Excerpt from Adis Duderija, Evolution in the Concept of Sunnah during the First Four Generations of Muslims in Relation to the Development of the Concept of an Authentic Ḥadīth as based on Recent Western Scholarship, Arab Law Quarterly, 26,4,2012, 393-438. 3.1. Semantico-contextual Changes in Definition and Scope of the Sunnah Ansari has pointed out several difficulties one encounters when studying the terminology used during the early period of Islamic thought. One such problem is the “comparative lack of fixity in technical connotations of terms in use”19 which resulted in a gradual change in connotation over a period of time. An important aspect in these semantical changes in terminology is their increasing ‘technical’, or what the author would describe as legalistic,20 connotations. Moreover, and importantly, these terms had a multiplicity of meanings even when employed by the same author in the same work.21 Another important principle for the purpose of this study ...