J. Fueck
The uniformity of Islamic culture represents one of the most fascinating problems associated with the development of Islam from its modest beginnings in Mecca into a world religion today numbering 250 million believers.1 How did it come about that in the vast world of Islam a distinctive culture came into being, in spite of all the geographical and temporal variations that resulted from the continuing influences of the earlier cultures and religions, and from the on-going life of indigenous habits, practices, and attitudes? How did this homogeneous Islamic culture succeed in establishing itself in areas whose individual provinces first felt the impact of Islamicization at different times and in a variety of different forms: sometimes as a conquest by Muslim armies, sometimes as the result of peaceful contact, sometimes through the consciously directed propaganda of missionary orders, sometimes through the unplanned influences that Muslim merchants exerted in areas possessing lower cultures? These questions are not answered by pointing to a commonness of belief, for the uniformity of this culture was not confined to similarity of creed; it expressed itself much more in a common mental attitude, and in a common style of life which pervaded all levels of personal and official existence, thus reaching beyond the boundaries of the "religious" as understood in the West. Moreover, even the Quran cannot in the first instance be credited with this achievement, for the history of its exegesis shows how strongly the interpretation of the Word of God was conditioned by the prevailing Zeitgeist and the influence of the environment. It was rather the example (Vorbild) of the Prophet, the sunna which, with its constant impact on the life of believers over the centuries, was the primary factor responsible for the unity of Islamic culture. It stamped itself upon the face of Islam and gave to it those features which we see today throughout the Muslim world.
The exemplary character (Vorbildlichkeit) of the Prophet is rooted in the very essence of Islam. Muhammad did not claim to bring a new revelation. He was convinced that his message was the same as that of all of his predecessors. The essential kinship of his teaching with that of the older revealed religions was in fact so great that its continued existence as a separate religion must astonish those who focus attention only on the doctrinal content of the new religion. The unprecedented success of Islam can be explained only if one takes into account the uniqueness of Muhammad's personality, whose power derived not from doctrine but from the new life to which he summoned men. We need only consider the men who were his closest associates to realize that he was endowed with an unusual ability to lead. The distinctive character of the original community of Medina resided not so much in the new Word of God in which they believed as in the person of their Prophet. According to the Quran, they had in him "a good example" (surah 33:21). He was "the first of those who believe" (surah 6:163). Beyond his words there was no appeal. It was he who decided matters of law, eṣtablished taxes, and answered questions relating to ceremony and liturgy, etc. Thus from the beginning there stood, beside the Word of God, the living example of the Prophet. Indeed, so great was the spell cast by his personality that it has continued to the very present to exercise power over men.
During the stormy period of the conquest which set in after the Prophet's death, his influence appeared gradually to weaken until finally during the civil war which saw the former Companions of the Prophet in opposing camps, it seemed to go under entirely. However, after the battle of the Ḥarra in 63 A.H.2 when Medina was forced to withdraw from the political arena, and after the confusion of a half century, the ideal of the Prophet's example again emerged victorious. In Medina sons of the earliest believers now began to devote themselves, along with their clients, to the task of collecting reports having to do with the life and work of the Prophet in order to establish a standard for the regulation of their affairs. Historical investigation, Quranic exegesis, and the administration of law merely formed different aspects of an activity whose real focus was quite naturally the historical prophet who was not subjected to a metaphysical reinterpretation. The gatherings of these earliest authorities on tradition in the mosque of Medina where they gave their eager fellow believers from all parts of the empire information regarding the early history of Islam, explained difficult passages in the Quran, and discussed questions regarding ceremonies, were the beginnings of the earliest doctrinal activity in Islam, From Medina the spirit of prophetic tradition was taken to the farthest corners of the Islamic empire through pilgrims who each year streamed in great numbers to Mecca and Medina; and it thus became customary to draw upon the Companions of the Prophet or their Successors for information about Muhammad.
'Urwa b. as-Zubair (ca. 23-94 A.H.), the head of the school of Medina, came to be known as the most distinguished representative of this early type of authority on tradition. He came from a family which belonged to the earliest Islamic aristocracy: his father Zubair b. al'Awwām (fell in 30 A.H. during the battle of the Camel) was a cousin of the Prophet and one of his earliest followers; his mother Asmā' was the daughter of the caliph Abū Bakr. He enjoyed special favor with his aunt 'Ā'isha; and 'Abd Allāh b. Zubair, the anti-caliph, was his brother. 'Urwa himself remained aloof from politics and devoted himself to the study of tradition, where his relationships, especially with 'Ā'isha, became very useful. His letters to the caliph Abd al-Malik (reigned 65-86 A.H.) regarding events in early Islamic times (preserved for us in Ṭabarī's chronicle) mark the beginning of Islamic historical writing. However, he gave his account of the Prophet's life to his hearers entirely in an oral form. His foster son, Abū'l-Aswad Muḥammad b. Abd ar-Raḥmān b. Nawfal Yatīm 'Urwa (d. 131 A.H.), was the first to compile a book on the campaigns of the Prophet on the basis of these reports.3 'Urwa was acquainted with the isnād, that is, the chain of oral authorities, which connected each tradition with its source. His use of this most characteristic formal feature of the literature of Islamic tradition was, however, still very simple, undeveloped, and uneven. Nonetheless, as an expert in law, 'Urwa had a great reputation. He was regarded as one of the "seven fuqahā' " of the Prophet's city.
From Medina the study of tradition spread very rapidly to Syria which bordered directly on the Hijaz. There were extensive communication links between these two provinces. The Umayyads maintained very close contact with their homeland. From around the year 75 A.H. by which time their rule had been regarded as secure, much aspiring talent was attracted to their court, talent which could find no room for realization within the narrow economic and political confines of the Hijaz. Already in the year 81 or 82 A.H., 'Urwa's most distinguished student, Muhammad b. Muslim b. Shihāb az-Zuhrī (ca. 51-124 A.H.), went to Damascus. He came from a distinguised clan of the Quraish (his grandfather had fought against the Prophet in the battles of Badr and Uḥud) and during his youth in Medina, 'Urwa had ardently collected and recorded traditions. Introduced to the caliph 'Abd al-Malik by the Keeper of the Seal, Qabīsa b. Dhu'aib, he soon achieved fame and influence through his considerable knowledge which he devoted to the service of the Umayyads. Under Yazīd II (reigned 101—105 A.H.) he became a judge, and under Hishām (reigned 105—125 A.H.) he became tutor to the princes. He frequently went to Mecca and Medina on pilgrimage. The last years of his life he spent on an estate in the northern Hijaz which the Umayyads had given him. Zuhrī was one of the greatest traditionists in Islam. Through his extensive activity as a teacher he exerted an unusually strong influence, which is evident in the whole of the literature of tradition.
