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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Carmen Becker is a Ph.D. researcher at Radboud University, Nijmegen; her research concerns Salafism in computer-mediated environments. She holds a diploma in Political Science from the Free University
of Berlin with a focus on the Middle East. Her main research interests are religion and media, Islamic thought, and social movements.
She has previously worked in the departments of communication and
policy planning of the German Federal Foreign Office, dealing with
issues concerning the Middle East.
Herbert Berg is Professor in the Department of Philosophy and
Religion at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington; he is the
author of Elijah Muhammad and Islam (New York, 2009); “Abbasid
Historians’ Portrayals of al-ʿAbbâs b. ʿAbd al-Muttalib” (2010); “The
Historical Muhammad and the Historical Jesus: A Comparison of
Scholarly Reinventions and Reinterpretations” (with Sarah E. Rollens)
(2008); “Ibn ʿAbbâs in ʿAbbâsid-Era Tafsîr” (2004).
Nicolet Boekhoff-van der Voort graduated from the Institute of
Translation in Maastricht in 1992. She continued her study of Arabic at Radboud University, Nijmegen, where she obtained her M.A.
degree in 1996 with an analysis of the chapter Kitāb al-maghāzī in
the Muṣannaf of ʿAbd al-Razzāq. In her Ph.D. research she studies the
sources of the biography of the prophet Muḥammad by applying the
isnād-cum-matn analysis to a complex of traditions attributed to Ibn
Shihāb al-Zuhrī. She teaches Arabic and Islam at Radboud University
since 2008.
Maribel Fierro is Professor at the Centre of Human and Social Sciences at the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC—Spain). She
has worked and published on the religious and intellectual history of
al-Andalus and the Islamic West. Among her recent publications are
Abd al-Rahman III, The First Cordoban Caliph (2005); “Decapitation
of Christians and Muslims in the Medieval Iberian Peninsula: Narratives, images, contemporary perceptions” (2008) and “Alfonso X ‘the
Wise’, the last Almohad caliph?” (2009). She is the editor of the second volume (The Western Islamic world, Eleventh-Eighteenth Centuries) of
The New Cambridge History of Islam (2010).
Claude Gilliot (1940) is Professor emeritus at the Université
de Provence, Aix en Provence. He is the author of Exégèse, langue
et théologie en islam: L’exégèse coranique de Tabari (1990). Among
his most recent publications about the exegesis of the Qurʾān are:
“Muqātil, grand exégète, traditionniste et théologien maudit” (1991);
“Une reconstruction critique du Coran ou comment en finir avec les
merveilles de la lampe d’Aladin” (2007); “Kontinuität und Wandel in
der ‘klassischen’ islamischen Koranauslegung” (2010), as well as two
lemmas in the Encyclopedia of the Qurʾān, “Exegesis of the Qurʾān:
Classical and Medieval” and “Traditional disciplines of Qurʾanic
studies”.
Andreas Görke is Research fellow at the Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel. After studying Islamic Studies at the University of
Hamburg (Ph.D. in 2001), he worked as Research assistant in Hamburg, Basel, and Berlin. In 2010 he received his Habilitation from the
University of Basel. Among his books are Das Kitāb al-Amwāl des Abū
ʿUbayd al-Qāsim b. Sallām and Die ältesten Berichte über das Leben
Muḥammads. Das Korpus ʿUrwa ibn az-Zubair (together with Gregor
Schoeler). His research focuses on early Islamic history and historiography, the biography of the Prophet Muḥammad, and Hadīth, as well
as contemporary developments in Islamic law and Qurʾanic exegesis.
Maher Jarrar is Professor at the American University of Beirut,
both at the Civilization Sequence Program and at the Department of
Arabic. He is Director of the Anis Makdisi Program in Literature. After
he received his Ph.D. in Islamic and Oriental Studies from Tübingen
University in 1989 with a dissertation on Die Prophetenbiographie im
islamischen Spanien: Ein Beitrag zur Überlieferungs- und Redaktionsgeschichte, he was a Lecturer in Arabic at Freiburg University, both
in Germany, and Visiting Professor at the Center for Middle Eastern
Studies at Harvard University, USA. He published numerous books
and articles in the fields of Islamic Studies and the contemporary Arabic novel.
