The proper and complete utilization of hadiths in alignment with the Holy Quran requires knowledge of various other disciplines, some of which have existed since the early centuries under the title of hadith sciences. The development of social needs, modern research methodologies, and new scientific questions in the present era have created opportunities for hadith scholars to incorporate not only traditional hadith sciences but also approaches and disciplines from other fields of the humanities into their studies. One effective approach to analyzing human relationships is Social Network Analysis (SNA).

To date, no systematic and comprehensive study based on social network analysis has been conducted on Shi'a sources to understand the role of early hadith narrators and the transmission of hadiths across generations. The present research examines the network of hadith narrators in the book ʿIElal al-Sharayeeʿ by analyzing its chain of transmission (isnād), leading to the construction of a narrators' social network. This narrative network was examined using social network analysis metrics at both macro and micro levels. At the macro level, factors such as density, clustering coefficient, and community structure were analyzed. At the micro level, metrics such as degree centrality, betweenness centrality, and closeness centrality were used.

Based on centrality measures, a list of influential figures-such as Muhammad ibn Abi Umayr Ziyad, Muhammad ibn al-Husayn ibn Abi al-Khattab, Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Khalid al-Barqi, Muhammad ibn Isa ibn Ubayd, and al-Hasan ibn Mahbub al-Sarrad- among the Companions (Ṣaḥāba) and hadith narrators were identified and ranked. Additionally, 26 communities within the transmission chains were discovered, and in each of these communities, key narrators who played a significant role in transmitting hadiths were identified.