Earliest Written Hadith

Last updated: May 30th, 2025 at 2:25 pm · Est. Reading Time: 2 minutes

We do not know with certainty when Hadith literature started to be reduced to writing.

A papyrus fragment is preserved in the Oriental Institute of Chicago.  The content of the papyrus is some Hadith traditions, which are part of Mawtta of Malik (d. c. 795 CE) (Muwaṭṭā’ lil Mālik bin ‘Anas مَوطاء لِلمالِك بِن ءانَس).  As the writing is on both sides of the papyrus, it is evident that the page was part of a scroll or a bound book.  Abbott, who has studied the papyrus in detail, dates it to the second half of the 8^th century CE.¹  This piece of paper confirms that Hadith literature was written down in book form during the early Abbasid period.  This is one of the earliest known pieces of hadith literature in written form.

Another small fragment of papyrus preserved in the Vienna National Library, Vienna, contains a portion of Hadith ascribed to Umar bin Khattab.  The papyrus originated in Egypt, and the Hadith noted on it is, again, part of Mawtta of Malik.  The writing has been guessed to be from the 8^th century CE, the early Abbasid period.²   Interestingly, the Hadith is written on the back of a papyrus, which was originally used for some kind of official document.  It means it was simply a personal note of a Hadith narrator, who still had to memorise it to narrate it.    As this papyrus is contemporary to the one mentioned above, evidently, Hadith literature was being transmitted in oral form, side by side with written form, during the early Abbasid years.

Literary sources mention preservation of Hadith literature in written form much earlier than the preserved documents.  We are told that Abdul Razzaq organized the Hadiths in categories of fiqh.  If true, they were written in a book form.³

Further Reading

https://islamichistory.com/advent-of-islam/introduction-of-early-hadith-literature

https://historyofislam.org

Endnotes

1. Nabia Abbott, Studies in Arabic Literary Papyri (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), 27.; Oriental Institute no. 1 PERF, No. 731, c. 2^nd half of 8^th century CE, Institute of the Study of Ancient Cultures of the University of Chicago, Chicago.
2. Petra M. Sijpesteijn, “A Ḥadīth Fragment on Papyrus,” Der Islam 92, no. 2 (2015) 321–331.; AP 259, Papyrus Collection, Austrian National Library, Vienna.
3. Sezgin, Fuat, Geschichte des arabischen schrifttums (Leiden: Brill, 1967), 1:115 – 52.