J.H. Kramers
[10] THE TRADITION that we propose to study here must have been rather popular at a particular point in time; it appears twelve times in the most important compendiums of traditions. This means that, at the same time, there were as many different redactions. These can be designated in the following manner:1
The redactions can be separated into several groups in each of which the texts are specifically related. The isnāds, moreover, confirm that each of these groups possessed different lines of tradition. All of the isnāds, however, originate from the same first transmitter, the well-known ṣaḥābī Abū Sa'īd al-Khudrī (d. 63 or 65/682 to 686), who is styled as mukthir fī l-ḥhadīth.2
Five of the redactions (A, F, G, J, K) contain a nearly identical text. We will begin by providing the translation of the text of F since it is the most representative.
[12] The commentaries, to which we can add the Nihāya of Ibn al-Athīr,3 point to several variants of the text and comment at length on certain grammatical subtleties. They also explain certain less well-known expressions. Otherwise, they devote attention to the double parable contained in the tradition, namely the comparison of the person who appropriates an excess of material goods to an animal who bursts from indigestion, and the comparison of the person who partakes in moderation while donating to pious causes to an animal, designated here as "the she-eater of grass", that instinctively regulates its digestive process.
We add a few observations on the text.
2. "The splendor of the world" (zahrat al-dunyā) is glossed by al-Qasṣallānī as the perishable beauty of the world.4 The phrase remains the same in all of the redactions and appears in Sūrat Ṭā Hā (20), v. 131, bearing the same meaning.
3. The commentaries indicate that the name of the questioner is unknown to them.
4. For "it appeared to us", the texts and the other variants provided by the commentaries have ra'aynā, ru'īnā or urīnā, of which the last form is probably the most archaic. The very fact of the Prophet's silence is, according to al-Qasṭallānī, an indication that he was awaiting a revelation.5 The text clearly means to suggest that that which occured subsequently bore the authority of a Qur'ānic revelation.
5. The term for "sweat", ruḥaḍā', is explained as heavy perspiring or a feverish perspiring "that washes the skin" (al-Suyūṭī). The term appears nowhere else in the hadīth collections.
6. "As if he wished to praise him", indicates, according to the commentaries, that the Prophet was delighted with the question.
Only redaction G has the Prophet say, in lieu of ayna l-sā'il: [13] a-shāhidun al-sā'il. This constitutes, in the view of the commentator al-Sindī, a return question with which the Prophet sought to appeal to the good sense of the questioner. One can translate it as: "The person who poses the question, is he thus himself a witness to this?"
7. Innahu lā ya'tī l-khayru bi-l-sharr. We will return to this statement so, for the moment, we would observe only that al-Qasṭallānī himself provides an orthodox interpretation, saying that the [phrase] means: "That which God deems is good is good, and that which He deems evil is evil", Al-Sindī provides a utilitarian interpretation, declaring that khayr is used here to mean "material property" (māl), citing, for this meaning, Sūrat al-Baqara (2), v. 180 (176).
8. This paragraph is cited by al-Bāqillānī in his I'jāz al-Qur'ān as one of the examples of badī' among the sayings attributed to the Prophet Muḥammad.6 Al-Bāqillānī cites the text in a grammatically correct form (inna mimmā yunbitu 'l-rabī'u mā yaqtulu ḥabaṭan aw yulimmu), whereas in all of the five redactions treated here the pronoun mā and the complement ḥabaṭan (except in J) are absent, just as al-Qasṭallānīi observes. This could be read as evidence of the very early date of the transmitted text, ḥabaṭan being present in nearly all of the other redactions signifying "through swelling"; according to al-Qasṭallānī, it is an illness from which camels perish.
What impressed al-Bāqillānī was probably the use of the verb alamma in the sense of "to be on the brink of carrying out something".
As for the term al-rabī', which we have translated as "the field, al-Qasṭallānī and al-Sindī state that it refers to a stream of water, although there is nothing to negate the interpretation offered in our translation.
9. Illāa ākilat al-khaḍir is glossed as the exceptive clause known as istithnā' mufarragh.7 Indicated as well is the reading alā, which is glossed as an exhortative particle.