The study of tradition soon took root in Iraq. Here already there was an indigenous tradition; however, it was closely connected to the political past of the province, and it lacked the careful documentation which was demanded by the school of Medina. Distinguished Basrans such as the theologian Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (d. 110 A.H.) and the famous Quranic exegate Qatāda (61-157 A.H.) were so careless in indicating their sources that subsequent critical study was not able to check the reliability of their authorities. In the Hijaz, therefore, the wisdom of the East (i.e., the province of Iraq) was not held in high regard. Ibn Isḥāq (d. 150 A.H.) and Wāqidī (d. 206 A.H.) made only reluctant use of the data in the possession of the Iraqīs. Among his contemporary Iraqīs, Mālik b. Anas regarded only Hushaim b. Bashīr (104-183 A.H.) as a genuine expert in the study of tradtion.4 Even Zuhrī is reported to have altered his unflattering opinion of them only after he had learned of the traditions of the Kufan al-A'mash (60-148 A.H.), a client from Tabaristan.5 Nevertheless, it was said of this latter that he (along with Abū Isḥāq as-Sabī'ī [d. 127 A.H.]) was responsible for the corruption of Kufan traditions. In fact, he (like most Kufans, an ardent admirer of 'Alī) transmitted to the Shī'ite extremist, Sayyid al-Ḥimyarī, materials eulogizing the 'Alids.6 By the beginning of the second century, however, the principles of the Medinan school with its stronger requirements had gradually come to prevail even in Iraq. The influence of the latter grew, especially when, after the fall of the Umayyads, many scholars migrated from the Hijaz to Baghdad, the young flourishing capital of the 'Abbaāsids.
In Egypt the study of tradition was introduced by Yazīd b. Abī Ḥabīb (53-128 A.H.), son of a Nubian prisoner of war from Dongola.7 Previously, according to the testimony of the well-educated Ibn Yūnus, Egyptians had concerned themselves only with edifying stories (at-targhīb) and prophecies of wars and rebellions of the end time (al-malāḥim wa'l-fitan). In the troubled time of the civil wars there were eager listeners to such eschatological fantasies—a corpus of material including, in addition to biblical legends and legends of the saints, secular elements such as South Arabian sagas, tales of the Bedouin, and the popular literature of amusement of the early Umayyad period which neither instructed nor inspired, but brought pleasure. As the Meccans, during the lifetime of the Prophet, had listened to the stories of Rustam and Isfandiyār which Naḍr b. al-Ḥārith told them,8 so their sons during the caliphate of 'Umar were entertained by narratives of the storyteller (qāss) 'Ubaid b. 'Umair.9 At the court of Mu'āwiya we meet the South Arabian storytellers Daghfal (d. 65 A.H.) and 'Abīd b. Shariya. Somewhat later there was Wahb b. Munabbih (34-110 A.H.), a Yemenite of Persian origin who, according to the evidence of numerous excerpts from his Qiṣaṣ al-Anbiyā', presented his material in an artistic manner and treated the life of the Prophet in a romanticised fashion. The Medinan school which stressed the importance of collecting attested units of oral tradition rejected as basically unreliable this literature of amusement, in which fact and fiction were woven together into an entertaining story.10 The Medinans, however, were not able to completely push this material aside, especially in view of the fact that in many areas such as the history of pre-Islamic prophets, no reliable alternative sources were available. Thus the tradi-tionists were forced to lower the strict standards which they had set up for traditions essential to Islamic conduct in those cases where the narratives clearly served the cause of exhortation. Yazīd b. Abī Ḥabīb himself once quoted a book which apparently was an Islamic counterpart of the Christian apocryphal Acts of the Apostles.11
While the lands bordering on Arabia were penetrated relatively quickly by traditionalism, it took much longer for it to be established in the far-flung lands of the East and West. Only after the study of tradition had long assumed a firm place in the central lands of Islam did the first great traditionist of the East, 'Abd Allāh b. ai-Mubārak (118-181 A.H.), the son of a Turk and a Khwarismī mother, raise it to a similar position in Marw, Coming from modest circumstances (his father was a slave of an Arab trader in Hamadan), he made his way to impressive wealth through his skill as a trader, combined rather strangely with a vigorous asceticism. He utilized the occasion of his travels, which from the year 141 A.H. took him to Iraq, the Hijaz, Yemen, Egypt, and Syria, to study tradition under the greatest experts of his time. He "heard" Mālik b. Anas in Medina, Ibn Juraij and Sufyān ath-Thawrī in Mecca, Ma'mar and Yūnus b. Yazīd (students of Zuhrī), Awzā'ī (the great Syrian expert in law), Laith b. Sa'd in Egypt, A'mash in Kufa, and Shu'ba in Basra. In addition, he generously supported those who devoted themselves to these studies. "Apart from prophecy," he said, "there is nothing higher than spreading the knowledge [of religion]."12 Through this highly educated and gifted man, the study of tradition became popular in Khurasan. In the capital city of the province, Nisabur, one of his students, Ibrahim b. Naṣr as-Sūriyānī, who in the year 201 A.H. fell in battle against Bābak at Dinawar,13 introduced the study of this discipline. The soil was thereby prepared so that in the course of the third century a series of the greatest scholars were able to establish the study of tradition in the East.
The West was the last to follow suit. Certainly there were men who had transmitted traditions earlier, men such as the judge Mu'āwiya b. Ṣāliḥ (d. 158 A.H.) from Homs who migrated to Spain in 125 A.H. and was later sent by 'Abd ar-Raḥmān I ad-Dākhil on a diplomatic mission to Syria.14 The study of tradition properly speaking was first introduced by the versatile 'Abd al-Malik b. ḤHabīb (ca. 170-238 A.H.) whose influence was still felt in the third century.15 Like him, many other Spanish authorities remained in the East for years, after completing the pilgrimage to Mecca. The Spanish tradition of scholarship in this field was the last one to be spawned by the school of Medina.
I he more the spirit of traditionalism spread, the larger became the circle of men who spent lengthy periods of time traversing the Islamic empire to collect reports about the Prophet and to increase their knowledge of traditions by exchanging ideas with like-minded men. This travel activity by men of a similar character contributed substantially to the fact that in the vast world of Islam a homogeneous culture developed. These men formed no single party. We find them in all political camps. Many of them supported the government—men such as the distinguished Zuhrī or the court theologian Rajā' b. Ḥaiwa (d. 112 A.H.) who was responsible for the fact that the 'Umar b. 'Abd al-'Azīz, who was nurtured in the spirit of Medinan piety, became caliph.16 Others such as 'Urwa b. az-Zubair attached little value to a correct relationship with the court. The number of traditionists who held judgeships was considerable. However, the vast majority refused to take an office which might lead them to succumb to temptation,17 refusing to be dazzled by the attraction of service for a ruler. The personal independence which their professions as traders, merchants, or manufacturers gave them, prevented the holders of power from misusing the science of tradition for their own purposes. Even in matters of doctrine there were many different shades of opinion in their ranks: among the men whom 'Alī b. al-Madīnī mentions as pillars of sound traditions,18 the orthodox such as Malīk and Thawrī were in the majority; in addition to them, however, we meet Qadarites such as Qatāda (61-117 A.H.), Ibn Isḥāq (d. 150 A.H.), and Ibn Abī 'Arūba (d. 156 A.H.), the Murji'ite Ibn Abī Zā'ida (d. 183 A.H.), Kufans such as Abū Isḥāq as-Sabī'ī and al-A'mash who were sympathetic to Shī'ism, and finally Ḥarnmād b. Salama19 who came close to an anthropomorphist position. Among the Quranic exegetes from the school of Ibn 'Abbās, the Khārijites laid claim (not without reason) to three:20 Mujāhid (d. 104 A.H.), Jābir b. Zaid (d. 103 A.H.) and Ibāḍī,21 and 'Ikrima (d. 105 A.H.) who propagated the views (ra'y) of the Ṣufrīya in the West.22 Just as little did they form a social unity. In addition to those who were members of the Arab aristorcracy, clients from non-Arab tribes joined in the study of tradition in increasing numbers. It was their belief in the exemplary character of the Prophet and the conviction that he had provided for his community the example of a normative life style that united them. Through them the sunna became a unifying bond which united all parts of the empire. Certainly it was not followed everywhere and without exception. However, at the very least, it became the generally recognized ideal.
