Library of Hadith from Both Sects (Sunni and Shia).

About Library of Hadith from Both Sects (Sunni and Shia).

The Status of the Hadiths of the Prophet and Ahl al-Bayt (AS) Among Both Sects

The Holy Quran, in numerous verses, emphasizes the unique personality of the Noble Prophet (PBUH), describing his speech as divine revelation, his commands as obligatory to obey, and his conduct as the best model and exemplary guide for believers. Furthermore, the Quran mentions obedience to the Messenger and those in authority (Ulul-Amr) immediately after obedience to God Almighty, underscoring the importance of their commands. The Noble Prophet (PBUH), in recurrent narrations such as the Hadith of Thaqalayn, entrusted his progeny (Itrah) and Household (Ahl al-Bayt) alongside the Quran as inseparable companions for Muslims after him, so that by holding fast to these two, they would be safeguarded from misguidance and error.

In the blessed Ummah of Islam, after the Holy Quran, the second authentic source for deducing religious rulings and extracting Islamic knowledge and beliefs is the Noble Sunnah (the sayings, actions, and approvals of the Infallibles), which is conveyed through noble hadiths.

From the dawn of Islam until today, except for the unfortunate period of the prohibition of compiling and collecting hadith (which lasted nearly a century), Muslims who recognized the importance and necessity of collecting hadith strove to gather, preserve, and transmit it to subsequent generations.

Diligent and esteemed scholars of hadith from both sects undertook journeys spanning the entire geography of the Islamic world—from Khorasan, Ray, and Qom to Syria, Egypt, Iraq, and Hejaz—to meet their teachers and receive narrations from them. Over many years, generation after generation, they compiled, corrected, purified, explained, or summarized all texts left behind by the Noble Prophet (PBUH) and his pure and immaculate family.

Muslims, both Shia and Sunni, have attached unparalleled importance to acquiring, preserving, organizing, and transmitting hadith, enduring numerous hardships and difficulties in this path, so that today the precious heritage of the Noble Prophet (PBUH) and Ahl al-Bayt (AS) has reached us, and it is our duty to pass it on to future generations.

In recent years, with the advent of computer sciences, the possibility of utilizing diverse capabilities and various tools for benefiting from narrations has become more available than ever. The ability to collect narrations in a single environment, perform various rapid searches, compare texts, and more are among the capabilities that are extremely useful and effective in research.

Therefore, it is incumbent upon researchers of Islamic sciences to facilitate access to and utilization of these authentic sources by appropriately presenting narrations through new tools, thereby creating opportunities for new research activities that were not possible in traditional studies, for both current and future generations, and to continually increase their efforts to advance and realize this divine success.

Background of the Center's Productions Regarding Sources of Both Sects

The Noor Computer Research Center for Islamic Sciences was initially established based on the hadith-related activities of a group of researchers from the Qom Seminary and the effort to present hadiths using modern and efficient computer tools. Consequently, the production and upgrading of hadith software have always been and will remain among the center's primary priorities.

Previously, the Four Books of the Shia and the Six Books of the Sunnis were compiled, produced, and presented in the "Noor Al-Ahadith 1" software at the request of the Presidency of Religious Affairs of Turkey.

Furthermore, to date, the Noor Computer Research Center for Islamic Sciences has produced and released various library and encyclopedia software derived from the sources of both sects. These include "Jame' Tafasir Noor" and "Mishkat" in exegesis and Quranic sciences; "Noor Al-Sirah," "Al-Nabawi Encyclopedia," and "Al-Alawi Encyclopedia" in history and biography; "Islamic Theology Library" and "Theology Tree" in Islamic theology; "Irfan," "Noor Al-Hikmah," and "Islamic Wisdom Library" in philosophy and mysticism; as well as diverse other software on topics such as Islamic astronomy, geography of the Islamic world, Islamic ethics, medicine, Arabic grammar rules, and more.

Among these, the production of software containing hadiths from both sects was deemed more necessary and significant than any other field of Islamic sciences. Now, for the first time, after overcoming useful experiences in producing and presenting various programs, software encompassing the most important hadith sources of the Shia and Sunnis has been produced and presented to hadith researchers, scholars, and other researchers of Islamic sciences in the academic community. It is hoped that the production of this program will contribute to the growth and elevation of research and the dissemination of Islamic knowledge, and will take another step towards bringing Islamic schools of thought closer and uniting Muslims.

