Hadith same text are each counted as individual ahadith. If, say, ten companions record a text reporting a single incident in the life of Muhammad, hadith scholars can count this as ten hadiths. So Musnad Ahmad, for example, has over 30,000 hadiths—but this count includes texts that are repeated in order to record slight variations within the text or within the chains of narrations. Identifying the narrators of the various texts, comparing their narrations of the same texts to identify both the soundest reporting of a text and the reporters who are most sound in their reporting occupied experts of hadith
Introduction to the Science of Hadith al-Kattānī. `Āʼishah bint `Abd al-Raḥmān said in the foreword of her edition of the "Introduction": His book about the sciences of hadith is the best known of his works without comparison, to the extent that it is sufficient to say, "the Book of Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ", the intent being understood due to its popularity and stature. With the previous scholars, its subject matter overcame it, thus being referred to as, "the Book of Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ about `Ulūm al-Ḥadīth" or as he referred to it in its opening pages, "the Book of Familiarity with the Types of `Ulūm al-Ḥadīth". It has become