Alongside khaḍir there exist such variants as khuḍar, khiḍr, khaḍira, khuḍra, and khaḍrā' as well. Several commentaries, in particular the Nihāya, insist on the fact that the greenery in question (buqūl) does not belong to the "fresh and abundant" plants that appear after the rain, but rather are of the kind of plant that livestock eat after it has [14] dried up and that the bedouin also call janaba. The expression refers as well to an animal that is moderate in appetite. None of the commentaries specifies the kind of animal in question; they apparently have in mind camels, cattle and sheep (dābba, māshiya, bahīmat al-an'ām).
Thalaṭa is said for the kind of excrement that emerges easily in the form of a thin substance.
Sections 10 and 11 do not contain any particular difficulties for the commentators apart from the testimony of evil conduct on the Day of Judgement, which is interpreted in diverse fashion.
* * *
The five redactions in question here each has the same series of five respected traditionists in the oldest section of their isnāds. As already mentioned above, the earliest authority is al-Khudrī. Following him comes, first, 'Atā' ibn Yasār, a mawlā of Maymūna, the last wife of the Prophet, who died at an advanced age around 720,8 then Hilāl ibn Maymūna, the son of Maymūna by one of her previous husbands, also named Hilāl ibn 'Alī ibn Usāma (according to al-Qasṭallānī, he belonged to the ṣighār al-tābi'īn; he does not appear in the edition of Ibn Sa'd's Ṭabaqāt),9 then Yaḥyā ibn Abī Kathīr, a mawlā of the Ṭayy, who lived in al-Baṣra and died in 746,10 and finally, Hishām ibn Abī'Abd Allāh al-Dastawā'ī, who also lived in al-Baṣra, where he sold fabrics imported from Dastawā, a place in Fars. He died in 769.11 Given the residence of the final two authorities, this first group of five redactions can be designated as the BAṢRAN GROUP.
The other seven redactions can be divided into three groups on the basis of evidence contained in the texts. All have in common, however, that, in Section 7 the Prophet says: "good cannot bring about anything other than good" (lā ya'tī l-khayru illā bi-l-khayr), which is a decidedly more precise and striking form of expression and may have been an earlier formulation. As for the remaining material, Sections 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, and, in particular, 9, contain, despite variants in wording that allow one to distinguish between the groupings, the same basic content.
Redactions B and L appear to belong together as much on the basis of their text as their isnād. As the earliest authorities they provide the first three individuals of the isnād of the first group. Following them appears Fulayḥ ibn Sulaymān, an inhabitant of Medina who died around [15] 760,12 which creates an unlikely chronological distance between him and Hilāl.13 We have designated this grouping as the FIRST MEDINAN GROUP.
As for the text, we only possess that of B in its entirety because the edition of Ibn Ḥanbal only provides a few phrases from L; nonetheless, these appear to indicate a close resemblance with B, as shown also by the isnād. The most telling differences between B (for which the text in the Krehl edition has several omissions) and the first group are as follows. In Section 4 the text says: "Following his words the Prophet fell silent. We said: 'He is receiving a revelation'. And the people remained still as if they had birds perched upon their heads." This curious phrase is explained by al-Qasṭallānī, who says that they behaved like people who, wishing to capture the birds, remained still out of fear that they would fly away. No other redaction contains this detail. Section 6 says: "The Prophet said: 'Where is the questioner? Is he [or: it], in fact, good?', three times". This probably is meant to indicate that these final words were repeated three times. It must be that there is some confusion at this point in the text. The words: "Is he [or: it], in fact, good?", appear as well in the fourth (Egyptian) group but, in this case, after Section 7, where it seems more likely that they occur in their proper place. In the third group it is precisely the statement of Section 7 that is repeated three times, which is also more in keeping with the meaning.
The redactions of the third group (C, E, I), though somewhat divergent, share certain textual particularities, such as in Section 2 in which the Prophet employs a superlative when he states: "That about which I fear the most for you are the blessings (barakāt) of the earth and the splendor of the world that God has produced on your behalf'. More characteristic, however, is that redactions E and I have the Prophet repeat three times the assertion of Section 7: "Good cannot bring about anything other than good". This kind of repetition is a well-known aspect of the Prophet's preaching; it is pointed out clearly in the tradition: "When he uttered a word, he would repeat it three times so that one learned it clearly from him".14 Redaction C does not contain the same tripling, but its absence is by no means extraordinary in a text of this genre. It appears even probable that the repetition of the [16] words in Section 7 is an element particular to the earliest redaction of our tradition.
