Study of knowledge-assessment of the ‘Ulūm-i Ḥadīth quarterly journal

Scholarly journals are deemed the most important tools for disseminating the research findings, and should be investigated and evaluated. Investigation of the condition of the journals with the approach of knowledge-assessment is considered among the most important methods for their scholarly performance evaluation. The present study aims at investigating – with a knowledge-assessment approach – the quarterly “‘Ulūm-i Ḥadīth” (lit. hadith sciences) as the first-ever and the most influential journal in the field of hadith sciences. This study has been carried out in the form of a survey and with the approach of knowledge-assessment. All articles of ‘Ulūm-i Ḥadīth quarterly journal including 460 articles, constitute the statistical population of this study. The data have been extracted from the website of Islamic World Science Citation Center (ISC) and have been analyzed by means of collocation and the network of being [the works of] the same author. The findings of data analysis indicate that the thematic network of this quarterly journal has been constituted from eleven clusters based on the technique of collocation. Similarly, the network of being the same author has been constituted from two major clusters and thirteen minor clusters. The biggest cluster has taken shape having Muhammad Kazem Rahman Setayesh as its pivot. The most voluminous pivot among the universities belonged to the University of Tehran, however, the role of the University of the Qur’an and Hadith, the University of Ferdowsi in Mashhad, and the University of Qum was also remarkable. Most of the articles, namely 396 articles (86%) were written by one author. The second rank with 13% belonged to articles written by two authors (an author and a co-author). The findings of this study can potentially provide information for the authorities to make decision about the Quarterly and to rethink about the future thematic trends. The authors and researchers can make use of the findings of this study to define research topics and to publish their works in this quarterly journal.