Chronological Arrangement Of Hadiths: A Proposal For A Software-Based Prophetic Biography

Abstract

In the past, huge efforts were made in writing the biography of the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, to draw lessons from his life. But in fact, we find that the well-known Sīrah books present his biography in the form of important events and facts in a chronological sequence by collecting the events that occurred in a particular year or in certain months of his life. The hadiths of the Prophet constituted an essential source for writing the biography of the Prophet, especially those that relate to specific events. But the question that remains is: Did we benefit from all or most of the hadiths in writing the biography of the Prophet? Is it possible to take advantage of the abundant number of authentic hadiths for a new, more accurate, and more detailed Sīrah of the Prophet’s biography?  This research aims to put forward a huge project that represents an initiative to rewrite the biography in a more detailed chronological order than it is now. The proposed methodology is based on benefiting from computer software in the chronological order of the authentic hadiths and thus including them in the books of the Prophet’s biography to give a more detailed presentation and be closer to practical application and deriving legal rulings from his biography. The researcher presented a practical proposal to arrange the hadiths of the Prophet according to a chronological sequence. The researcher also proceeded to apply this proposed method to one of the hadiths of Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī (as an example to clarify the idea), through which the researcher was able to reduce the period of possibility for the hadith to be received and reduce it from more than ten years to a period not exceeding tens of days. Therefore, it can be concluded that the proposed algorithm can be applied to rewrite the biography of the Prophet P.B.U.H.