Martijn de Koning is an anthropologist working at Radboud University, Nijmegen. In 2008, he defended his Ph.D. Searching for a ‘pure’
Islam: Identity construction and religious beliefs among MoroccanDutch Muslim youth at the Free University, Amsterdam. Currently,
he participates in the research program Salafism as a Transnational
Movement, focusing on the production and distribution of Salafism
and the development of Salafi networks in Europe. He maintains his
own weblog at http://religionresearch.org/martijn
Michael Lecker is Professor of Arabic at the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem. He has published extensively on pre- and early Islamic history, focusing primarily on the life of Muḥammad and the Jews of
Arabia. His recent publications include The “Constitution of Medina”:
Muhammad’s First Legal Document (2004) and People, Tribes and Society in Arabia around the Time of Muhammad (2005). For his recent
work on prosopography visit http://michael-lecker.net
Fred Leemhuis is Professor emeritus in Qurʾānic studies at the University of Groningen. In 1977, he obtained his Ph.D. at the University
of Groningen with a dissertation on The D and H Stems in Koranic
Arabic: A Comparative Study of the Function and Meaning of the faʿʿala
and ʾaf ʿala Forms in Koranic Usage. He has written numerous articles
on the interpretation of the Qurʾān, Christian Arabic, and Syriac. He
published a Dutch translation of the Qurʾān (1989).
Roel Meijer teaches history of the Middle East at Radboud University,
Nijmegen, and is Senior Researcher at the Institute of International
Relations Clingendael. He wrote his Ph.D. on Egyptian intellectuals, The Quest for Modernity: Secular Liberal and Left-wing Political
Thought in Egypt, 1945–1958 (2002). He is editor of six anthologies,
among them Global Salafism: Islam’s New Religious Movement (2009),
and the latest, The Muslim Brotherhood in Europe: Burdens of the Past,
Challenges of the Future (2011). He is currently writing a book about
the religious and national identity of Saudi Arabia.
Ulrike Mitter (1962, Schwenningen am Neckar) received her school
education in Chile, Germany and Spain. After an apprenticeship as
antiquarian bookseller in Hamburg, she graduated in 1993 in Islamic
Sciences, Spanish and Sprachlehrforschung at the University of Hamburg. In 1999, she received her Ph.D. at Radboud University,
Nijmegen, with a dissertation on Das frühislamische Patronat: Eine
Studie zu den Anfängen des islamischen Rechts (published in 2006).
She was Lecturer at the University of Hamburg from 2002–2007, head
of the DAAD Information Centre (German Academic Exchange Service) in Baku (Azerbaijan) and visiting professor at the University of
Hamburg. Since 2009, she has been head of the DAAD Information
Centre Damascus. She has published on Muslim Spain, Hadīth, and
the development of Islamic law.
Uri Rubin is Professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at Tel Aviv
University. His publications on the Qurʾān, Qurʾānic exegesis (tafsīr),
and early Islamic tradition (sīra and Hadīth) include The Eye of the
Beholder (1995); Between Bible and Qur’an (1999); a Hebrew translation of the Qurʾān (2005); Muhammad the Prophet and Arabia (Variorum Collected Studies Series, 2011). His books and numerous articles
deal with the Qurʾānic and post-Qurʾānic image of Muḥammad,
the pre-Islamic history of Mecca and the Kaʿba, and the sanctity of
Jerusalem as reflected in the Qurʾān and its exegesis.
Jens Scheiner (1976) is currently junior Professor and junior Research
group leader at the Courant Research Centre “Education and Religion”
of the Georg-August Universität Göttingen. After graduating in Islamic
Studies, Economic and Social History and Public Law at the EberhardKarls-Universität, Tübingen in 2004, he received his doctor’s degree in
2009 at the Radboud Universiteit, Nijmegen. He is the author of Die
Eroberung von Damaskus: Quellenkritische Untersuchung zur Historiographie in klassisch-islamischer Zeit (2010). From 2008–2010 he was
Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter at the Institut für Islamwissenschaft of
the Freie Universität Berlin.
