Since its inception, the study of Ḥadīth conducted by scholars trained in the Western academic tradition has been marked by sharp methodological debates. A focal issue is the origin and development of traditions on the advent of Islam. Scholars' verdicts on these traditions have ranged from “late fabrications without any historical value for the time concerning which the narrations purport to give information” to “early, accurately transmitted texts that allow one to reconstruct Islamic origins”. Starting from previous contributions to the debate, the studies collected in this volume show that, by careful analysis of their texts and chains of transmission, the history of Muslim traditions can be reconstructed with a high degree of probability and their historicity assessed afresh. World Prize for the Book of the Year of the Islamic Republic of Iran, February 2012. Harald Motzki , Ph.D. (1978) in Islamic Studies, University of Bonn, is Professor emeritus of Islamic Studies at Radboud University Nijmegen. He has published extensively on Muslim traditions and Islamic social and legal history. Nicolet Boekhoff-van der Voort , Ph.D. (2012) in Religious Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, is Lecturer of Arabic and Islam at Radboud University Nijmegen. She is currently preparing a book on the biography of the Prophet Muḥammad as transmitted by Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī. Sean W. Anthony , Ph.D. (2009) in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago, is Assistant Professor of Islamic History at the University of Oregon. He is also the author of The Caliph & the Heretic: Ibn Sabaʾ and the Origins of Shiʿism (Brill, 2012).