Section 9 occurs also in its entirety in C, E, and I with a single small textual variant at the end, which is significant because it occurs as well in the fourth group, that is to say: thumma 'ādat wa-akalat ("then she resumed eating"), in place of thumma rata'at. The third and fourth groups are alike as well in that the verb ijtarrat ("she ruminated") is added to the actions of the "she-eater of grass".
Sections 10 and 11 are more concise than in the first group. Here, Section 10 reads: "Now, this wealth is soft grass. One who takes of it according to his right and deposits it where it rightfully belongs is a fine [source] of succour (ma'ūna). And Section 11: "But one who takes of it unrightfully is like he who eats without satiety". We would point out again that in E, Sections 4, 5, and 6 are absent.
The evidence from the isnād of the third group is disconcerting. C and E have, as the earliest authorities after al-Khudrī. 'Aṭā' ibn Yasār, who also figures in the two preceding groups, then Zayd ibn Aslam (d. 753-54),15 then Mālik ibn Anas (d. 795). Redaction I, by contrast, has, after al-Khudrī, 'Iyād ibn 'Abd Allāh. This figure appears in the fourth group, but the rest of the isnād of I is different. Ibn 'Ajlān occurs first, then Sufyān, both of whom are difficult to trace.16 One is tempted to think that the isnād of I is suspect. The text of I also contains several irregularities in its arrangement, which would seem to confirm that this redaction lacks the authenticity of the other redactions. It is true that the text of I indicates several points of contact with the fourth group, but the evidence of this text joins it more closely to the third group, that is, the SECOND MEDINAN GROUP.
Finally, the fourth group, represented by redactions D and H, possesses a clearly Egyptian isnād. Following al-Khudrī is 'Iyād Ibn 'Abd Allāh ibn Sa'd ibn Abī l-Sarḥ al-Fihrī, who also figures in the isnād of I. He is the son of the second governor of Egypt, who died in 657. The year of 'Iyād's death is not provided by Ibn Sa'd.17 Listed next is Sa'īd ibn Abī Sa'īd al-Maqburī, for whom Ibn Sa'd provides an extremely brief notice,18 and, finally, the famous Egyptian traditionist and jurist al-Layth ibn Sa'd (d. ca. 780).19
[17] The form of the text of the two redactions of this EGYPTIAN GROUP resembles somewhat that of the First Medinan Group (B, L). In Section 4, it states that the Prophet fell silent "for one hour" after having heard the question. The matter of a revelation then does not arise, and Section 5 is missing. More characteristic still is that following the utterance of Section 7 the Prophet says again: "Is he [or: it], in fact, good?", words that we have already encountered in redaction B, but, in this case, prior to Section 7. Sections 9-11, in sum, have nearly the same text as the Second Medinan Group along with several particularities that belong to I.
The evidence of the text of the Egyptian Group thus allows one to assign it to an intermediary position between the First and Second Medinan Groups, which proves its very early provenance.
One can group the redactions of our tradition in the following fashion:
To justify the effort at philological archeology to which we have subjected our tradition we would draw attention to two points, the first of which concerns the issue of knowing whether good can engender evil (Section 7), while the second has to do with the phrase "the she-eater of grass" (Section 9).
The question "can good bring about evil?" does not strike one as very Islamic or, in any case, as clearly orthodox from an Islamic point of view. In the theological literature, it is relatively rare to find the terms "good" (khayr) and "evil" (sharr) used as abstract concepts. Rather, in Islam, the terms take on a material sense, understood from a human standpoint, of either utility or harm. The commentaries on our tradition themselves provide a number of examples.
It is above all when good is referenced in relation to God who, in His omnipotence, can effect all that He wishes, that [18] the theologians strive to prove that good is but an aspect of divine activity. Al-Bayḍāwī, in his commentary on Sūrat Āl 'Imrān (3), v. 26 (25), in which it is stated, in reference to God, bi-yadika al-khayr ["in Thy hand is the good"], explains that the term "good" is used here on its own because good is enacted by God as essential, and evil as accidental, since evil is always "particular" and good "universal". We have already seen how al-Qasṭallānī, in commenting on Section 7 of our tradition, says that it signifies that that which God had decided was good was good, and that which He wished to be evil was evil.