Gregor Schoeler (1944, Waldshut/Baden, Germany) studied Oriental Studies (Islamic Studies and Semitic Languages) at the Universities of Marburg, Frankfurt/Main, and Giessen (Germany), where he
obtained his Ph.D. Between 1972–1973 and 1975–1980, he was collaborator of the “Abu Nuwas” project and the “Cataloguing of Oriental
Manuscripts in Germany” project. From 1973–1974, he was assistant
at the Orient-Institut of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft in
Beirut (Lebanon). He obtained his Habilitation in 1981 at the Univer-sity of Giessen. Between 1982 and 2009, he held the Chair of Islamic
Studies at the University of Basel (Switzerland). He also lectured at
the Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes at the Sorbonne in Paris (2000);
in 2010 he was Messenger Lecturer at Cornell University and lectured
at the Universities of Harvard, Yale, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Santa
Barbara.
Abdulkader Tayob holds the chair in Islam, African Public and
Religious Values at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He has
extensive international experience, including a position as ISIM Chair
at Radboud University, Nijmegen (2002–2006) and shorter periods in
Germany, the United States, and Cairo. He has published widely on
Islam in South Africa, modern Islamic Thought and Islam in the History of Religions. His latest book was published by Hurst and Columbia University Press (Religion in Modern Islamic Discourse, 2009) and
he is the editor of the Journal for Islamic Studies.
Kees Versteegh (1947) is Professor emeritus of Arabic and Islam at
Radboud University, Nijmegen. He graduated in Classical and Semitic
languages and wrote his Ph.D. on Greek Elements in Arabic Linguistic
Thinking (1977). His field of research is historical linguistics and the
history of linguistics, focusing on processes of language change and
language contact. His books include Arabic Grammar and Qurʾānic
Exegesis in Early Islam (1993), The Arabic linguistic tradition (1997),
and The Arabic language (1997). He was the editor-in-chief of the
Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics (2005–2009) and of
the Arabic/Dutch—Dutch/Arabic dictionary (2003).
Joas Wagemakers is Lecturer at Radboud University, Nijmegen, and
Reseach Fellow at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations
Clingendael in the Hague. He received his Ph.D. in 2010 at Radboud
University with a thesis on A Quietist Jihadi-Salafi: The Ideology and
Influence of Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi. His research focuses on Islamist and Salafi ideology and Islamist movements as well as intellectual trends and debates in Saudi Arabia, on which he has published
widely. He also co-edits ZemZem, a Dutch-language journal on the
Middle East, North Africa and Islam, and blogs at www.jihadica.com,
a weblog on developments in jihad.
Gerard Wiegers (Ph.D. cum laude, Leiden University, 1991) was
Research Fellow of the Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
from 1992–1997, then Associate Professor at Leiden University from
1997–2003. From 2004 until September 2009 he was Professor of
Comparative Religion and Islamic Studies at Radboud University,
Nijmegen. Since September 2009 he has been Full Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Amsterdam. He has published on
the relations between Islam and other religions; Islamic ethics; Islam
on the Iberian Peninsula, North Africa and Europe; ritual studies; and
theory and method in the study of religions. He is member of the editorial board of several book series, including the Numen Book Series
(Brill), New Religious Identities in the Western World (Peeters), and
The Medieval and Early Modern Iberian World (Brill) and the journal
Al-Qantara (CSIC Madrid).
INTRODUCTION
The Textual Sources of Islam
The Qurʾān and the records of the Prophet Muḥammad’s acts and sayings (the Ḥadīth) remain the undisputed textual sources of religious
authority among virtually all Muslims worldwide. Although this does
not mean that all Muslims are pious believers who try to model their
lives after the examples offered in the Qurʾānic text and the life of the
Prophet, both are universally respected from Morocco to Indonesia.
