Hadith report, the scale of the report's transmission, the routes through which the report was transmitted, and the individual narrators involved in its transmission. On the basis of these criteria, various classifications were devised for hadith. The earliest comprehensive work in hadith studies was Abu Muhammad al-Ramahurmuzi's "al-Muhaddith al-Fasil", while another significant work was al-Hakim al-Naysaburi's "Ma‘rifat ‘ulum al-hadith". Ibn al-Salah's "ʻUlum al-hadith" is considered the standard classical reference on hadith studies. By means of hadith terminology, hadith are categorized as "ṣaḥīḥ" (sound, authentic), "ḍaʿīf" (weak), or "mawḍūʿ" (fabricated). Other classifications used also include: "ḥasan" (good), which refers to an otherwise
Introduction to the Science of Hadith al-Ṣalāḥ, in his "Introduction", codified the terminology established by those scholars before him based upon his reading of their works. He did so by citing some of those scholarly statements in the earlier works and deducing from them common terms and definitions in the manner of a scholar authoring a book of "fiqh" (jurisprudence). In this manner, his book was based upon those principles established by the earlier hadith specialists combined with some elements of "fiqh". An example of this would be the inclusion of the division of hadith into "mutawātir" and "āḥād". He therefore only mentioned the statements of