Best Practices for Identifying Hoaxes: An Analysis of the Methodology of Hadith Transmission

The Sahabah or Companions of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) were known as one of the most truthful generations in conveying and receiving information. Their expertise in maintaining the originality and authenticity of the hadith content allows Muslims all over the world to gain an accurate insight about Islam. Hence, it is pivotal to review the method of conveying information of the Sahabah to help us identify between real facts and hoaxes. This paper aims to explain the practice of disseminating information among the Sahabah using three methods: confirmation, comparison, and coherence. Various narrations of hadith were analyzed to comprehend this method, including the hadith related to history of Anas bin Malilk, Abu Bakr al-shiddiq, Ali bin
Abi Talib and Aisyah Umm al-Mukminun. Apart from the undoubted credibility of the narrator’s personality, the content of these hadith contains an explanation of the methods used by the Sahabah in an effort to prove the originality of the information. This paper rests on the argument that information is a major factor in communication process. The application of confirmation, comparison coherence methods in information dissemination is a noteworthy finding