The protests in the Muslim world following the alleged “abuse” of the
Qurʾān by American soldiers in the Guantanamo Bay prison as well as
the publication of several Danish cartoons of the Prophet several years
ago seem cases in point of how sacred these sources are to believers.
While such protests should probably be seen in the wider political
context of a perceived Western “assault on Islam”, of which these incidents are supposedly only the latest examples, they nevertheless show
that criticism of or even insults against these sources in our day and
age are sensitive to say the least, as they are in other religions.
Strongly connected to the notion that the Qurʾān and the Sunna are
the undisputed textual sources of religious authority for Muslims is the
popularly-held idea that these sources can be fully equated with Islam
as a whole and that if one wants to know something about that religion, one need only consult these books. This view is often espoused
by critics of Islam but many Muslims also support the view that their
religion is indeed wholly contained in the Qurʾān and the Sunna and
that believers must simply follow those sources as closely as possible
in order to live up to “real Islam”. This belief in the homogeneity and
clear-cut message of the sources begs the question of what the Qurʾān
and the Sunna actually say. Non-Muslim critics of Islam often answer
this question by stating that Islam is an inherently violent ideology
and quote militant passages from the Qurʾān to “prove” their point.
Muslims, on the other hand, have come up with a host of often hugely
divergent replies, thereby showing that the supposedly uniform message of the sources is much more dynamic and often leads to very
different views and interpretations.
Recent research, including the present volume, has not only shown
that the Qurʾān and the Sunna are much more complicated historical sources than is sometimes believed but also that they can be used in
different ways with regard to contentious contemporary issues. This
research has brought the study of the textual sources of Islam to a
much higher level by critically examining the texts from various points
of view. The results this research has yielded often show that we actually know much less about early-Islamic history than the work of great
scholars like Watt seems to suggest1
and that the application of the
texts in Muslims’ daily lives is highly dynamic and far from homogeneous. This is not only a reason for continued research on the textual
sources of Islam as an academic subject in itself but it also shows that
the seemingly obscure subjects that this volume deals with are actually
related to the commonly-held myths of an essentialist Islam embodied
by the supposedly mono-interpretable sources.
Overview of the Volume
The present volume deals with the transmission and dynamics of the
textual sources of Islam. It focuses on four themes, namely production,
transmission, interpretation and reception of the sources. Through
these four themes, this book shows how the sources are dealt with,
interpreted and applied by individual Muslims and, in some cases,
why this has happened. As such, the book shows that Islamic tradition
is not only transmitted in various ways but also that it is constantly
re-evaluated and re-appropriated by Muslims in a dynamic process
that differs according to the various contexts in which it takes place.
Thus, the book’s focus on the transmission and dynamics of seemingly
unchangeable sources shows that Muslims are engaged in a continuous process of negotiation with their textual tradition on the one hand
and the demands and challenges they face on the other.
Production
The subject of transmission is mostly, though not entirely, seen in
the first two parts of this volume. The first contribution, by Boekhoffvan der Voort, deals with the work of ʿAbd al-Razzāq b. Hammām
al-Saṇ ʿānī. By focusing on a single source (ʿAbd al-Razzāq’s Kitāb al-maghāzī), she shows that the study of such texts and particularly
of their dating and origins often involves trying to trace their earliest source through their transmission by others. This is also shown
in Schoeler’s contribution, which deals with the Kitāb al-maghāzī
by Mūsā b. ʿUqba. Schoeler’s paper builds on his earlier work about
the same subject and traces the origin of the document through its
transmission by early Muslims. The Berlin fragment on which Schoeler bases his present study consists of 20 aḥādīth that are ascribed to
Mūsā b. ʿUqba. Research on the early Muslims to whom traditions are
ascribed is of particular importance since the efforts by scholars such
as Boekhoff-van der Voort and Schoeler to trace texts as far back in
time as possible may shed new light on their original authorship and,
subsequently, on important aspects of early Islamic history.
