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term denoting reports that convey the normative words and deeds of the Prophet Moḥammad; it is understood to refer generically to the entire corpus of this literature and to the thousands of individual reports that comprise it. A version of this article is available in printVolume XI, Fascicle 4, 5, pp. 442-457HADITH i. A GENERAL INTRODUCTIONHadith literature (often called in Western scholarship “Muslim tradition”) is understood to be the repository of the sonna (normative conduct; pl. sonan) of the Prophet, which is regarded as second in authority only to the Koran as …

[German Version] I. Geography – II. History – III. Society – IV. History of Religion I. Geography Iran has a total surface of 1,648,195 km2 and is about the size of the combined area of Germany, France, Great Britain and Spain. Roughly half the country is covered by mountains; the Demāvand, an old volcano in the Elburz mountain range to the north of the capital Tehran, is the country's highest elevation with an altitude of 5,670 m. Some 8% of Iran's total surface is covered with forest, 55% with open steppes, and 2…