The companions who wrote

The Quran was written down as it was revealed. What about the Prophet's ﷺ other words? The reports show both an instruction not to write them and companions who did write them. This page gives both, and then what the scholars of hadith concluded.

ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAmr's notebook

ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ wrote down what he heard, until some people objected. Here is the report in HadeethEnc's translation:

‘Abdullāh ibn ‘Amr (may Allah be pleased with him) reported: I used to write down everything I heard from the Messenger of Allah (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) in order to memorize it. The Quraysh prohibited me, saying: "Do you write down everything that you hear from the Messenger of Allah (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) while the Messenger of Allah (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) is a human being who speaks in anger and pleasure?" So, I stopped writing and mentioned that to the Messenger of Allah (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him). Thereupon, he pointed his finger to his mouth and said: "Write down; for by the One in Whose Hand my soul is, nothing comes out of it except the truth."

HadeethEnc: صحيح — [Authentic] [Narrated by Abu Dāwūd]

Translation: HadeethEnc.com — Encyclopedia of Translated Prophetic Hadiths, by Rowad Translation Center; published by the Islamic Propagation Office in Rabwah. English, version v1.25.0. Full entry with explanation: https://hadeethenc.com/en/browse/hadith/65077

The report is in Sunan Abī Dāwūd (3646).

A report in the Sunan of al-Dārimī, through Sharīk, from Layth, from Mujāhid, has ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAmr name what he wrote:

فَأَمَّا الصَّادِقَةُ، فَصَحِيفَةٌ كَتَبْتُهَا مِنْ رَسُولِ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ

In our words: «al-Ṣādiqa», «the truthful one», was a sheet he had written from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and he says it was one of the two things that made him love life. (al-Dārimī, Sanadset no. 498)

The name is reported in other books as well, through other chains. Ibn Saʿd: «فكان عبد الله يسمي صحيفته تلك الصادقة», «ʿAbdullāh used to call that ṣaḥīfa of his al-Ṣādiqa» (al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kubrā, vol. 2, p. 373). al-Rāmahurmuzī, from Mujāhid, that ʿAbdullāh said: «هذه الصادقة، فيها ما سمعته من رسول الله ﷺ، ليس بيني وبينه فيها أحد», «this is al-Ṣādiqa: in it is what I heard from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, with no one between him and me» (al-Muḥaddith al-Fāṣil, vol. 1, p. 367). al-Khaṭīb, through Sharīk, from Layth, from Ṭāwūs: «الصادقة صحيفة كتبتها من رسول الله، صلى الله عليه», «al-Ṣādiqa is a sheet I wrote from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ» (Taqyīd al-ʿIlm, p. 84). These are reports of what he called it; this page does not grade their chains. The translations are ours.

His writing was known to the other companions. Abū Hurayra, who narrated more than almost anyone, said:

مَا مِنْ أَصْحَابِ النَّبِيِّ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ أَحَدٌ أَكْثَرَ حَدِيثًا عَنْهُ مِنِّي، إِلَّا مَا كَانَ مِنْ عَبْدِ اللَّهِ بْنِ عَمْرٍو، فَإِنَّهُ كَانَ يَكْتُبُ وَلَا أَكْتُبُ

In our words: none of the Prophet's ﷺ companions narrated more from him than Abū Hurayra did, except ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAmr, because he used to write and Abū Hurayra did not. (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 113)

A student's notebook: the ṣaḥīfa of Hammām

In al-Bukhārī's chain, Abū Hurayra's words above come through Wahb ibn Munabbih's brother, and al-Bukhārī adds that Maʿmar narrated them the same way «عَنْ هَمَّامٍ، عَنْ أَبِي هُرَيْرَةَ», «from Hammām, from Abū Hurayra» (113). Hammām ibn Munabbih wrote down what Abū Hurayra reported that the Prophet ﷺ said, and his collection is published as a book of its own. It opens:

عن همام بن منبه قال: هذا ما حدثنا أبو هريرة، عن محمد رسول الله

From Hammām ibn Munabbih, who said: this is what Abū Hurayra told us from Muḥammad, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. (Ṣaḥīfat Hammām ibn Munabbih, p. 27; translation ours)

The edition used here gives it through ʿAbd al-Razzāq, from Maʿmar, from Hammām.