The traditionists themselves were clear about the fact that the sunna constituted no closed system of regulations and doctrinal propositions, but that the ideal or norm had to be painstakingly extrapolated from often incomplete and contradictory traditions. This task required a careful examination of numerous reports and a cautious weighing of all circumstances which might affect their reliability. From this fact arose, at the beginning of the Abbasid period, the earliest attempts at a critical evaluation of traditions. It was necessary, given the nature of oral tradition, that this critical study should begin with an examination of the trustworthiness of the individual authorities. The question of their manner of life, therefore, played no small role in this investigation. How could the critic recognize an individual as a relaible witness who in his personal conduct violated the sunna? Since they lacked generally recognized criteria, they did not always escape the danger of premature judgments resulting from personal bias. Thus Shu'ba (83-160 A.H.), who was regarded as the founder of the critical analysis of authorities,23 contested transmitters because he disliked the way they prayed.24 Similar statements were reported25 from another critic of this period, Wuhaib (108-165 A.H.).
I he more the number of transmitters increased so that it was no longer possible for a single individual to form a judgment based on direct personal knowledge, the more evident the need became for a critical assessment based on facts. Scholars, therefore, began to collect reports regarding each individual transmitter, his name, his origins, his method of study, his biography, the scope of his traditions and his reputation. Out of this there developed, toward the end of the second century, a biographical literature on the traditionists, the founder of which was Wāqidī (130 207 A.H.), a literature which reached its high point in the classical works of Ibn Sa'd, his student and secretary, and Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ. In addition to Wāqidī, his contemporary al-Haytham b. 'Adī contributed greatly to the chronology of the history of the science of tradition.26
It the absence or school and party unity, in spite of the agreement on basic principles, contributed to the spread of traditionalism, the lack of a strong organization on the other hand limited its spread to Islamic areas. It lacked the impetus to go beyond these areas in a missionary capacity. To be sure, many traditionists personally took part in the wars of faith or settled in frontier areas.27 However, they saw their task not as that of mission but, as the example of Abū Isḥāq al-Fazārī reveals,28 that of combatting "innovations" (bid'a) opposed to the sunna, which threatened to find their way into Islam through the new converts. Other circles took Islam further out into the world; however as soon as a new region was Islamized, traditionalism saw to it that the faith suffered no loss. It showed itself strong not in attack but in defense. It celebrated its greatest achievements when a foreign culture trend broke into the Muslim world and threatened to inundate the religion of the Prophet. The restoration [of the sunna] under Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal in the third century, the activity of Ibn Taymīya in the seventh century, and the Wahhābī movement in our own age offer us significant examples of this phenomenon.
The restoration of the sunna under the leadership of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal was a defense against the penetration of foreign influences as the latter appeared in the Mu'tazilite movement—influences that were becoming an increasing threat to Islam after the fall of the Arab kingdom. The Mu'tazilite movement was one of the most important by-products of the spiritual struggle between Islam and Iranian dualism; as such it offers a classic example (and one that occurred frequently in the history of Islamic propaganda) of the fact that a movement, which wished to propagate Islam and presumed to represent it in a pure and authentic form, was unconsciously guided by its opponent in the method of attack and fell unconsciously under its influence. In the struggle of a monotheistic religion against dualism, the unity and justice of God had to be the focal point of the confrontation. However, in seeking to defeat the enemy by its own methods, the Mu'tazilites applied the same caustic criteria of this approach to the simple teachings of the Quran. Their rationalism which regarded reason as the source of religious knowledge gave the simple statements of faith in the Quran an entirely new meaning. Whether we consider the Mu'tazilite doctrine of free will with its counterpart of a Creator who imposes limits on Himself out of regard for the well-being of man, or their abstruse theories of God's attributes and the nature of God's speech, or whether we examine their nature philosophy or submerse ourelves in their theory of the state (a prototype of the Shī'ite doctrine of the imām), the fact remains that the Islam which they espoused had only very little in common with the religion of the Arabian Prophet. All of that could be overlooked, however, so long as the Mu'tazilites perceived their main task as the struggle against dualism and propaganda on behalf of Islam, and so long as they left the orthodox undisturbed. That changed, however, when in the last decade of the second century the dualistic peril was overcome. Now the Mu'tazilites entered into the sphere of internal politics and in 212 A.H. won recognition for their doctrine as the official religion of the state for a quarter of a century. The attempt to assist rationalism to achieve a dominant position by means of political power, and to enforce acceptance of their doctrines, especially the doctrine of the created Quran, aroused the opposition of all those who adhered to the sunna. Under the internal and external pressure of the Mu'tazilite peril, orthodox Muslims gathered around the banner of tradition. During this turbulent period the position of those who had been persecuted [for their adherence to the sunna] was consolidated and strengthened. They were forced to scrutinize the foundations of their own position in order to secure it against attack. This led to important formal and material results. The classical critical study of authorities which thus arose around the turn of the second century was connected with the names of three men who through their teaching exercised a significant influence: Yaḥyā b. Ma'īn (158-233 A.H.),29 'Alī b. al-Madīnī (161-234 A.H.), and Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (164-241 A.H.)- All three were examples of a life style that conformed to the sunna, but especially Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal who despite imprisonment and physical mistreatment remained unalterably faithful to the sunna. The posthumous reputation of Ibn al-Madīnī, it is true, was clouded by the fact that he appeared too willing to compromise with the chief judge, Aḥmad b. Abī Dūwād, in order to escape the inquisition. As a critical scholar, Yaḥyā b. Ma'īn achieved the highest reputation.
The principles on which this critical study was based were essentially formal in nature. They examined the chronological feasibility of a given isnād and looked into the biographical details of all those transmitters who appeared in it; they determined the way in which each one received the tradition, how he passed it on, whether he possessed a good memory or was getting somewhat feebleminded in old age, whether he made use of written reports or not. They compared the various chains of transmitters in order to establish the correct reading and to acquire more certain criteria regarding the reliability of individual witnesses. As to the basic acceptability of witnesses (only the Companions of the Prophet were regarded eo ipso as trustworthy), they limited themselves to those requirements which canonical jurisprudence demanded of a witness before a court of law and thereby removed any grounds for the defamation of a witness because of personal prejudice. Even heterodoxy was not yet regarded in itself as an adequate reason for the rejection of an authority unless he actively propagated it. Not even conduct which violated the sunna, such as the use of alcohol, rendered a witness unreliable.30 Therewith the critical study of transmitters was elevated to the level of a science which objectively weighed the reliability of each witness, a science which rendered the critic a valuable service. The last word, however, was reserved for personal judgment, and here unanimity did not always prevail among the critics. If their final judgment was thus determined by "interior" considerations, they never allowed themselves to accept a tradition as authentic which was obviously false. The fact that no traditions reflecting an anti-Mu'tazilite point of view were accepted in the canonical collections is a splendid testimony to the honesty of the traditionists. As great as the temptation must have been for them to silence their detested opponents through a statement from the Prophet, the realization that the controversy over the nature of the Quran was unknown to Muhammad and his Companions was even greater.
