with it. Even in the time of the Jahiliya—the period before Islam, variously explained as the ignorance or as the rudeness, uncivilizedness—it had been a fixed trait of the Arab mind to hold closely to old paths. An inherent conservatism canonized the sunna—custom, usage—of the ancients; any stepping aside from it was a bid'a—innovation—and had to win its way by its merits, in the teeth of strong prejudice. With the coming of Muhammad and the preaching of Islam, this ancestral sunna had in great part to yield. But the temper of the Arab mind remained firm, and the sunna of Muhammad took its place. Pious Muslims did not say, "Such was the usage of our fathers, and it is mine;" but, "I follow the usage of the Prophet of God." Then, just as the old sunna of the heathen times had expressed itself through the stories of great warriors, of their battles and loves; through anecdotes of wise men, and their keen and

eloquent words; so it was with the sunna of the one man, Muhammad. What he said, and what he did; what he refrained from doing; what he gave quasi-approval to by silence; all was passed on in rapidly increasing, pregnant little narratives. First, his immediate Companions would note, either by committing to memory or to a written record, his utterances and table-talk generally. We have evidence of several such Boswells, who fixed his words as they fell. Later, probably, would come notes of his doings and his customs, and of all the little and great happenings of the town. Above all, a record was being gathered of all the cases judged by him, and of his decisions; of all the answers which he gave to formal questions on religious life and faith. All this was jotted down by the Companions on sahifas—odd sheets—just as they had done in the Ignorance with the proverbs of the wise and their dark sayings. The records of sayings were called hadiths; the rest, as a whole, sunna—custom, for its details was used the plural, sunan—customs. At first, each man had his own collection in memory or in writing. Then, after the death of the Prophet and when his first Companions were dropping off, these, collections were passed on to others of the second generation. And so the chain ran on and in time a tradition came to consist formally of two things—the text or matter (matn) so handed on, and the succession (isnad) over whose lips it had passed. A said, "There narrated to me B, saying, ‘There narrated to me C, saying,'" so far the isnad, until the last link came, and the matn, the Prophet of God said,