Download PDF | (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization) G. H. A. Juynboll - Muslim Tradition_ Studies in Chronology, Provenance and Authorship of Early Hadith-Cambridge University Press (2008).
284 Pages
Introduction
This book deals with various aspects of the formative period of Muslim tradition, in Arabic: hadith; throughout this study the term 'tradition' is used as the equivalent of the Arabic word hadith and is to be understood in this sense only. A hadith proper is the record of a saying ascribed to the prophet Muhammad or a description of his deeds. In the course of time these records were compiled into a number of collections which together form the so-called hadith literature. Several of these collections acquired so much prestige that they became sacrosanct in the eyes of the Muslims and, subsequently, were vested with an authority second only to the Qur'an.
When, in the mid-sixties, I wrote my study on modern Muslim discuss- ions about the authenticity of the hadith literature, I realized that I did not take sides, neither in the disputes among Oriental scholars nor in the ones occasionally flaring up between Oriental and western scholars. I had been influenced by the books of Goldziher and Schacht, of course, but also by those of modern Muslim scholars, and I kept postponing my commitment to any particular point of view. Initially I thought of the problems raised by Oriental and western scholars concerning the origins of hadith as mutually irreconcilable. If two points of view could differ so widely, how could anyone even attempt to bring them into harmony?
Then, in 1976, 1 embarked on an examination of the role early Muslim qadīs were supposed to have played in the spreading of traditions. M pre-conceived ideas about the outcome of my investigation were shattered It taught me that there was, after all, a conceivable position that could be taken between the two points of view represented respectively by Muslim and western scholarship. But since that time I no longer wanted to expose myself to the influences of either side, and I returned to the earliest sources and did my research without constantly comparing my findings with those of either Oriental or western scholars until after it was all over. As I see it, the sources appear to have provided me with sufficient evi dence to maintain a position between the extremes. This book constitutes an account of this research.
Tradition I am fully aware of the fact that I am not the first one to write about the origins of hadith nor will I be the last one. Over the centuries Muslim scholars have devoted themselves assiduously to this literature, which had become sacred to them, only second in holiness to the Qur'an. The results of their studies are laid down in a never-ceasing flow of publications. Up to this very day hadith is studied everywhere in the Muslim world. An overall impression one gleans from nineteenth and twentieth centuries' works is that the point of view taken hardly differs from that crystalized during the late Middle Ages, when the research into the origins and the evolution of hadith literature virtually seemed to have come to a standstill with a formulation of its history commonly accepted by all sunnite and most Shi'ite Muslims. It is true that from time to time several studies saw the light in which a different approach was propounded.
In these studies certain basic theories which had long become axiomatic to the extent that further scrutiny was considered almost a sin, were looked into from new angles. But they mostly evoked bitter criticism, were subsequently hushed up and/or quickly forgotten. Also in the West the study of the tradition literature aroused the interest of scholars. Hadith studies as a whole received a major impetus though with the publication of Goldziher's Muhammedanische Studien, volume II.
This work is generally considered at least in the West as the first milestone among western efforts to depict the earliest history of hadith. A re-evalu- ation of previously published works on the subject, it was also a step- pingstone for a number of later publications. With the possible exception, perhaps, of several writings by the late J. Fück, no studies were carried out in the West, as far as I know, in which conclusions were drawn that differed basically from those arrived at by Goldziher. Gradually, Goldziher's theories, also because of the translation into Arabic of his Vorlesungen, became known in the Muslim world and net with opposition. Until the present day perhaps the most articulate critique was formulated in the 1966 Cambridge doctoral dissertation of Muhammad Muşțafā al-A'zami (M. M. Azmi), which was published in Beirut in 1968, entitled Studies in early hadith literature, and which is now also available in an Arabic translation with the title Dirāsāt fi 'l-hadith an-nabawi wa-tarikh tadwinihi, Beirut 1973, Riyad 1976, 1979. Since the subject of hadith is very delicate among Muslim scholars, every researcher who publishes his findings which differ from those formulated by Muslim hadith specialists in the Middle Ages runs the risk of creating hostility. That alsc happened to Goldziher. And there is also that deep- rooted feeling of ur.casiness which seizes many Muslim scholars when con- fronted with yet another effort of a Westerner to throw new light on Islam.