Although the integrity of the critics of the third/tenth century is beyond doubt,31 they were not in a position, despite internal and external grounds, to purge tradition of all spurious elements. With the aid of their formal criticism they were able to follow the texts of individual traditions in general back to the first half of the second century. However, they lacked positive data to trace them back to an earlier period. Thus, e.g., the date of birth of many transmitters of the second century was not known; often it was not possible to determine whether they had a personal relationship with the earlier authorities and had "heard" from them directly. Given the lack of reliable reports, it was easy to succumb to the temptation to place the dates of transmitters too early, and thus to connect them incorrectly with the Companions of the Prophet. The situation was worse still regarding information about dates of the Prophet's Companions. The belief that some of them had lived to an age far beyond the usual limits was widespread not only among the masses. Contradicting this there was a well-known saying of Muhammad's to the effect that in a hundred years none of his contemporaries would be alive.32 Serious scholars such as Muslim took this literally and they had the last "Companion"33 dying in the year 100 A.H., a still very libera! claim if one remembers that Muhammad died in the year 11 A.H. Tradition as it circulated at the beginning of the second century lacked those external features of correct isnād usage which the critics of the third century set forth as their primary demand. Frequently enough, they were obliged to admit that these early transmitters had been negligent as to the statements of their authorities. If the giants such as Ḥasan al-Baṣri, Ibn Sīrīn, Qatāda, al-A'mash, and even Zuhrī did not escape censure for confused statements in isnāds (tadlīs), critics had (in view of existing conditions) to judge deficiencies of this sort with considerable leniency if they did not want to forego a positive decision from the outset. In other cases, the form of the collective isnād which continued in vogue from the time of Zuhrī placed an obstacle in the way of their critical activity. When the somewhat older Suddī (d. 127 A.H.) in his commentary on the Quran (utilized extensively by Ṭabarī) always provided his statements with the following indications of source: 'an Abī Mālik wa Abī Sālih 'an Ibn 'Abbās wa 'an Murra 'an Ibn Mas'ūd wa 'an nās min aṣḥab rasūl Allāh, any possibility for the critical analysis of isnāds was excluded; and, in fact, the critics diverged widely in their judgments of Suddī.34
There was another matter that proved even more troublesome. When the earliest traditionists a half century after the death of Muhammad made an effort to collect traditions, his older Companions who had fought along side of and worked for him had long since died. These collectors had to depend on the younger "Companions" who had remembered him in their childhood. That Abū Bakr, 'Umar, and others of the Prophet's comrades-in-arms rarely make statements in tradition is, on the one hand, additional proof of the integrity of the traditionists. On the other hand, the fact that sound traditions rest primarily on the testimony of the younger Companions of the Prophet is important for the determination of their reliability. Here Sunnī theologians on internal grounds voluntarily waived the right of criticism. They recognized that a fresh examination of all questions which in the first century had so aroused the believers and brought about the dissensions of the civil wars would have presented the gravest of threats to the unity of the Islamic community. For this reason they could permit no criticism of the men who had lived during that stormy period. While the Shī'ites abused the first three caliphs and other "Companions," Sunnī theologians restrained themselves by the words of the Prophet: "Do not slander my Companions,"35 and through this they avoided all criticism.
The rigorous critical standards which the transmitters applied to the mass of material handed down to them reduced the number of traditions regarded as reliable very considerably. If statements such as that Bukhārī had investigated 600,000 traditions may be exaggerated, it is certain in any case that only some 7,000 and, if one sets aside repetitions, hardly 3,000 satisfied the highest demands of critical analysis. This significant reduction of the material held to be trustworthy had to be all the more important in view of the fact that the principles of traditionalism simultaneously emerged with ever greater clarity in the battle of minds. Now for the first time they took seriously and without reservation the doctrine of the Prophet's exemplariness; they demanded that the life of the believer conform to the sunna in the smallest details and that the sunna could only be established by a critical examination of tradition. The orthodoxy of the second century, as Mālik's Muwaṭṭa' shows, had made use of traditions with the greatest carelessness, traditions which the unrelenting severity of classical criticism rejected as formally deficient. In addition to tradition, Malik and his contemporaries had drawn rather freely on Quranic passages, the legal decisions of the Companions of the Prophet, and their successors as well as the customary law of Medina and, if necessary, relied on their own opinion. For the orthodoxy of the third century, however, only tradition was decisive. Bukhārī gives extra-traditional materials at least in the chapter headings of his collection. Muslim permitted only the traditions to decide. However, the traditions accepted by them, among which much historical and exegetical material is to be found, were not adequate to regulate in detail that manner of life regarded by the sunna as normative for believers. A consideration of the practical needs of the community required (in addition to traditions regarded as first rate and fully authentic) the acceptance of less well attested second and third rate ones. Tirmidhī accepted into his collection every tradition which had ever been cited by a legal expert as proof for a decision, adding however his own judgment as to the level of its trustworthiness. Also in Abū Dāwūd's collection of traditions, critical remarks on individual traditions are rather frequent. Finally, the youngest of the canonical collectors, Nasā'ī (ca. 215-303 A.H.), who in his criticism of authorities went his own way, took note of the differences of opinion among the transmitters themselves. On individual legal questions he quoted a variety of opposing views and in most cases left the decision to the reader. He also carefully cites cases in which a tradition having to do with a decision by one of the Prophet's Companions or another authority was not unanimous.36
If the Islamic critique did not succeed on either internal or external grounds in excluding all the spurious elements of tradition, it would be an inaccurate generalization, however, if one were to deny to it all confidence on that account. Islamic tradition does contain an authentic body of material. The view of some Orientalists that it was a creation of the first two centuries and only shows how later generations conceived of the Prophet and his contemporaries, seriously underrates the profound impact of the personality of Muhammad on his followers. The attempt to reject all traces of the historical Muhammad in tradition arose from a materialistic conception of history similar to that which was not prepared to admit the experience of God (Gotteserlebnis) even in the Quran, but sought for thousands of prototypes, influences, stimuli, and contacts. In both cases the outcome was a mosaic of innumerable little stones of different origins with no inner coherence. The investigation which grew out of such an outlook and led to the demand that "as a matter of course every legal tradition37 had to be considered as false until proved otherwise,"38 fostered an unlimited skepticism which opened the flood gates to caprice. It was impossible to find generally admissible criteria of authenticity; no general agreement emerged among the investigators even regarding those traditions unfavorable to the Prophet. A feature so starkly opposed to the traditional view of Muhammad's character as the gharānīq-episode was regarded by some as certainly authentic, while other scholars just as decidedly banished it to the realm of fiction.39 These and similar reports such as that Muhammad had offered a lamb to the goddess 'Uzzā',40 or that his sons had borne the names 'Abd al-Manāf, 'Abd al-'Uzzā', and al-Qāsim,41 or the instructions to 'Abd Allāh b. Jaḥsh on the expedition to Nakhla42 only prove that tradition is not one-sided. If we encounter reports even in the canonical collections that are the source of distress to the Muslim collector as, for example, the stories of Muhammad's domestic troubles,43 not even the greatest skeptic of these reports can raise objection to their authenticity. If it is to be granted then that tradition has preserved authentic material, it would be clearly arbitrary to recognize only the few unfavorable features in the traditionalist picture of the Prophet as sound and to reject all other features as falsified, even in those cases where proof can never be adduced to the contrary. The imposing uniformity of the Islamic life style in spite of its multiplicity of individual forms is the best proof of the fact that traditionalism which always looked on the sunna as an immutable ideal, did not arise out of the quicksands of the conflicting opinions of later generations, but reached back with its roots to the soil of the early Muslim community of Medina. Certainly in the course of time, tradition did undergo modification, expansion, and addition. Precanonical writings, however, offer us in many cases a means of establishing whether an authentic core lies at the center of the larger body of tradition. A few examples of this may be presented.
