ABSTRACT
Compendia of hadith from the ninth century, including most of the Six Books, for example, normally devote a section to adab, the etiquette of a religiously serious life. Compendia with and without separate chapters on adab consider many questions of etiquette elsewhere, such as in chapters dealing with mosques. Naturally, for books from legists, they pay disproportionate attention to how one should conduct oneself at meetings for the transmission of religious knowledge (‘ilm). In details as small as the proper way to sit, one may observe central features of Islamic religious culture. In arguments over disputed questions, one observes the very emergence of a religious culture.
