Methods of Hadith Replication and Strategies for its Identification

Replication or attributing something to someone other than the real authority, has long been employed in the history of hadith. It seems that some of the recorded propositions in hadith sources are replicated ones. However any research in the field of theology, religion, and hadith including challenging issues such as Jihad, assassination, torture,etc relies on the available propositions and hadiths which are suffering from this defect. In order to reach Islam’s original point of view on any issue from that of the Muslims, it is necessary to identify replicated hadith from the genuine ones. Hence, this paper studies the history of replication, examines the reasons for such a process, and provides some strategies to differentiate between the genuine and the forged hadiths. Consequently, five motives have been identified and four strategies introduced for distinguishing the genius from the forged.