The relevance of Ḥadīth for the study of the intellectual development
of the Islamic world is further underlined by Fierro’s contribution on
ḥadīth literature in al-Andalus, in which the author calls for—amongst
other things—a greater emphasis on compiling bio-bibliographical
databases of Andalusi ḥadīth transmitters (muḥaddithūn). Another
recommendation for future research on aḥādīth is to apply new analytical approaches. Fierro advocates several interesting research issues,
including a stronger emphasis on relations between ḥadīth study and
other Islamic disciplines and a greater focus on the historical and local
contexts in which the muḥaddithūn worked and what their position
was in the societies in which they lived and worked. Fierro’s contribution thereby underlines that even highly specialised research such as
hers is not just interesting in itself but can also teach us something
about broader developments in Islamic history.
A different kind of transmission, the manuscript tradition of the
Qurʾān, is found in Leemhuis’ contribution. He has found what he
refers to as “a peculiar manuscript of the Qurʾān” in Groningen University’s library. The peculiarity of the manuscript consists in the
fact that the Arabic script used is normally found written on parchment and not on paper, as is the case here. More important, however, are the misplaced parts of the text that Leemhuis has discovered.
Although one can rarely be certain about the exact explanation for
this, Leemhuis’ analysis comes up with plausible reasons as to why
this has happened.
Undoubtedly, the collection of the Qurʾān, traditionally believed
by Muslims to have been undertaken on the initiative of the third
caliph ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān, as well as the actual text of the Qurʾān still need more research to give us a clearer picture of the transmission
of the text. Even more mystery surrounds the context of the alleged
revelation of the Qurʾān, which is precisely what Gilliot’s contribution to this volume deals with. He distinguishes reconstructing the
Qurʾān on the basis of sources stemming from the period after the
book was collected, a process based on the ʿUthmānic codex, from
research on Qurʾānic textual elements that were “borrowed” from earlier scriptures or religious traditions. Adopting the latter approach,
Gilliot concludes that many elements in the “Arabic lectionary”, as he
refers to the Meccan Qurʾān, show that the Prophet’s community were
more familiar with the existing religious traditions around them than
is often assumed. Gilliot’s study of this subject therefore provides us
with valuable details about the religious and cultural context of early
Islamic history and how these were reflected in the Qurʾān.
Transmission
While the theme of transmission is introduced in this book by Boekhoff-van der Voort’s paper and can clearly be discerned in all contributions mentioned above, these articles do not concentrate on
the process of transmission per se, which is the central focus of the
second part of this volume. Its first contribution, by Görke, shows
that there is no academic consensus on how to study the life of the
Prophet and gives a useful overview of approaches to the study of
transmitted aḥādīth, including the one developed by Harald Motzki:
the isnād-cum-matn method. The use of this approach in this volume
is illustrated by, amongst others, the contribution by Scheiner, who
reconstructs accounts of the conquest of Damascus in the 1st/7th century on the basis of the oldest sources available. Interestingly, he shows
that where the isnād-cum-matn analysis does not suffice due to a lack
of enough variants of the same ḥadīth, he is able to further analyse the
texts by focusing on their narrative structures. Scheiner concludes that
any historical analysis on the conquest of Damascus that lacks a sound
critique of the sources as well as a reconstruction of the oldest material
is bound to be “methodologically questionable”.
Whereas the conquest of Damascus was a major event in earlyIslamic history, Lecker contends that even historically insignificant
occurrences, such as (in his case) the assassination of the Jewish merchant Ibn Sunayna by a companion of the Prophet, can tell us a great
deal about ḥadīth transmission. Lecker shows that the reason such arelatively unimportant event was recorded and transmitted has much
to do with the fact that Ibn Sunayna’s assassin, Muḥaysṣ a, had several ̣
sons who probably wanted to preserve their father’s memory and reputation for posterity. As a result, Lecker concludes that the account of
this murder as presented by the culprit’s family is of dubious historical
value and, considering that more such family accounts exist, states that
these should be treated with care when trying to recover historical data
about the life of the Prophet.2
The issue of personal reputation is further explored by Jarrar,
who focuses on one particular transmitter, the Medinan muḥaddith
and akhbārī Ibn Abī Yaḥyā. Although seen as an important scholar
by several of his contemporaries, his apparent sympathies with Shīʿī
Islam—a charge that, in various forms, has also been levelled against
other early-Islamic transmitters3
—at a time when Muslims were in
the process of forming an “orthodox” Islam4
meant that his legacy
was not fully preserved among Sunnī scholars. This study in a sense
shows us the mirror image of what Fierro writes about: whereas
she argues that ḥadīth literature can inform us about the context in
which muḥaddithūn lived, Jarrar points out that our knowledge of
the religious and political context can help us understand individual
transmitters.
