Abstract: the article substantiates the idea that the science of hadith, with all its historical vicissitudes, plays an important role as a source of data on the life of pre-Islamic Arabia and the period of early Islam, and also describes many important political and cultural events taking place in various regions of the Muslim world. The author’s position on selected issues is that the science of hadiths and methods of their selection provided the subsequent generations of scientists with such information, to which the criteria of scientificness, objectivity and historical authenticity are quite applicable. During the study, the author used the dialectical method of scientific cognition, as well as systematic, historical and comparative methods of research. The result of the research was learning the history of emergence of the hadith phenomenon, as well as the efforts to collect and systematize them, which formed a separate branch of science – hadithology. One of the key findings of the author is the assertion that the hadith as such and the hadithology science constitute a unique achievement of the Islamic civilization, they not only form the ideological and behavioral basis of Muslim society, but also serve as an excellent example of methods for preserving and transferring historically valuable information.
Keywords: islam, sunnah, hadith, Prophet Muhammad, companions