Hadiths are the record of the traditions or sayings of Muhammad, defined as the biography of Muhammad perpetuated by the long memory of his companions and community for their exemplification and obedience. The development of hadiths is a vital contributive element to the biography of Muhammad in early Islamic history. There had been a common tendency among earlier western scholars against these narrations and reports gathered in later periods, who regarded them as fabrications. Leone Caetani considered the attribution of historical reports to Abdullah ibn 'Abbas and 'Aisha as mostly fictitious while examining accounts reported without "sanad" by the early compilers of "seerah" such as Ibn Ishaq. Wilferd Madelung has rejected the stance of indiscriminately dismissing everything. Madelung and some later historians do not reject the narrations which have been compiled in later periods and try to judge them in the context of history and on the basis of their compatibility with the events and figures.