Sunna
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Sunna is an Arabic term meaning a path followed or a custom observed. In Islamic scholarship, it refers to what the Prophet Muhammad said, did, or approved of while witnessing something without objecting to it. Sunna is regarded as the second source upon which Islamic law is built, after the Qur'an.
Sunna is transmitted through hadith (reports), each of which consists of a chain of transmitters (isnad) and the text of the report (matn). Hadith scholars have classified reports by examining the memory and reliability of the transmitters, and whether the chain is continuous or broken.
Categories of Sunna
Scholars generally divide Sunna into three types: Sunna of speech (qawliyya), which is what the Prophet said; Sunna of action (ficliyya), which is what he did, such as the manner of prayer and pilgrimage; and Sunna of approval (taqririyya), which is an act performed by someone else in the Prophet's presence that he remained silent about without objecting. Some also include physical characteristics and moral qualities that were transmitted about him.
Role in Islamic law
Usul al-fiqh (the science of the foundations of Islamic jurisprudence) recognizes Sunna as a clarifying source. It serves the Qur'an in three ways: confirming rulings already stated in the Qur'an, elaborating on general rulings summarized in the Qur'an (for example, the number of prostrations in prayer), and deriving rulings not explicitly found in the Qur'an. Other sources of law, such as ijma (consensus) and qiyas (analogy), are themselves grounded in the Qur'an and Sunna.
Collection of hadith
In the early centuries of Islam, Sunna was transmitted orally and in small written texts. In the third and fourth centuries of the hijra, large organized collections were made, which are now the most well-known references for Sunni Sunna, particularly the Sahih collections and the Sunan compilations. Shi'a have separate collections based on transmitters among the Ahl al-Bayt (the Prophet's family), and they include in Sunna the words and actions of the Imams.