It seems that, with the possible exception of Qur'an studies, of all the studies carried out in the West hadith studies have caused Muslim scholars the most embarrassment, much more so than any endeavours on the part of western scholars into any other field of Islamics. This embarrassment has given rise on more than one occasion to unfortunate wrangies. As long as these wrangles have not yet been sorted out by means of a dispassionate investigation, they are likely to remain always obstacles in the path toward full scholarly cooperation between Muslim and western scholars. Before I tell my own story, I would like to dwell briefly on those western studies published after Goldziher's that seem to me the most important J. Schacht, The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence, Oxford 1950. F. Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, volume 1. Leiden 1967; Ν. Abbott, Studies in Arabic Literary Papyri, vol. 1, Historical texts, Chicago 1957, and vol. 11, Quranic Commentary and Tradition, Chicago 1967. However much I admire Schacht's Origins - I have in particular benefit "ed from his theorics that 'isnāds have a tendency to grow backwards' and his 'common link theory' because of its countless cross-references it also makes heavy reading and its style seems to rub many readers, western and Muslim, up the wrong way.
This style is generally felt to be somewhat supercilious and definitely too apodictical for Muslim cars. Strangely enough, Schacht's cook seems to be little known among Muslim scholars, but some of those who did read it, found its terseness and its all too readily formulated and at the same time sweeping theories, which many a time sounded more like statements, hard to swallow. Rather than taking it as a starting-point in an attempt at improving upon its findings.
I sought to write my own account, in doing so covering more or less the same ground and using my own source material. Moreover, I did not want to confine myself to mainly legal traditions. Although Schacht also made use of and quoted from many of the same sources, he did it in a manner which I feel to be decidedly different from my own. Some of my aims in writing this book are fulfilled if the style in which I mould my ideas does not recall the style of my predecessors. Much as we may be indebted to our predecessors -some- thing which we should gratefully acknowledge we need not necessarily express ourselves in the same tone of voice. Sezgin's epochal work presents a new approach.
Where Goldziher's and Schacht's findings amounted virtually to denying the ascription of the bulk of hadith literature to its alleged originators (the prophet, his Companions or even later authorities) as authentic, Sezgin appears to be a great deal less sceptical. His main thesis that the writing down of hadith as well as other material started almost immediately after the death of the prophet, and continued virtually uninterrupted during the first three centuries of Islamic history, and this on an increasing and ever more sophisticated scale, has raised little doubt as far as I know. And Azmi, in his study referred to above, arrived quite independently at more or less the same conclusion But unearthing and cataloguing material, as Sezgin has done, is something altogether different from establishing its authenticity.
By that I mean establishing whether the material ascribed to certain early authorities is, in actual fact, theirs or whether it originated with later authorities who, for a variety of reasons, wanted it to appear older and, therefore, projected it back artificially onto older and thus more awe-inspiring authorities. Apart from a few isolated cases in which Sezgin questions the authenticity of certain texts, he presents the bulk of them as if he has no quaims as to their genuineness. Something which always struck me in the work of Sezgin. Azmi and also in that of Abbott to which I shall turn in a moment is that they do not seem to realize that, even if a manuscript or a papyrus is unearthed with an allegedly ancient text, this text could very easily have been forged by an authority who lived at a time later than the supposedly oldest authority given in its isnåd. Isnád fabrication occurred, as everybody is bound to agree, on just as vast a scale as matn fabrication. And internal evidence gleaned from isnåds should always be suspect because of this wide-scale forgery, exactly as each mata should be scrutinized as to histori- cal feasibility and never be accepted on the basis of solely isnad criteria.
To this may be added that the repeated use of 'sound' isnads, as can be proven with overwhelming evidence from the sources, was felt to be much easier than the creation of new, and therefore automatically more suspect, ones. Where Sezgin's work betrays a certain credulousness, so docs Nabia Abbott's volume 1. But let me say first that it constitutes a western account of the origins of hadith which I suppose is quite sympathetic to Muslim readers. It suffices to say that, on the whole, she agrees with Sezgin and Azmi as to the important part which writing played in the transmission of hadith, even during its earliest stages. And she shares his credulity as to most information that can be gleaned from isnāds.
