Hadith and sunnah in the context of being a source of islamic civilization

It is possible to talk about many factors that have influenced and shaped the birth, growth and development of civilizations throughout history. For example, geographical conditions and social environment are very important factors in the establishment and development of a civilization. Many reasons such as the natural conditions of the geography in which the civilization emerged, the social conditions in which that civilization grew, economic and political factors have left serious and lasting effects on the basic codes of that civilization. While geographical and social conditions affect some stages of civilizations materially, religion, which is the spiritual element of civilizations, has been a factor that has the power to affect all stages in the formation of a civilization. Because religion comes first among the factors that affect the morality, literature, art, economy, ties and relations between individuals, down to the smallest details of daily life, of a civilization. In this context, Islamic civilization is a civilization influenced and shaped by the religion of Islam. The two main factors affecting this civilization that we can mention as the founding elements are the Qur'an and the Prophet's hadith and sunnah which are the main sources of the religion of Islam. The hadiths, which were written down and preserved by Islamic societies with great seriousness and special scientific methods, deeply affected the imagination and behavior patterns of Islamic civilization in every field, especially the conception of existence, knowledge and value. This situation caused hadith and sunnah to play a decisive role in all civilizations founded by Muslims, down to the smallest details of life. Because hadith and sunnah of the Prophet has been a phenomenon that covers all the behaviors and activities of a human life, down to the smallest details of individual life, as well as covering the fields of economy, administration and law in the social sense. For this reason, even if Muslims have established completely independent civilizations in different geographies and different time periods, the value system and main characteristics of all these civilizations have shown great similarities. The main reason for this situation was the hadiths of the Prophet, who, together with the Qur'an, became the source of Islamic civilization. Within the scope of this study, we aimed to contribute to the examination of hadiths in terms of being a source for Islamic civilization. Key words: Religion, hadith, civilization, culture.