Motivations for Producing the Software for Compiling Hadiths of Both Sects

Since many researchers pay attention to hadiths and sources of other major Islamic schools of thought to understand and deduce jurisprudential rulings or theological and ethical issues, the main objective of producing this software is to accelerate access and facilitate research in important hadith sources of the Shia and Sunnis side by side. This enables researchers from each of the Sunni and Shia Imami schools to conduct jurisprudential and theological research utilizing the most efficient and modern computer tools.

Although other centers and institutions have produced software containing a significant portion of Islamic science sources, meeting users' need for a comprehensive library, no software has yet been produced that contains only the hadiths of the Shia and Sunnis.

On the other hand, it can be confidently stated that the features, capabilities, and tools provided in Noor software are unique and unavailable in any software from other centers. Therefore, presenting Shia and Sunni hadith texts in the format of advanced software is unparalleled, indeed unprecedented.

Ultimately, this software has strived to meet both specialized and general needs for a digital hadith library and to further provide the necessary groundwork for comparative hadith studies and research.

Definition and Scope of Program Content

The focus in producing this software has been to present a complete collection of the most important authentic and early hadith sources of the Shia and Sunnis. It offers 20 book titles in 137 volumes, including: "Nahj al-Balagha," "Al-Sahifah al-Sajjadiyya," "Al-Mahasin," "Al-Kafi," "Man La Yahduruhu al-Faqih," "Al-Tahdhib," "Al-Istibsar," "Al-Khisal," "Ma'ani al-Akhbar," "Thawab al-A'mal wa Iqab al-A'mal," "Sahih al-Bukhari," "Sahih Muslim," "Sunan al-Nasa'i," "Sunan al-Tirmidhi," "Sunan Abi Dawud," "Sunan Ibn Majah," "Muwatta Malik," "Sunan al-Darimi," "Al-Mujtaba min al-Sunan," and "Musnad Ahmad." Thus, the total collection comprises 10 titles from Shia sources and 10 titles from Sunni sources.

Furthermore, by selecting the best researched editions and applying specialized formatting to all book texts, every effort has been made to ensure this program serves as a comprehensive and reliable reference, meeting all hadith-related needs of Islamic science researchers, students, and others interested in hadith studies.

It is worth noting that what is presented in this program is not a complete list of all narrative sources of both sects. Rather, given the time-consuming process of typing, correcting, and professionally formatting books, the presentation of additional narrative sources has been deferred to future versions.

Program Capabilities and Features

In line with efforts to design and present the most practical modern research tools in the field of hadith studies, a "Similarity Finder" tool is provided in this software. Users can select a specific hadith to find other similar hadiths in different sources, observing the percentage and degree of similarity, and compare the found results with one another.

Additionally, users are given the ability to adjust the similarity percentage of narrations according to their preference before performing the similarity search.

Some of the other most important features and tools available to users in this program include:

- Selecting the program language according to user preference, including Persian, Arabic, and English.

- Ability to adjust the display page size on different monitors.

- Direct transfer of book content from the program to Word files and Noor Notes.

- Insertion of the reference for transferred content into Word files and Noor Notes, including the book name, volume number, and page number.

- Insertion of bibliographic information (author name, book title, publisher, place of publication, year, and edition) when transferring content to Word files to facilitate citation.

- Ability to display and compare two selected books simultaneously.

- Ability to perform simple searches.

- Ability to perform advanced combined searches using logical operators.

- Ability to search content via word roots and pattern modeling.

- Ability for users to create custom search domains and search within desired scopes.

- Ability to display multiple books on the workspace simultaneously, allowing rapid and independent searching and navigation among them.

- Provision of a selective index for rapid searching within book index titles.

- Provision of online search capability (Find) in various folders.

- Provision of an advanced word finder and smart dictionary encompassing the best books on semantics, distinctions (Furuq), obscure hadith terms (Gharib al-Hadith), and Quranic words.

- Ability to show or hide vowel marks (I'rab), headers, footnotes, and comments in the display folder according to user preference.

- Option to transfer or exclude vowel marks, headers, and footnotes from books when exporting to Word files and Noor Notes.

- Presentation of the Holy Quran accompanied by translation, with the ability to search verses based on roots, derivatives, and Quranic words.

- Provision of a "Verses in Books" folder to quickly find desired verses in any book and study the content under each verse.