1. Yaḥyā b. Ādam (ca. 140-203 A.H.) has preserved a report (mursal)44 which goes back not to a Companion of the Prophet but only to Abū Mijlaz, a Basran born around the year 100 A.H. As a result of the requirements which classical criticism established for sound traditions, this report was not accepted. According to Abā Mijlaz's report, the Prophet once met some Anṣār who were just about to fertilize their palm trees. Since the Prophet expressed doubt about the value of this, they discontinued it. However when the fruit failed to appear he told them to follow rather their usual customs in such matters since he had spoken on this matter without knowing the facts. This tradition is indeed most striking for its account of Muhammad's candor and the blind trust of his followers. However, for many a transmitter it was most distressing to admit openly that the Prophet lacked knowledge. Thus, e.g., 'Urwa b. Zubair in his account of the incident (which he too received from Yaḥyā b. Ādam)45 omitted that part of the tradition in which Muhammad admitted his error. 'Urwa's account which went back to 'Ā'isha in a formally correct chain of authorities was accepted by Muslim and was included in his collection.46 An account which Simāk b. Ḥarb (d. 123 A.H.) cited, also on the authority of Yaḥyā b. Ādam,47 went even further: on the basis of a report allegedly from an eyewitness he has Muhammad adding that in matters of religion he (the Prophet) cannot err. Only such watered-down versions were included in the canonical collections to tradition.48
2. From Malik49 we learn that Muhammad, in contrast to Abū Bakr, did not dye his hair. In Ibn Sa'd50 we find reports from Iraqī sources in which he is alleged to have recommended the coloring of the hair, in opposition to Jewish and Christian practice. Other traditions report that remnants of colored hair belonging to Muhammad had been found in the possessions of his widows. Bukhārī harmonizes51 these conflicting reports by the theory that Muhammad did not color his hair, since he had very few grey hairs, but that he recommended it for those who did. Bukhārī explains the relics of colored hair as resulting from the use of perfume.
3. In the Muwaṭṭa' of Mālik b. Anas52 we find the following report (also found in several canonical collections):53 when Sa'd b. Alī Waqqāṣ died in the year 50 A.H. (or 55), 'Ā'isha had his body brought into the mosque so that she could be present at the funeral ceremony. Many people objected to this action; 'Ā'isha, however, justified herself by pointing out that the Prophet had also performed the prayer of the dead for Suhail b. al-Baiḍā' in the mosque. Some Orientalists have expressed doubts about the validity of this report and have maintained that it was a fabrication by Mālik's contemporaries who wanted thereby to sanction a practice that prevailed in the Hijaz at that time.54 On the other hand, it is to be noted neither Mālik nor his source, the renowned Abū'n-Naḍr (d. 129 A.H.), could be considered as fabricators of this report, and it is inconceivable that either of them would have accepted a contemporary falsification as such. This and the fact that the tradition was transmitted by various "paths" proves that it goes back to the first century. Furthermore, the performance of prayers for the dead in a mosque was in no way a ritual practice that prevailed in the Hijaz during the second century. It is rather for Mālik a question of whether one could also perform it in a mosque. Mālik himself gave permission only reluctantly under pressure of the precedent cited on the authority of 'Ā'isha. He himself, however, wished to have the bier placed in front of the mosque.55 Shāft'ī who answered the question with an unconditional affirmative rightly criticized the Mālikites for their violation of tradition.56 The conflict which arose over this practice already in 'Ā'isha's time was later given expression in a statement attributed to the Prophet by Abū Huraira, to which Shaibānī (like all Ḥanafites, an opponent to performing prayers for the dead in a mosque) alludes in his recension of the Muwaṭṭa'51 and which Abā Dāwūd included in his collection. However, Islamic critics had already recognized that this statement, to which the ill-famed Ṣaliḥ b. Nabhān was the only witness, was not valid.58
4. The well-known prophetic statement that one should saddle a camel only on the pilgrimage to the three mosques of Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem, is found in all canonical collections of tradition. It is maintained by some that Zuhrī had falsified this tradition in order to raise the ḥajj to Jerusalem to a position of equality [with the ḥajj to Mecca],59 and thereby provide support for 'Abd al-Malik in his struggle against 'Abd Allāh b. Zubair who controlled the Meccan sanctuary.60 This suspicion of one of the most celebrated of traditionists is certainly not tenable on chronological grounds. 'Abd Allāh's opposition to the caliphate took place during the period from 64 to 73 A.H. Zuhrī who was born in the year 51 A.H, (or perhaps even later), was at that time a young man who was not yet known as a transmitter. Furthermore, the question of fabrication cannot be raised because Zuhrī's source, the famous Sa'īd b. al-Musayyib (d. 94 A.H.), was at that time still alive and certainly would not have condoned a misuse of his name. And finally Zuhrī was not the only one who transmitted this prophetic statement from Sa'īd.
5. Even spurious traditions, however, were forged earlier than is generally thought. Thus, e.g., the tradition of Barwa' bint Wāshiq61 concerning the dowry of a woman whose husband had died before the consummation of their marriage was presumed to be the product of later theologians on the grounds that even Shāfī'ī still denied the right of a woman to dowry in cases of this sort altogether. Now from all that we know of the great collectors of tradition of the third century and of the principles of criticism employed by them it is completely impossible that such recent fabrication could have misled them. The occasionally expressed opinion that one could regard a tradition appearing in the canonical collections as a fabrication of the third century rests on an inadmissible confusion of the date of origin of the tradition with the date of its literary attestation. In the case before us, external evidence demonstrates the greater age of the tradition. Not only does the Mu'tazilite an-Naẓẓāam (who died between 220 and 228 A.H.) mention it in his polemic against the traditionists,62 but Shāfi'ī also knew of its existence.63 Indeed, Shāft'ī was right in doubting its authenticity as shown by the fact that neither Bukhārī nor Muslim has recognized it.