During the heyday of the Mu'tazila, it was a different situation still. One debated abstract concepts and their relation with the Divine. Only the tension between good and evil was not a primary concern of intellects in the polemic between rationalists and Islamic orthodoxy. As one knows, it was principally in reference to divine justice that rational views were put forward. Rather it is in the debates of an earlier period that were conducted around Mu'tazilism during the ninth century that the question of good and evil is more in evidence. This was the period in which the Mu'tazilīs were still grappling with the dualist doctrines propagated by the Manichaeans.
For Manichaeism, good and evil are two cosmological elements, connected with the doctrine of a world of light and a world of darkness, both of which are eternal, but find themselves in a state of temporal mingling. The eternal nature and invariability of light, and of darkness, also describe good and evil. Curiously, the idea of a connection between light and good, and between darkness and evil, is treated nowhere in the well-known account of Manichaeism by the author of the Fihrist.20 Al-Jāḥiẓ, among other sources of the ninth century, also makes no mention of their views on good and evil.21 Only al-Ya'qūbī, in his account of Sasanian history in the first part of his historiographic work, provides a sketch of Mānī and his doctrine in which mention is made of the two moral principles.22 He has Mānī say: "That which exists of good and benefit (manfa'a, Islamic interpretation) emanates from light, and that which exists of evil and calamity comes from darkness". And a bit [19] later: "From that from which good derives, evil cannot emanate, and of that from which evil comes, good cannot arise".23 Here the question is formulated in nearly the same manner as the Prophet's statement in the tradition that concerns us here.
The Kitāb al-intiṣār of al-Khayyāṭ indicates that the same question troubled the Mu'tazila. It contains a passage in which the author defends the Mu'tazilī al-Naẓẓām against the accusation set forth by Ibn al-Rāwandī that, despite his apparent refutation of Manichaean doctrine, he claims that two contradictory actions cannot emanate from a single principle. Al-Khayyāṭ demonstrates that this last opinion of al-Naẓẓām's is nothing other than a theory of physics according to which, for example, fire could effect no other activity than to warm and ice no other than to chill. And he describes precisely how al-Naẓẓāam, using a subtle dialectic, obliged the Manichaeens to admit that:
From a single agent two opposing matters can emanate: that is, good and evil, sincerity and falsehood. Therein lies the destruction (hadm) of the doctrine of the eternity of two principles, of which one is good, the other evil. This is a well-known problem (mas'ala mashhūra).24
One also encounters, in several other sections of the Kitāb al-intiṣār, allusions to this Manichaean doctrine and its refutation by the Mu'tazila.25
Equally, one finds in the polemic of al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm against Ibn al-Muqaffa', published by Guidi, an argument intended to prove that light does not always produce good and that darkness does not always produce evil.26
In the texts cited above, the question is not posed quite in the same manner as that of the tradition of the "she-eater of grass". Here the formulation takes on a popular naïveté that has not yet been elevated to the level of theology. One understands that questions of this kind have troubled the intellects of pious men, even if they have not yet been trained in more abstract forms of reasoning. It is precisely for this reason that the words of the Prophet: "Good cannot bring about anything other than good", as a response to a question pertaining to it, can be easily associated with the spiritual ambiance [20] of his surroundings. This would be a reason to accept that the tradition in question is indeed quite old and dates to the earliest period of Islam. It bears no mark of propaganda or polemic. But it is also quite probable that, in this setting, one had a vague perception of Manichaean, or more generally, Gnostic ideas that sprang from the vexing problem of how evil entered the world. It was a problem for which the Prophet here provides a casual opinion, albeit one that later would be emphatically ignored by orthodox theology.
That the problem, posed as it is by the questioner in the tradition, survived in its popular formulation is evinced by a quatrain from 'Umar al-Khayyām:
One says that arguments will flair on the Day of Resurrection,
And that this Exalted Friend will grow violent.
Of pure good nothing can spring other than goodness.
Be joyful, the end of things will be kind.27
In the Persian world of the eleventh century, however, religious ideas of pre-Islam were preserved with greater tenacity.
