كتاب ببلوغرافيا لكتب الحديث والسنة بالغة الإنكليزية
which they attack the Science of Isnad. My own humble contribution to this genre is my doctoral thesis entitled “The Concept of Mahdi among Muslims with reference to Kitab Al-Fitan by Nu،aim bin Hammad”. This thesis pays particular attention to the theories of Margoliouth.In order to link the past with the present, I have summarised below the conclusions reached by Ahmad von Denffer in his aforementioned Bibliography:
The French preceded the English in recording a definition for Hadith, the first of its kind, in Bibliotheque Orientale by Bartholomew d’Herbelot (Paris, 1697) . A century later, another French contribution appeared in the 19th Century: Hammer-Purgstall made a list of the subjects in Sahih Al-Bukhari. Among the earliest works in English was the translation of “Mishkat-al-Masabih” by Muhammad bin Abdullah Al-Khatib Al-Tabrizi (Calcutta, 1809-1810) . The next notable work was entitled “On the Origins and Progress of writing down historical facts among Muslims” by Sprenger in 1856. The translation of 300 Ahadith from Imam Bukhari’s Al-Adab Al-Mufrad was published by Ali Hassan under the title “Priceless Gems” in 1895. Five years earlier, Ignaz Goldziher had produced his treatise entitled “Muhammedanische Studien” (1889-90) , but the second volume of this, which was devoted mainly to Hadith studies, was not translated into English until 1971.
The twentieth Century thus saw a galaxy of Muslim and non-Muslim scholars contribute greatly to the body of Hadith literature. They included orientalists such as Guillame, Schacht, Arberry and James Robson. The Muslim contribution came from renowned scholars such as Muhammad Zubair Siddiqi, Abdul Hamid Siddiqi, Dr.