In the battle against the Mu'tazilites, traditionalism elaborated its principles more and more clearly, and stubbornly defended the normative character of the sunna for Muslims against all of its detractors. However, even at the high point of its triumph, traditionalism in no way denied the validity of those forms of life for which there was no authorization in the sunna. It did not encroach upon the wider field of formal education, the focal point of which was grammar and the closely related study of poetry. The Arabic sciences of language blossomed independently of the religious disciplines. To be sure, the study of the Quran was a field in which grammarians and traditionists encountered each other; however, their scope remained clearly separate. Most grammarians were indifferent to or even disdainful of traditionalism. According to the judgment of Ibrāhīm al-Ḥarbī (d. 285 A.H.), all Basran grammarians, except the following four who adhered to the sunna, championed heretical points of view:64 Abū 'Amr b. al-'Alā', well known also as a Quran reader, and his student Yūnus b. Ḥabīb (ca. 97-183 A.H.); Khalīl b. Aḥmad (ca. 100-170 A.H.) who was first an Ibāḍī but who was won over to orthodoxy by Ayyūb as-Sakhtiyānī (68-131 A.H.);65 and finally the excessively pious Aṣma'ī (125-213 A.H.), who had misgivings about explaining the Quran and ḥadīth philologically,66 who quickly skipped over all pagan elements in the interpretation of pre-Islamic poetry67 and who even once edited out the name of a pagan god.68 On the other hand, only a few traditionists paid attention to grammatical questions. The earlier collectors were satisfied with a faithful reproduction of the substance of what they had heard. The practice (widely followed from Zuhrī's time) of putting traditions with identical contents under a group isnād could never have come into vogue if they had been concerned with establishing literal, verbal precision. Preoccupied with content, they were little concerned with phrasing and formal expression. In taking a position on the newly flourishing grammatical studies they were divided. Several, like al-A'mash, corrected all grammatical errors on the ground that it would have been impossible for the Prophet to make an error in speech.69 Others, on the other hand, did not risk tampering with the transmitted text.70 For most of them however, such questions were a matter of indifference. No less a figure than Bukhārī drew on material concerning biblical expressions found in the Quran from the Kitāb al-majāz of the Basran grammarian Abū 'Ubaida (d. 210 A.H.) and here and there incorporated comments from this work into his commentary, without, however, mentioning the name of its author or the fact that he was a Khārijite.71
The material with which the philologists were concerned was not so clearly a matter of indifference to the traditionists as grammar was. The pagan spirit of the pre-Islamic Arabic poetry must have been deeply offensive to them. However, the Prophet himself, in spite of his occasional attacks on poets, tolerated poetry. Indeed, the poetry-hating attitude of some persons did not succeed in gaining the upper hand. A leading traditionist such as Shu'ba had a direct personal relationship with Ru'ba and other poets,72 and found in poetry a relaxation from the study of tradition.73 Even music had many admirers among the traditionists, especially in the Hijaz. In Iraq, on the other hand, the majority stood in opposition to it. When the Quranic exegete 'Ikrima (d. 107 A.H.) stated in Basra that he liked singing, many of his listeners deserted him,74 and the leading scholar of Mecca, Ibn Juraij (ca. 80-150 A.H.), one day aroused the displeasure of his guests from the East when he invited a singer into his house.75 On the other hand, the traditionists from the East did not oppose Persian education, so long as it did not run counter to the spirit of Islam. It was said of the Basran Ḥammād b. Zaid (98-179 A.H.), whose orthodoxy could hardly be questioned, that 'Umar had taught him religious law (fiqh) and that the Khosrau had trained him in adab.76 This liberal and open attitude of traditionalism which was prepared to recognize the value of training in the secular arts (adab) and to accept the existing forms of life insofar as they were in harmony with the sunna, we meet in its clearest form in the works of Ibn Qutaiba (218-276 A.H.), who played an important role in the restoration which resulted from the victory of orthodoxy (the Mu'tazilite state doctrine, it should be noted, was abolished in 237 A.H.). His polemical writings, especially his Ta'wīl Mukhtalif al-Ḥadīth, reveal him to be a highly orthodox theologian who sought to refute the objections brought forward by the Mu'tazilites through a series of selected traditions, and that with the support of a clever harmonizing interpretation. In another group of his writings, he took into account the culture of "scribes" (kuttāb) from whose ranks the civil servants of the state were recruited and gave expression to an ideal of culture which reflected a very broad outlook. In the introduction to his main work, the 'Uyūn al-Akhbār, he sets forth the principle that the believer is bound to and must rely upon authorities in matters of religion, in matters of the permitted and the forbidden, but that in other areas (that is, those indifferent to religion) he may appropriate knowledge wherever he finds it: al-'ilm ḍāllat al-mu'min. Ibn Qutaiba thus in no way limited himself to what was peculiar to Islamic tradition (in the ten volumes of his work he covered the entire range of secular learning); if he preferred to begin a new chapter with the words of the Prophet, he also drew upon the whole of Arabian tradition, and freely inserted verses from pagan and Muslim poets and even some material from Persian literature. He did not hesitate to utilize material from the writings of the arch-heretic, Ibn al-Muqaffa', which promoted the amoral wisdom of the Orient.77 Ibn Qutaiba demonstrated a similar broad-mindedness in his Kitāb al-Ma'ārif, a concise survey of world history, and also in his book of poetry in which he presents the best known poets from Imra' al-Qais to his own day, together with a brief biography of each and a specimen of their finest poetry.
It was this openness, this opposition to scholastic narrowness that enabled the traditionalists after their victory over the Mu'tazilites to resume their role as the bearers of Islamic cultural unity. The process of canonization, which elevated "the six books" from among a mass of orthodox writings, was completed only after some centuries. Bukhārī, whose work was to be recognized a century and a half later as the definitive collection of unquestionably authentic sayings of the Prophet, was subjected in his own lifetime to severe attacks. He did not want to extend the uncreatedness of the Quran to include the recitations of individual believers. When he later settled in Nisabur he was so severely oppressed on that account by the orthodox leader Dhuhlī (d. 258 A.H.; and very well known for his Zuhrīyāt, a collection of all the traditions going back to Zuhrī)78 that he finally left the city and moved to Bukhara. However, even there he found no rest. Since he refused to bend to the wishes of the governor, he was banned and spent the last years of his life in the village of Khartank in Samarqand where he died in 256 A.H., not quite 62 years of age.79 Bukhārī and Muslim, not to mention the authors of the four Sunan, were only fellow disputants in the minds of their contemporaries, not leaders in the battle against heresy. Their judgments were in no way regarded as binding. As before, the independent collecting of traditions (gathered from considerable study and travel) was regarded as the main thing. Even in the sphere of law traditionists did not submit to the authority of a particular school, but followed their own interpretation of the traditions. Precisely for this reason Ṭabarī (d. 310 A.H.) could contest Ibn Ḥanbal's title as a jurist. The importance of the independent study of tradition diminished only after the fourth century. When the door of ijtihād was closed it was inevitable that in this area too there would be a growing conformity to the great masters of the third century who were regarded as exemplary. Literary activity shows an increasing refinement in the mastery of the technical apparatus, of which the catalogue of the writings of Ibn Ḥibbān (d. 354 A.H/)80 provides instructive examples. A gradual decline then began. The study and collection of traditions sank progressively lower in the fifth and sixth centuries until they reached a point of meaningless formality; the teaching activity of the mosques which had provided the best training for the battle against heresy fell into decay. Traditionalism had performed its task. From the traditions of the first two centuries it made a selection of traditions which formed the image of Muhammad for ail time and provided believers with an exemplary model after which they could pattern their lives.
