While Theologians thus selected traditions with a special view, thousands of
Traditionists were busy in making collections with little or no specific
purpose other than that of mere collection. Their object was simply to mass
together as many traditions as they could, and for a long period they were
guided by no fixed critical rules. Bokhâri was the first of the general
Collectors to adopt rules of (so-called) critical selection: he proposed to
himself the task of confining his collection to "sound" or authentic
traditions.2 He was moved, it is said, to this duty by a dream in
which he seemed to be driving away the flies from Mahomet, interpreted to
signify that he would dispel the "lies" which clustered around his
memory. The canons which guided him, however, hardly deserve the name of
criticism. He looked simply to the completeness of