Earliest Hadith Sciences Texts Written in Malay Archipelago

The teaching of Islam arrived in Malaysia during the end of 9th century, though historical notes on the study and writing of Hadith literature were not much found except after the 20th century. Besides, reviewing the literature on the topic found that the writings do not describe the hadith development in-depth as well factors due to it. The study therefore, aims to analyse the early stages of hadith development in the Malay Archipelago. Research methods used to examine the exegesis of hadith studies are largely qualitative, and consist of approaches such as historical research and content analyses. Therefore in the interests of validity and reliability, the study provides multiple sources of evidence. These include tape-recorded in-depth interviews with specific researches in particular with an expert educationalist and academician’s affairs in Malaysia. As a result, based on the discussion, the present article affirms that the earliest developments of Hadith literature studies were taught to the Malay region simultaneously with the coming of Islam. This is mainly because there are two main sources for an understanding of Islam; the Holy Qur’an and the Hadith DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n15p55