On the other hand, it was impossible to transmit the traditionalism of a Bukhārī or a Muslim unchanged down through the centuries. Slowly it succumbed to all those forces that had grown to independence and had come to express themselves in canonical law, Quranic exegesis, scholasticism, and, above all, in Sufism. However, as soon as a serious external danger threatened Islam, as happened in the Mongol invasion of the Muslim world in the seventh century, the collapse of the caliphate of Baghdad, and the establishment of a pagan as ruler over the believers, Ibn Taymīya (661-728 A.H.) emphasized (as Ibn Ḥanbal had done earlier) that salvation and deliverance were possible only in following the exemplary model given by the Prophet. He ruthlessly applied to all facets of public and domestic life the infallible standard of the Quran and the sunna. His criticism brought him into sharp conflict with almost all of the holders of power of that time. He fell out with the doctors of the canonical schools of law because he unmasked their hairsplitting casuistry and scourged their petty partisan spirit which the leaders of the schools held up more highly than the Prophet. The orthodox scholastics were offended by his assertion that their rationalism, which sought to corroborate the truth of revelation by the principles of reason, was a foreign growth in the Garden of Islam. He aroused the wrath of the powerful Sufi orders by branding their pantheism as un-Islamic. Ibn Taymȳa's outlook which was satisfied with a simple, unpretentious faith in the Quran and the example of the Prophet stood in fundamental opposition to al-Ghazzālī's theology of mediation. This theology put the religious attitude of the mystic in place of the early faith and with the help of Ash'arite dogmatics gave the simple teachings of the Quran a new meaning; moreover, without any critical feeling for historical tradition, it accepted legendary materials provided only they were of devotional value. With equal vigor Ibn Taymīya fought against the popular cult of the Prophet and saints. However, the principle of ijmā' (consensus omnium doctorum), which was deeply rooted in the collective consciousness of Sunnī's, proved to be too powerful, Ibn Taymīya did not succeed in overthrowing the authority of the four main orthodox schools of law which rested on ijmā' or in re-opening the door of ijtihād. Even "innovations" which were clearly against the Quran and the sunna were invulnerable to attack as soon as consensus had sanctioned them. Next to ijmā', it was Ash'arite theology on which Ibn Taymīya's plan of reform ran aground. The attempt to harmonize the anthropomorphic expressions of the Quran such as God's hands, feet, eyes, etc., with a purely spiritual conception of God had spanned the entire spectrum from a crass anthropomorphism to the sublimest spiritualization. Already in the second century the leaders of orthodoxy had realized that one could only escape the danger of both extremes if one accepted the Quranic statements as true without asking how or in what sense they were true. From the consistent standpoint of orthodoxy this could not be satisfactory in the long run, since it did not resolve the difficulty but rather implied the renunciation of a solution. In vain did Ibn Taymīya explain that it was presumptuous for a Muslim to claim to be more intelligent than the ancestors who had refused to meddle in any kind of speculation regarding the nature of God. He was no longer able to reawaken the spiritual powers which had filled the first believers. His unbending adherence to the text of the Quran and decisive rejection of any kind of ta'w̄il only brought him (though without justification) the reputation of anthropomorphism. The impossibility of resurrecting the long since weakened world of Islam was, in the final analysis, the most basic cause of the fact that Ibn Taymīya's efforts were without success during his lifetime.
Nevertheless, belief in the exemplary character of the Prophet did live on in the Islamic community. The task in respect of which Ibn Taymīya failed was taken up again in the twelfth/eighteenth century by Muhammad b. 'Abd al-Wahhāb. Like the former, he fought against all innovation and on most questions took a position similar to his great predecessor. However, this time traditionalism was to achieve greater results. The Wahhābī movement succeeded in establishing itself among the Bedouin who since the days of the Prophet had been only very superficially Islamized. Through the centuries traditionalism held fast unrelentingly to the sunna and prevented foreign influences from destroying the distinctive character of Islam. It now put the crowning touches on its achievement by establishing on the original, native soil of Islam direct contact with those religious forces which had once disclosed themselves in the figure of the Arabian Prophet.
1. [See R. V. Weekes, Muslim Peoples: A World Ethnographic Survey (Westport, Conn.; London, England) where the total number of Muslims today is placed at slightly more than 700 million.]
2. [On this battle, see L. Veccia Vaglieri's article in EI2, III, pp. 226-27.]
3. I have given references in Muḥammad b. Isḥāq, p. 11, n. 43.
4. Khaṭīb, Tārīkh Baghdād, XIV, p. 9. Hushaim regarded tadlīs as permissible; see Dhahabī, Mīzān al-I'tidāl, III, p. 257.
5. Ibn Sa'd, VI, p. 238.
6. Kitāb al-Aghānī, VII, p. 15.
7. Ibn Ḥajar, Tahdhīb at-Tahdhīb, XI, pp. 318f.
8. Ibn Hishām, pp. 191, 235.
9. Ibn Sa'd, V, p. 341.
10. The opinion of Ibn Ḥanbal thalāthatu kutubirt lā aṣla lahā al-maghāzī wa'l-malāḥimu wa't-tafsīr (Suyūṭī, Itqān, p/ 888) refers to the legendary biographies of the Prophet, prophecies of the end of time and popular interpretation of the Quran.
11. Ibn Hishām, p. 972.
12. Khaṭīb, Tārīkh Baghdād, X, p. 160.
13. Yāqūt, Geographisches Wörterbuch, III, p. 187; Dhahabī, Tadhkirat al- Ḥuffāẓ, II, p. 3.
14. Ibn Ḥajar, Tahdhīb at-Tahdhīb, X, p. 209.
15. Dhahabī, Tadhkirat al-Ḥuffaẓ, II, p. 107; Dhahabī, Mīzān al-I'tidāl, II, p. 148; Ibn Ḥajar, Lisān al-Mīzān, IV, p. 59; Ibn Farḥūn, Dībīj (Cairo, 1351 A.H.), 154; Yāqūt, Ceographisches Wörterbuch, I, p. 349.
16. Wellhausen, Das Arabische Reich, p. 165 [English trans, by M. G. Weir, The Arab Kingdom and Its Fall (Beirut, 1963), p. 264-65].
17. Mez, Die Renaissance des Islams, pp. 209f. [English trans, by S. K. Bakhsh and D. S. Margoliouth, The Renaissance of Islam (Patna, 1937), p. 218f.]
18. Dhahabī, Tadhkirat al-Ḥuffāẓ, I, p. 328 and elsewhere.
19. See Festschrift P. Kahle, p. 98f.
20. Ash'arī, Maqāalāt al-Islāmīyīn, I, pp. 109, 120.
21. Ibn Sa'd, VII/1, 130.
22. Ibn Ḥajar, Tahdhīb at-Tahdhīb, I, p. 267.
23. Ibn Ḥajar, Tahdhīb at-Tahdhīb, IV, p. 345.
24. See Dhahabī, Mīzān al-I'tidāl, III, p. 134; II, p. 7, 312.
25. Ibn Ḥajar, Tahdhīb at-Tahdhīb, V, p. 43.
26. In contrast to Wāqidī who belonged to the Medinan school, al-Haitham b. 'Adī was not a transmitter but a writer of works of amusement who preferred to treat historical themes, but also composed love stories (Fihrist, p. 306). Of low birth and because of his attempt to smuggle himself into the great tribe of Tayyi' and ridiculed by his contemporaries, he utilized his knowledge of scandalous North Arabian chronicles to unmask in his books (al-Mathālib, Ahbār Ziyād b. Abīh, Asmā' Baghāyā Quraish, etc.) the Arab aristocracy ("Abd al-Qādir, Khizānat al-adab, II, p. 511). An expert like Jāḥiẓ pointed out the artificiality of his style (Buḥalā', p. 243, ed. van Vloten). If Muslim authorities are unanimous in censuring him (Dhahabī, Mīzān al-I'tidāl, III, p. 265, and Ibn Ḥajar, Lisān al-Mīzān, VI, p. 209) they do take into consideration the chronological statements of his Ṭabaqāt al-Fuqahā' wa'l-Muḥaddithīin and his Tārīikh.