That a political context can have a major effect on texts and their
transmission is shown quite dramatically by Wiegers’ contribution to
this volume. Focusing on an Islamic prophetic treatise, Wiegers shows
that this document is most probably based on the French friar Jean de
Roquetaille’s Vademecum in Tribulatione, although it was rendered
into a more Islamic text by an anonymous Muslim editor. Wiegers
states that the precarious position of Muslims in Medieval Spain at
the time probably explains their recourse to messianic and prophetic stories and that they apparently even went so far as to adopt Christian
versions of such stories if that served their needs, transmitting them
to posterity as if they were authentic Muslim texts.
Interpretation
The relationship between text and context referred to above does not
just have an effect on the production and transmission of texts but
also helps explain how such texts are interpreted and received by later
Muslims. This becomes clear in the last two themes of this volume,
which show the dynamics of the textual sources of Islam among later
generations of Muslims, both in the Islamic world and in the West.
This is aptly shown in Rubin’s contribution about two verses from the
Qurʾān (44: 10–11). While apparently dealing with an eschatological
warning issued by the Prophet against unbelievers while he was still
in Mecca and unable to act decisively against their resistance to Islam,
the meaning of these verses is reinterpreted by exegetes, who looked at
Muḥammad through the prism of his much more assertive and powerful Medinan rule. As a result, they no longer interpreted these particular verses as eschatological warnings, but as references to events that
actually took place during the Prophet’s life, thereby portraying him
as a triumphant leader who overcame his non-Muslim enemies rather
than a powerless warner against their future punishment.
Rubin briefly mentions how modern Muslims deal with the verses
he focuses on, as does Versteegh, whose paper concentrates on a commentary ascribed to the 2nd/8th century exegete al-Ḍaḥḥāk. While
this scholar deals with numerous aspects of the Qurʾān in great detail,
including foreign words, the day of resurrection (yawm al-qiyāma)
and even the name of an ant Sulaymān is said to have talked to, Versteegh shows that on modern-day Islamic internet forums, al-Ḍaḥḥāk
is mainly remembered for one thing: his forceful advocacy of jihad by
stating that the so-called “sword verse” (Q. 9: 5) has abrogated earlier,
more conciliatory verses.
The present-day interpretation of the sources is explored in greater
detail by Wagemakers and Berg, although with regard to entirely different groups of Muslims in different geographical settings. Wagemakers’ contribution focuses on three contemporary Jihādī-Salafī
scholars debating to what extent Muslims can be held responsible for
sinful acts of whose wrongfulness they were unaware. All three scholars use numerous selected Qurʾānic verses to make their case, lead- ing to conclusions that ultimately have far-reaching consequences for
politics and society. The fact that these scholars, all radical ideologues
willing to support violence, disagree so vehemently about this issue
shows that the dynamics of the sources even extend into groups of
Muslims usually seen as ideologically fixed and rigid.
Whereas Wagemakers focuses on Muslims who form an important
part of Sunnī Islam in our time, Berg concentrates on the first leader
of the African-American Nation of Islam, Elijah Muhammad, whose
organisation was (and remains) highly contested but which nevertheless claims to represent the true meaning of Islam. Berg shows that
through a strongly Black nationalist and racialist interpretation of the
sources, Elijah Muhammad reinterpreted the Qurʾān and the life of
Muḥammad in such a way as to make it seem that Islam was revealed
especially for African-Americans. He even went so far as to interpret
certain Qurʾānic verses as applicable to himself rather than the Prophet
Muḥammad.
