The Isnad System

Since the hadith is the second in authority only to the Quran, it's important to Muslims that the hadith are authentic and reliable. The isnad ststem is a chain of oral transmission of the hadith, and each hadith has an isnad. The Isnad system is where one states his sources of information, in turn tracing that narrative all the way back to the Prophet SAW.

Muslims consider the isnad system an indispensable part of the hadiths. They gave it a firm foundation by introducing the chronological method, assembling the transmitters' biographies, and establishing a science for determining the value of its contents and the authenticity of its channel of transmission.

Early Muslims had developed a system for ensuring that the Quran and hadith would not be subjected to change by human error, either intentional or unintentional. The system that was developed were known as the isnad system.


The isnad system emphasized the sanad, of a particular saying. For example, in the hadith compilation of Bukhari, each hadith is preceded by a chain of narrators that goes from Bukhari back to the Prophet Muhammad SAW. This continuous chain is known as a sanad. To ensure that the hadith is authentic, each narrator in the chain must be known to be reliable, have a good memory, be trustworthy, and have other righteous qualities.

The early Islamic community placed a huge emphasis on this system for determining the authenticity of hadith as well as verses from the Quran. If someone were to claim to have had a verse that was not in the canonical text of Uthman’s mus’haf, scholars would look at the chain that person claimed went back to the Prophet SAW and determined from it if there was a chance that it was authentic.

Therefore, anyone forging verses of the Quran would not be able to connect it to the Prophet SAW, and their claim would be discounted according to the isnad system. The isnad system thus worked to preserve the sanctity of the Quran as well as the hadith, as it prevented people from making erroneous claims that could then be accepted as fact.

Zaid bin Thabit used a proto-isnad system in his work compiling the Quran during the caliphate of Abu Bakr, and the growth of the isnad system in subsequent decades helped protect the text from being altered in any way. Thus, making the Isnad system a part of the religion. Were it not for the isnad, anyone could say anything they wished.

Wallahu'alam