27. Ibn Sa'd, VII/2, pp. 185ff.
28. See OLZ, 38 (1935), pp. 627f.
29. On the spelling of Ma'īn, see Ibn Khallikān, Wafayāt (Būlāq, 1299 A.H.), III, p. 172.
30. See e.g., Dhahabī, Tadhkirat al-Ḥuffāẓ, II, p. 233. I have given another example in OLZ, 37 (1934), p. 726, n. 3.
31. This applies also to Wāqidī and Ibn Sa'd. Since the sincerity of both was recently called into question, I refer to my discussion in Muḥammad b. Isḥaq, p. 14, n. 10.
32. The main passage is in Muslim Faḍā'il aṣ-Ṣaḥāba (in the margins of Qasṭallānī, Irshād as-Sārī [Būlāq, 1306 A.H.], IX, pp. 423-25); Wensinck points out other passages. Concordance et Indices de la Tradition Musulmane, 7 vols., (Leiden, 1936), I, p. 207.
33. That is, Abū Ṭufail who was supposed to have died in the year 100 A.H. at the age of 97; Ibn Ḥajar would have him even older (Tahdhīb at-Tahdhīb, V, p. 82).
34. See Dhahabī, Mīzān al-I'tidāl, I, p. 309; Ibn Ḥajar, Tahdhīb, I, p. 313; Suyūṭī, Itqān, p. 913 (Sprenger).
35. Bukhārī, Manāqib al-Asṣḥāb, par. 5; Muslim, Faḍā'il aṣ-Ṣaḥāba, par. 221 and parallels.
36. These cases are the most abundant in Kitāb aṣ-Ṣiyām, next in Qiyām al-Lail, Kitāb Taḥrīm and Kitāb al-Qasāma; in addition they are found in the books of Hiba, Nuḥl, Ruqba, 'Umra, Muzāra'a, and Qaṭ' as-Sāriq as well as in a few additional passages.
37. No proof is required that the boundaries of legal, historical, and exegetical traditions merge into each other.
38. Schwally in the new edition of Nöldeke's Geschichte des Qorans (Leipzig, 1919), II, p. 146.
39. Nöldeke-Schwally, Geschichte des Qorans (Leipzig, 1919), I, 101; Tor Andrae, Mohammed, Sein Leben und Sein Glaube (Göttingen, 1932), 15 [English trans. Mohammed: The Man and His Faith (New York, 1955), 19-20.]
40. Ibn al-Kalbī, Le livre des idoles (Cairo, 1924), p. 19.
41. Haitham b. 'Adī in Ibn Ḥajar, Lisān al-Mīzān, VI, p. 210; Diyārbakrī, Tārīkh al-Khamīs (1302 A.H.) I, p. 308.
42. Wāqidī, p. 35 (Wellhausen).
43. Nöldeke-Schwally, Geschichte des Qorans, I, pp. 207, 211, 217.
44. Kitāb al-Kharāj (Cairo, 1347 A.H.), p. 116, no. 362.
45. Loc. cit. no. 363.
46. Muslim, Faḍā'il aṣ-Ṣaḥāba, par. 140.
47. Loc. cit., no. 361. That Simāk polished his traditions rhetorically is attested by Ibn Ḥanbal (Dhahabī, Mīzān al-I'tidāl, I, p. 427).
48. Muslim, loc. cit. par. 139f.; Ibn Māja, Ruhūn, par 15.
49. Zurqāni (Cairo, 1280 A.H.), IV, p. 166.
50. Ibn Sa'd, II, pp. 139ff.
51. Bukhārī, Adab, par. 66f
52. Zurqānī (Cairo, 1280 A.H.), II, pp. 14f.
53. Muslim, Janā'iz, par. 99-101; Tirmidhī, Janā'iz, par. 44; Abū Dāwūd, Janā'iz, par. 49; Nasā'ī, Janā'iz, par. 70.
54. Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien, I, p. 259 [English trans. Muslim Studies, 2 vols. (London, 1967), I, p. 233-34].
55. Mudawwana (Cairo, 1324 A.H.), I. p. 161
56. Kitāb al-Umrn (Būiāq, 1325 A.H.), VII, p. 196.
57. Muwaṭṭa' Muḥammad (Lucknow, 1346 A.H.), p. 131.
58. Ibn Ḥibbān in Dhahabī, Mīzān al-Lisān, I, p. 461.
59. See the references in Wensinck, Concordance et Indices de la Tradtion Musulmane, II, p. 234b.
60. Goldziher, op. cit., II, p. 35 [English, trans. Muslim Studies (London, 1971) II, p. 44],
61. Tirmidhī, Nikāḥ, par. 44; Abū Dāwūd, Nikāḥ, par. 31; Nasā'ī, Nikāḥ, par. 68.
62. Ibn Qutaiba, Ta'wīl Mukhtalif al-Ḥadīth (Cairo, 1326, A.H.), p. 25.
63. Kitāb al-Umm, V, p. 61.
64. Khaṭīb, Tārīkh Baghdād, X, p. 418 and elsewhere.
65. Ibn Ḥajar, Tahdhīb al-Tahdhīb, III, p. 163.
66. Ibn Qutaiba, Ma'ārif, p. 270 (Wüstenfeld); Sīrāfi, Akhbār an-Nahwīyīn al-Baṣrīyīn, p. 60f. (Krenkow); Khaṭīb, Tārīkh Baghdād, X, p. 418; Ibn Khallikān, Wafayāt (Būlāq, 1299 A.H.), I, p. 517.
67. Mubarrad, Kāmil, p. 449, p. 754.
68. See the statement of Wellhausen, Reste arab. Heidentums (Berlin, 1887), p. 82, on Zuhair, 14, 6 (Ahlwardt), as well as Goldziher's remark in ZDMG, (46), p. 206 on Ḥutai'a, 7, 13, and Nābigha, 23, 6 (Ahlwardt).
69. Yāqūt, Irshād al-Arīb (Gibb Mem. Series, VI), I, p. 20.
70. Yāqut, loc. cit.; Jāḥiẓ, Bayān (Cairo, 1311 A.H.), II, p. 2.
71. Ibn Ḥajar, Tahdhīb at-Tahdhīb, X, p. 247.
72. Marzubānī, Muwashshah, pp. 177, 192, 208.
73. Khaṭīb, Tārīkh Baghdād, IX, p. 78f; Ibn Sa'd, VII/2, p. 3.
74. Yāqūt, Irshād al-Arīb, V, p. 64 and elsewhere.
75. Kitāb al-Aghānī, I, p. 408f.
76. Dhahabī, Tadhkirat al-Ḥuffāẓ, I, p. 212.
77. Already Aṣma'ī was reported to have been an admirer of Ibn al-Muqaffa's Yatīma [GAL Suppl. I, 236], Ibn Khallikān, Wafayāt (1299 A.H.), I, 267, line 13.
78. To the evidence given in Muḥammad b. Isḥāq, p. 11, n. 42, is to be added that provided by Tārīkh Baghdād, III, p. 415.
79. Khaṭīb, Tārīkh Baghdād, II, pp. 30-33.
80. Yāqūt, Geographisches Wörterbuch, I, pp. 616ff