رواية الحديث
Riwāyah al-Ḥadīth
Topic
The transmission of hadith: the reporting of the words, deeds, descriptions and attitudes of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).
What it means
Riwāyah al-ḥadīth is the reporting of hadith. It covers the words of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), his actions, his description and character, and his approval or disapproval of what others said and did. The science of riwāyah deals with the exact transmission of these reports and the care owed to their wording. The narrators passed the reports on by hearing and reading them back to their teachers, each naming the person from whom he heard. The word is often set beside dirāyah, the study of the meaning and the rules of hadith. Together they form the work that scholars used to preserve the Sunnah.
Term and Arabic as listed in Ismail al Faruqi, Toward Islamic English (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1995), p. 49, listed as RIWĀYAH AL ḤADĪTH. The definition is restated here.