A Survey of the Shiite History of Writing Hadith

Writing hadith after its issuance from an Infallible Imam and compiling reliable books are of important and effective factors in safeguarding and perpetuation of hadith. According to historical evidences, conditions of writing hadith for the Shiite and Sunni were not of the same degree. Writing the Prophetic hadiths _ which are found out in the Sunni hadith sources _ faced with many limitations and prohibitions and was formed a long time after their issuance. While Shiites had no difficulty in writing hadith were also encouraged to. The present paper tries to depict the differences between these two school of hadith scholarship concerning hadith and its recording.