Hadith are "expressed in Muhammad's words", whereas the latter are the "direct words of God". A "hadith qudsi" need not be a "sahih" (sound hadith), but may be "da‘if" or even "mawdu‘". An example of a "hadith qudsi" is the hadith of Abu Hurairah who said that Muhammad said: When God decreed the Creation He pledged Himself by writing in His book which is laid down with Him: My mercy prevails over My wrath. In the Shia school of thought, there are two fundamental viewpoints of Hadith: The Akhbari view and the Usuli view. The Usuli scholars stress the importance of
Hadith terminology terminology, it refers to a "hadith" not fulfilling all of the conditions necessary to be deemed "mutawatir". "Hadith ahad" consists of three sub-classifications also relating to the number of narrators in the chain or chains of narration: An "ʻaziz" () "hadith" is any "hadith" conveyed by two narrators at every point in its "isnād" (chain of narrators). A "gharib" () "hadith" is one conveyed by only one narrator. Al-Tirmidhi's understanding of a "gharib hadith", concurs to a certain extent with that of the other traditionists. According to him a "hadith" may be classified as "gharib" for one of the following