Thus, like Sezgin and indeed Azmi, she takes the role allegedly played by certain famous Com- panions for granted in gathering and transmitting sayings and descriptions of deeds of the prophet. I do not deny the possibility that the Companions talked incessantly about their deceased leader, but I think that it never took the programmatic form that the sources want us to believe, and hadith became only standardized after the last Companions had died, not while a relatively large number of the younger Companions were still alive. Even the role allegedly played by certain major representatives of the next gener- ation, e.g. 'Ikrima, Abū Ishaq, Hasan al-Başri to name but a few, seems in many respects doubtful, a surmise for which there is an overwhelming amount of evidence in the sources as the following chapters may show. Abbott seems to rely too heavily on much of the information given in isnāds and in books about isnāds concerning the three oldest tabaqat. In my view, before the institution of the isnăd came into existence roughly three quarters of a century after the prophet's death, the ahadith and the qişas were transmitted in a haphazard fashion if at all, and mostly anonymously.
Since the isnad came into being, names of older authorities were supplied where the new isnad precepts required such. Often the names of well- known historical personalities were chosen but more often the names of fictitious persons were offered to fill in gaps in isnāds which were as yet far from perfect. Abbott, again, relies too heavily on the information the sources give about 'Umar's stance in the transmission of hadith as she also has too de- tailed and too clear-cut ideas about Zuhri's role. Her views on the Umay- yads' participation in hadith are equally too explicit. However, her descrip- tion of 'Umar II is in my eyes quite feasible.
With 'Umar II's rule we have, 1 think, a terminus post quem after which governmental promotion of the gathering of hadith, also concerning halal wa-haram, becomes gradually discernible. Before that time the Umayyad rulers may have only been vaguely interested in the political possibilities present in the foda il/mathalib genres. 10 Furthermore, Abbott's plea for the historicity of family şahtfas is in my view not convincing. Reading through several of these preserved in their entirety in later sources, I come across just as many obviously fabricated traditions as elsewhere. And checking the respective stages of the isnāds by looking up the members of that one family in the rijal works I find that most are just as controversial as other transmitters who do not figure in family isnāds.
Tradition experts of the second/eighth and third/ninth centuries were probably more easily misled by these sahifas than by collections gathered through other channels, hence, perhaps, the popularity of family sahifas." Abbott lists many figures indicating the high numbers of traditions certain transmitters are supposed to have transmitted. But it seems to me that using these figures indiscriminately and placing a little too much trust in them may lead to serious misconceptions. For example, she mentions the 70,000 halal wa-harâm traditions of one Abü Bakr b. 'Abd Allah b. Abi Sabra, without adding that that seems an excessively high figure for the halal wa-haram genre (at any rate, at this early stage-Ibn Abi Sabra died in 162/788) and without mentioning that this man was generally accused of forgery. This information supports my own theories much more firmly than her own.
Besides, Abbott tries to account for the seemingly tremendous growth owth of hadith with references to mass-meetings during which certain famous muhaddithûn were alleged to have transmitted traditions to crowds totaling 10,000! Visualizing sessions such as this with many dozens of mus- tamlis moving about, shouting the traditions down to the last rows of eager hadith students may lift the reader into the realm of 1,001-night fantasies, but in whatever way you look at it, it is difficult to take accounts like that seriously. On the whole, Abbott's views, as also may appear from the foregoing, are perhaps too romantic, e.g. when she speaks of the and al-hadith. bracing themselves to meet the onslaughts of legal innovation and doctrinal heresy Powerful as this description may be, reading the sources with a little more sense of reality does help to draw up a historical picture which prob- ably reflects 'what really happened much more faithfully. On the other hand, there may be readers whose scepticism bars them from making use of that particular genre of early reports in the sources as I have done and who, in turn, would label me gullible.
To this I can only say that I realize that it is difficult to accept that all those early reports are to be considered historically true, or that the details in each one of them should be taken as factually correct. But I maintain that, taken as a whole, they all converge on a description of the situation obtaining in the period of history under scrutiny which may be defined as pretty reliable. For the sceptics I may have used terms such as 'allegedly', 'reportedly' etc. too sparingly. In reply to this I venture the opinion that ajudiciously and cautiously formulated overall view of what all those early reports (akhbär, faqa'il/mathalib - very often distilled from the major rijal works) collectively point to, may in all likelihood be taken to be not very far from the truth of 'what really happened'. I think that a generous lacing of open-mindedness, which dour sceptics might describe as naiveté, is an asset in the historian of early Islamic society rather than a shortcoming to be overcome and suppressed at all costs. In the five chapters of this book I have dealt with the following subjects: Chapter 1 is structured on a framework of awa'il with the purpose of coming to a definitive chronology of the origins of hadith and hadith- related sciences. It gives a bird's eye view of the different centres of hadith collecting and emphasizes their initial 'regionalism'. In the summary of this chapter, the last part, the three main questions, which also underlie the title of this study, are asked for the first time: 1. Where did a certain hadith originate? 2.