The instruction not to write

Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī reports an instruction in the other direction:

Abu Sa‘īd al-Khudri reported that the Messenger of Allah (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) said: "Do not write down anything from me, and he who wrote down anything from me except the Qur'an, he should erase it. But, narrate from me, for there is nothing wrong in doing so. Whoever attributes any falsehood to me - Hammām said: I think he also said 'deliberately' - let him occupy his seat in Hellfire.”

HadeethEnc: صحيح — [Authentic hadith] [Narrated by Muslim]

Translation: HadeethEnc.com — Encyclopedia of Translated Prophetic Hadiths, by Rowad Translation Center; published by the Islamic Propagation Office in Rabwah. English, version v1.25.0. Full entry with explanation: https://hadeethenc.com/en/browse/hadith/10849

The report is in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim (3004). The Hammām named in the translation is a narrator in Muslim's chain, who has it from Zayd ibn Aslam («حَدَّثَنَا هَمَّامٌ، عَنْ زَيْدِ بْنِ أَسْلَمَ»); he is not the Hammām ibn Munabbih of the ṣaḥīfa above, who narrates from Abū Hurayra.

Abū Shāh's request

In the year Mecca was opened, the Prophet ﷺ gave a sermon, and a man from Yemen, Abū Shāh, asked for it to be written down for him (Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, Muqaddima, p. 182). The Prophet ﷺ said:

اكْتُبُوا لِأَبِي شَاهٍ

In our words: he told them to write it for Abū Shāh. (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2434)

How the scholars put these together

Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ (d. 643 AH) records that the first generation disagreed:

اختلف الصدر الأول ﵃ في كتابة الحديث، فمنهم من كره كتابة الحديث، والعلم، وأمروا بحفظه، ومنهم من أجاز ذلك.

The first generation differed over writing hadith down. Some disliked writing hadith and knowledge and told people to memorise it; others allowed it. (Muqaddima, p. 181; translation ours)

He cites Abū Saʿīd's hadith on one side and the Abū Shāh hadith on the other, and offers two ways to reconcile them:

ولعله ﷺ أذن في الكتابة عنه لمن خشي عليه النسيان، ونهى عن الكتابة عنه من وثق بحفظه، مخافة الاتكال على الكتاب، أو نهى عن كتابة ذلك حين خاف عليهم اختلاط ذلك بصحف القرآن العظيم، وأذن في كتابته حين أمن من ذلك.

Perhaps he ﷺ allowed writing from him for those he feared would forget, and forbade it to those whose memory he trusted, for fear they would come to lean on the written page; or he forbade writing it when he feared it would be mixed with the sheets of the Quran, and allowed it once that danger had passed. (p. 182; translation ours)

And he records how the question was settled:

ثم إنه زال ذلك الخلاف وأجمع المسلمون على تسويغ ذلك وإباحته، ولولا تدوينه في الكتب لدرس في الأعصر الآخرة

Then that disagreement ended, and the Muslims agreed that writing it is allowed; had it not been recorded in books, it would have been lost in later ages. (p. 183; translation ours)

Why this matters to Takhrij

The hadith collections that Takhrij searches exist because people wrote. Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ's next sentences turn to the care that writing demands: dotting and vowelling the text so that it cannot be misread (p. 183). A forwarded message has neither the chain nor that care. Looking it up in the written collections is the way back to both.

The Arabic of the hadith reports is from Sanadset 650K (CC BY 4.0); translations of hadith are HadeethEnc's, unchanged; descriptions «in our words» are not translations. Hammām's ṣaḥīfa, Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ and the reports of al-Ṣādiqa are quoted from the editions named above, read in turath.io's text of the printed edition on 25 or 26 October 2026; those translations are ours.