Reception
Berg’s contribution shows an interpretation of the textual sources
that is clearly at odds with what most Muslims believe. In fact, such
divergent receptions of the sources in Muslims’ everyday lives are not
uncommon, as the fourth and final part of this volume makes clear.
Tayob’s contribution on human rights in modern Islamic discourse,
for example, shows that Muslim intellectuals have reacted quite differently to the oft-perceived clash between modern notions of human
rights and the textual sources of Islam. Focusing on two Muslim
thinkers who have written extensively on women’s rights in particular,
Tayob shows that Muslim scholars have indeed incorporated the idea
of rights into their discourse but sometimes with clear limitations on
women’s freedom. This, Tayob maintains, points to a deeper resistance
to the broader acceptance of modern notions of human rights, thereby
betraying their ambivalence towards the subject.
A different and probably more vehement debate than the one
described by Tayob can be seen in Meijer’s paper, which focuses on the
use of al-jarḥ wa-l-taʿdīl (“wounding and praise”, traditionally applied
to the evaluation of aḥādīth) by the Saudi Salafī scholar Rabīʿ b. Hādī
al-Madkhalī to attack his ideological opponents and assert his own
religious authority. As Meijer shows, al-Madkhalī and his supporters
are so much against the mixing of religion and politics and criticism of the Saudi state’s policies that they employ an entire arsenal of charges
and accusations based on the textual sources of Islam against the Muslim Brotherhood and other politically-oriented Muslims. This contribution makes clear that these debates are not just about the supposedly
proper way to be a Muslim but also about the larger issue of religious
credibility vis-à-vis one’s ideological opponents.
Two papers that also concentrate on Salafīs but, unlike Meijer’s, are
entirely set in a Western context (the Netherlands and Germany) are
those by de Koning and Becker. The former contends that after several
dramatic national and international incidents, a climate of increasing fear of Muslims came to dominate Dutch society. Combined with
issues of identity and various social problems, more and more Dutch
Muslim youngsters began to view themselves first and foremost as
Muslims. As de Koning points out, the Qurʾān plays an important role
in this re-appropriation of Muslim identity and tradition. Even for
youngsters who do not understand the Qurʾān, the book still occupies
a special place in their lives and its authoritative status—as apposed to
its actual text—is sometimes employed to strengthen one’s position in
religious arguments.
The use of the Qurʾān (and the Sunna) among Western Muslim
youngsters is further explored by Becker, who concentrates on the use
of these textual sources by internet forum participants. She describes
how the instant and unlimited access to the sources that the internet
provides has changed the dynamics of religious debate because participants on forums can immediately check anyone’s claims and respond
with “proof ” of their own. Becker further shows that, because internet
forums do not show people’s faces and offer some anonymity, Muslims participating in these forums come up with new ways to express
their identities and beliefs, not just through what they type in response
to others but also in the symbols, avatars and signatures these forums
allow them to use. In this way, something resembling a parallel online
Muslim community is formed.
Finally, Mitter’s contribution continues Becker’s analysis of the perception of the textual sources on internet forums but, interestingly,
links this to an analysis of a particularly famous and oft-cited ḥadīth
in which the Prophet mentions that the majority of the people in hell
are women. By employing the same isnād-cum-matn analysis used by
various other contributors to this volume, Mitter shows that two versions of the ḥadīth can probably be traced back to the 2nd century
A.H. Its authenticity, she states, is not in doubt among most participants on internet forums, probably because it is part of the canonical ḥadīth-collection of al-Bukhārī. Although the text itself is received in
many different ways by Muslims, they share the idea that the ḥadīth is
indeed authentic. Mitter’s contribution therefore constitutes an interesting example of how a controversial ḥadīth is linked with present-day
Muslims’ attitudes and commitments. This is not only an interesting
issue in itself but also epitomises the dynamic relationship between
transmitted texts and the context in which Muslims live their lives, a
relationship that is the principal subject of this book.