In what time did a certain hadith originate? 3. Who may be held responsible for bringing a certain hadith into circulation? Although perhaps not always expressis verbis, these three questions pro- venance, chronology and authorship - also underly most of the subjects dealt with in subs subsequent chapters. Chapter 2 assesses the role the early qadis of Islam may have played in the spreading of hadith, arranged according to centre. Among the appendices at the end of this study there is one fairly lengthy one listing all the qadis found in a variety of sources who lived during the first three centuries of the Muslim era outside the main centres studied in this chapter. Chapter 3 tackles the concept mutawatir and, mainly with the help of argumenta e silentio, tries to guide the reader to the inevitable conclusion that the qualification mutawatir as such does not constitute incontrover- tible proof for the historicity of a tradition's ascription to the earliest authority of its isread. The two mutawatir traditions featuring in this chapter are the one prohibiting the lamenting of the dead and the one threatening the mendacious in hadith with Hell Chapter 4 deals mostly with names, namely that body of information provided at the beginning of a hadith transmitter's tarjama in the biogra- phical lexica.
On the one hand the theory is launched that of all the people sharing one particu:ar name and/or kunya the majority is in all likelihood fictitious. On the other hand a case is made for considering the nisba Zuhri as not solely the naine with which one famous transmitter, sc. Muhammad b. Muslim Ibn Shihab az-Zuhri, is identified but may very well be taken as disguising the true identity of a great number of individuals who had, through kinship, patronage or otherwise, also the nisba Zuhri and who lived at more or less the same time as the great Zuhri. Chapter 5 contains an analysis of the technical terms used to assess the (de)merits of hadith transmitters. The concept kadhib (= mendacity in hadith) is extensively dealt with as well as the extremely delicate subject of the Companion Abü Hurayra's alleged legacy in Muslim tradition and the equally sensitive subject of the collective ta'dil of the Companions. Finally Schacht's 'common link theory' is illustrated with examples which, more so than was the case with its originator's evidence, underline the workability of this theory.
Among the Appendices is one listing the most important of Ibn Hajar's early sources which he drew from when he compiled his biographical lexica of hadith transmitters. All appendices are closely linked with various issues raised in the chapters, and can be read as extended footnotes. What does hadith mean for twentieth century Muslims? In answer to this question it seems opportune to quote here a newsflash taken from the periodical Muslim world, LXVI, p. 72, which, more than anything I can think of, illustrates the popularity of hadith and its canonized compilations with present day Muslims: The Muslim Student' Association of the United States and Canada held a seminar on hadith in July 1975 to celebrate the 1200th anniversary of... Bukhari. Over one thousand Muslims of all ages and nationalities attended. It was a religious event in which everyone enthusiastically participated in the five daily salats. Besides lectures on Bukhārī subjects like The indispensability of hadith in Islam. and the role of hadith in Islamic law and in the understanding of the Qur'an were discussed.
They also discussed methods of transmission, history, methodology. Speakers were unanimous in stressing the need for the study of hadith and for following the sunna of the Prophet. This account speaks for itself. What more is there to say, then, than that I sincerely hope that this book will also find its way to Muslim readers for whom it was written in the first place.
I cannot disagree more than with the statement of a London colleague who said not long ago that Orientalists' studies constitute a 'private enterprise destined only for a handful of learned colleagues in the West'. I presume that it is this kind of attitude which eventually prompts such authors as E. W. Said to write books like his Orientalism When I say that this book was in the first place written for Muslims, that means that I have taken pains to express myself in as neutral a manner as possible, eschewing value judgements, especially where I come to speak of various fundamental articles of the Muslim faith. I have tried to place these articles of faith, such as the collective ta'dil of the prophet's Companions (Chapter 5) in their historical contexts. Illuminating them in their purely religious contexts I leave to others who are better qualified to do so.
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