An
Arabic word meaning literally "Divine Saying". In the context of the religion of
Islam, it means something that
God (or
Allah, as it is said in
Arabic) said to a
Muhammad, but was not meant to be part of the
Qur'an. It may be in the form of a story about "Allah". For example, here is one well-known
Hadith Qudsi:
On the authority of Abu Hurayrah , who said that the Prophet of Allah (peace be upon him) said:
When Allah decreed the Creation He pledged Himself by writing in His book which is laid down with Him: My
mercy prevails over my wrath.
Abu Hurayrah is the
narrator of the incident; this is only the last link in the
chain of narration. There is usually a complete list of names of who said it until it was written down. For
brevity, this has been
omitted. The Prophet tells of an
instance where
God told him something.