Harald Motzki’s Contribution to the Field
It is only appropriate that the present volume is presented to a scholar
whose achievements in the field of the study of aḥādīth and their transmission have been seminal. Harald Motzki’s publications, which span
a period of over 35 years, deal with many of the themes represented by
the contributions in this volume. His first major publication in the field
of early Islam, Die Anfänge der islamischen Jurisprudenz, challenged
existing ideas—particularly those espoused by Joseph Schacht—about
early-Islamic history and is widely regarded as original and trailblazing.5
Harald’s focus on early Islam did not just encompass the history of the
beginnings of Islamic jurisprudence, however, but later also included
subjects such as the collection of the Qurʾān,6
the dating of the exegetical work Tanwīr al-Miqbās min Tafsīr Ibn ʿAbbās7
and, most prominently, the life of the Prophet Muḥammad.8
These studies were not
just received enthusiastically among his Western colleagues but also
among academics in the Muslim world, as the translations of his work
into languages such as Arabic9
and Turkish10 as well as the awarding
of the World Prize for the Book of the Year of the Islamic Republic of
Iran for one of his books11 clearly show.
Harald was also responsible, with Gregor Schoeler, for developing
and advocating a new approach to the study of the transmission of
aḥādīth, which he has applied in several of the publications mentioned
above. This methodology, known as the isnād-cum-matn analysis,
begins by analysing and comparing the asānīd (chains of transmitters)
of a single ḥadīth in as many variants as possible in order to discern
common transmitters in the different chains, including the earliest one
(the common link), who is assumed to be the person that distributed
a particular tradition. Then, the textual variants (mutūn) of the ḥadīth
are analysed. This means that the use of words and the structure of
the text of each variant of a tradition is compared with others. This
process helps determine whether the aḥādīth have a common source
or have simply been copied from others. Because aḥādīth were mainly
transmitted aurally (even if supported by written notes), meaning that
small mistakes were easily made, the analysis assumes that even slight
differences in the textual variants of a single ḥadīth indicate actual
transmission from one person to another while identical texts should
be treated as having been copied from others and their asānīd as having been forged. The results of the asānīd-analysis are then compared
with the outcome of the comparison between the mutūn. If the latter
support and confirm the former, it may be assumed that the ḥadīth in
question is not a forged one but has a real history. The transmitter that
all asānīd have in common can then be established as the person who
distributed (the reconstructed kernel) of that particular ḥadīth and
his/her year of death provides us with a secure date before which that
tradition must have been transmitted, although (parts of) the ḥadīth
may be of earlier origin of course.12
Harald’s contributions to the field, while heavily focussed on Islam’s
founding period throughout the past decade and a half, go far beyond
this subject, however. He wrote his dissertation on the role of nonMuslim minorities in Egypt during the French occupation of that
country (1798–1801) and the decades immediately preceding this,13 for example, and spent the next decade publishing about issues such
as family, children and sexuality in Islam.14 All of these subjects—nonMuslim minorities, children and sexuality and, as mentioned, earlyIslamic history—are clearly relevant in our own time and Harald’s
attempts to establish a link with the present in some of his research
show that he does not just produce seminal academic publications but
is also willing to use his expertise to engage in current debates about
Islam. This can, for instance, clearly be seen in his articles on topical
and highly emotive issues such as jihad15 and headscarves.16
We would not do justice to Harald Motzki’s importance, however,
if we limited ourselves to mentioning his publications. As editors,
we know Harald as a kind, amiable and reliable colleague. Similarly,
Harald is well-loved by his students for his expertise, his ability to combine a critical view of the sources with a respectful attitude towards
believers and his friendly way of engaging with people. As a supervisor of students’ and PhD-candidates’ research, he is highly dedicated
to reading and meticulously correcting their theses and dissertations
and frequently shows that no matter how small a mistake one makes,
he will always spot it. In fact, some of the contributors to this volume
have indicated their frustration that they could not ask Harald to comment on their papers. It is therefore with admiration and appreciation
for Harald as a scholar, a colleague, a teacher and a person that we
offer him this Festschrift, hoping that he will enjoy it as much as we
have enjoyed working with and, above all, learning from him.
The editors, Nijmegen, February 2010
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