Studies in Early Hadith Literature

“No doubt the most important field of research, relative to the study of Hadith, is the discovery, verification, and evaluation of the smaller collections of Traditions antedating the six canonical collections of al-Bukhari, Muslim and the rest. In this field, Dr. Azami has done Pioneer work of the highest value, and he has done it according to the exact standards of scholarship. The thesis which he presented [in this book], and for which Cambridge conferred on him the degree of Ph.D., is in my opinion one of the most exciting and original investigations in this field of modern times.”