hadith — An easy way to typeset Hadith in LaTeX

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ

Version 1.1.0 (2025-01-15)

Author: Nibras Abo Alzahab <nibras.abo.alzahab@gmail.com>

A LaTeX package for typesetting Hadith from the Seven Canonical Books (Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, Sunan Abi Dawud, Jami at-Tirmidhi, Sunan an-Nasa'i, Sunan Ibn Majah, Muwatta Malik) in XeLaTeX/LuaLaTeX documents.

Overview

The hadith package provides macros for typesetting Hadith text (with Arabic diacritics/tashkeel) from the canonical collections of Islamic tradition. It is modeled after the quran package and follows the same architecture: text data in .def files, macros in .sty.

Features

• On-demand loading: Chapter files are loaded only when a hadith from that chapter is requested, avoiding TeX memory limits
• Seven Canonical Books: 7 collections included (36,390 hadiths total)
• English translations: Built-in translations (enable with showtrans option)
• Hadith grades: Authenticity grades from scholars (enable with showgrade option)
• Case-insensitive: Collection names work in any case (bukhari, Bukhari, BUKHARI)
• Arabic text with full diacritics (tashkeel)

Requirements

• XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX (not pdfLaTeX — requires Unicode and RTL support)
• bidi package (for right-to-left text)
• polyglossia package (for Arabic language support)
• Arabic Unicode font (Amiri, Scheherazade, or KFGQPC Uthmanic)
• xkeyval, xparse, xstring packages

Installation

Local installation (for testing)

Copy the files from tex/ to your TeX tree or set TEXINPUTS:

# Linux/macOS
export TEXINPUTS=/path/to/hadith_package/tex:$TEXINPUTS

# Windows PowerShell
$env:TEXINPUTS = "C:\path\to\hadith_package\tex;" + $env:TEXINPUTS

CTAN installation (future)

tlmgr install hadith    # TeX Live
mpm --install=hadith    # MiKTeX

Usage

Basic example

% !TEX program = xelatex
\documentclass[12pt,a4paper]{article}

\usepackage{bidi}
\usepackage[no-math]{fontspec}
\usepackage[quiet]{polyglossia}

\setmainfont[Scale=1]{Amiri-Regular.ttf}
\newfontfamily\arabicfont[Script=Arabic]{Amiri-Regular.ttf}
\setdefaultlanguage[calendar=gregorian]{arabic}
\setotherlanguage[variant=british]{english}

% Load hadith package with all available books, grades, and translations
\usepackage[bukhari,muslim,abudawud,tirmidhi,nasai,ibnmajah,malik,showgrade,showtrans]{hadith}

\usepackage[breaklinks,hidelinks]{hyperref}

\begin{document}

% Typeset hadith #1 from Sahih al-Bukhari (with grade + translation)
\hadith[bukhari][1]

% Case-insensitive collection names
\hadith[Bukhari][8]
\hadith[BUKHARI][7000]

% Shortcut commands
\hadithmuslim{1}

% Citation (inline)
قال النبي ﷺ: \hadithcite[bukhari][1]

% Collection name
\hadithname{bukhari}

\end{document}

Package options

Commands

Collection names

Collection names are case-insensitive: bukhari, Bukhari, BUKHARI all work.

Available collections: bukhari, muslim, abudawud, tirmidhi, nasai, ibnmajah, malik.

Data Source

Hadith text is sourced from fawazahmed0/hadith-api (public domain / The Unlicense).

• Arabic text with full diacritics (tashkeel)
• 7 canonical collections
• 36,390 hadiths total
• English translations included

Collection sizes

Note: The traditional "Nine Books" (الكتب التسعة) also include Musnad Ahmad and Sunan al-Darimi, but these are not available in the data source (fawazahmed0/hadith-api). The package code includes options for ahmad and darimi for future expansion when data becomes available.

On-Demand Loading

The package uses on-demand loading to avoid TeX memory limits. Only the metadata (index) files are loaded at package initialization. Chapter text files are loaded automatically when a hadith from that chapter is first requested. This keeps memory usage low even with 36,390 hadiths across 7 collections.

Building from source

Prerequisites

• Python 3.x
• XeLaTeX

Generate .def files from JSON

python source/tools/generate_def.py data/ara-bukhari.json tex/bukhari bukhari --trans data/eng-bukhari.json

Test compilation

xelatex test_hadith.tex

License

• Package code (.sty, documentation): LPPL 1.3c
• Hadith text data (.def files): Public domain (source: The Unlicense)
• Hadith text itself: Classical works, centuries old, public domain