This encyclopedic work on Islam comprises English translations of all canonical hadiths, complete with their respective chains of transmission (isnads).<BR>By conflating the variant versions of the same hadith, the repetitiveness of its literature has been kept wherever possible to a minimum. The latest methods of isnad analysis, described in the general introduction, have been employed in an attempt to identify the person(s) responsible for each hadith.<BR>The book is organized in the alphabetical order of those persons. These are the so-called 'common links'. Each of them is listed with the tradition(s) for the wording of which he can be held accountable, or with which he can at least be associated.<BR>Within each article, the traditions are referred to in bold figures in the numerical order as they were distilled from the more than 19,000 isnads listed in Tuhfat al-ashraf bi ma'rifat al-atraf by the Syrian hadith scholar Yusuf b. 'Abd ar-Rahman al-Mizzi (d. 742/1341).<BR>The encyclopedia concludes with an exhaustive index and glossary of names and concepts, which functions at the same time as a concordance. In short, this work presents an indispensable sourcebook of the development of Islam in all its facets during the first three centuries since its foundation as reflected in canonical hadith.