Tradition, as above described, is not confined to details belonging to the
lifetime of Mahomet. The childish habit was contracted of putting the relation
of every trivial fact and story into the popular form of a tradition with its
string of authorities; and there is consequently a great mass of
quasi-traditional matter on the early progress of Islam subsequent to the
Prophet's death. Excluding this, and confining our view solely to what belongs
to the lifetime of Mahomet, it is remarkable that the original sources, the
recognised "Sheikhs" or Fathers of tradition, are comparatively few,
great numbers having been rejected by the Collectors as inadmissible. . Thus
Hâshid (d. 258) relates that he had heard the recitals of 1750 Sheikhs, but
adopted in his collection the traditions of but 310; he had collected separate
traditions to the number of one million and a half, but accepted only 300,000.
Wâckidi, again, amassed probably a couple of millions, but the number of
Sheikhs he relied on was small. Setting aside repetitions of the same
occurrence, he retained in his collection not more than some 40,000
traditions, of which perhaps not half are genuine; and even of these, many
relate to one and the same subject-matter.