The second point concerns the curious phrase: "the she-eater of grass". Stylistically, it is very unlike Arabic if it is to be read as a vaguely poetic paraphrase used to describe a particular animal. In the literary tradition of several Indo-European language groups, such as the Arian languages, Greek and Germanic, the usage of compound adjectives functioning as substantives used to describe the object designated by the substantive that they modify is very common. In the Iranian of the Avesta, this type of compound is well-known, and equally, in Persian, compound adjectives are so numerous that it would be superfluous to cite examples. Thus ākilat al-khaḍir in all likelihood is a translation of an expression such as sabz-khwār. In this case, one thinks immediately of the bovine species, which would be intelligible in a [21] circle of Iranians or Iraqis, but decidedly not for the civilisation of the Arab steppe, where the camel would serve more appropriately as a model for parables and comparisons. Curiously, the type of animal is not specified by a single commentary (see above). We have observed that several redactions (C, E, D, H) add, in Section 9, that the she-eater of grass "ruminates" after having eaten. This can apply to camels as well, although it is highly improbable that the camel, for all that it is a herbivore and ruminant, would be called a "she-eater of grass".
We have seen that several commentators, notably Ibn al-Athīr in the Nihāya, conceive of the phrase in an entirely different manner.28 He stresses the term al-khaḍir, which denotes a type of stunted and withered grass. Manifest in this explanation is an Arabic sense of style and, at the same time, the need to provide the phrase with an acceptable meaning. One might ask, however, whether this explanation of al-khaḍir was created for the need at hand, not least because it is passed over in the lexicographical sources.29 Most of the other commentaries, moreover, do not include Ibn al-Athīr's solution.
Furthermore, one can point out that Section 9, and that which comes after it, mark a rather abrupt and illogical transition, one that is barely concealed by the conjunction illā. In addition, the syntactic thrust of illā is sharply debated in some of the commentaries. It is as if the three final paragraphs were added later to the original tradition for which a perfectly acceptable ending is provided by Section 8.
Returning to the tradition in the form that we now possess, we would propose the following conclusions regarding its origins and history.
The point of departure is the debate surrounding the question of knowing whether evil, or bad things, can give rise to good. It is very possible that the Prophet himself voiced an opinion on this eminently practical problem. The very early date of the Prophet's statement is corroborated by the antiquity of the isnāds, which prove that there were different lines of tradition in Medina, Egypt and Iraq, all traceable back to al-Khudrī. We can suppose that the preaching in Section 2 belongs to the original version. The details concerning the Prophet's troubled silence and the [22] indications of a revelation may have already been a later embellishment. One of the redactions (E) omits these entirely and other redactions are considerably less detailed than those of the Iraqi group.
By contrast, Sections 9-11, which begin by introducing the "she-eater of grass" and her conduct, following by the exhortatory passages on the correct attitude of the pious, may have been added later in Iraq, a conclusion that is evinced by the uniformity of the text in the Baṣran redactions. They must have been added even later to the non-Iraqi redactions that are, at least in Sections 10 and 11, less uniform. Only Section 9, which is, at once, the most characteristic and the least susceptible to an arbitrary alteration, retained more or less its original form throughout. The work of integrating elements of the oldest version of the tradition and its accretions may have been carried out by the compilers of traditions in the first 'Abbāsid century.
1The editions used in this study are: al-Bukhārī, Kitāb al-jāmi' al-ṣaḥīḥ, ed. Ludolf Krehl and Theodoor W. Juynboll (Leiden, 1862-1908); al-Qasṭallānī, Irshād al-sārī ilā sharḥ Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī (Cairo, AH 1288); Muslim, Kitāb al-jāmi' al-ṣaḥīḥ, bi-sharḥ al-Nawawī (Cairo, AH 1283); al-Nasā'ī, Sunan, bi-sharḥ al-Suyūṭī wa-l-Sindī (Cairo, AH 1348); Ibn Māja, Sunan, bi-sharḥ al-Sindī (Cairo, AH 1349); Ibn Ḥanbal, Musnad (Cairo, AH 1313).
2Ibn Ḥajar, Al-Iṣāba fī tamyīz al-ṣaḥāba (Calcutta, 1856-1888), II, 166, no. 4088.
3Ibn al-Athīr, Al-Nihāya fī gharīb al-ḥadīth wa-l-athar (Cairo, AH 1311), 299.
4 Al-Qasṭallānī, Irshād, IX, 270.
5 Ibid., III, 60.
6 Al-Bāqillānī, I'jāz al-Qur'ān (Cairo, AH 1349), 70.
7 See William Wright, A Grammar of the Arabic Language, II (Cambridge, 1898), 336.
8 Ibn Sa'd, Kitāb al-ṭabaqāt al-kabīr, ed. Eduard Sachau et al. (Leiden, 1904-40), V, 129.
9 [The name is mostly given as Hilāl ibn Abī Maymūna (see, e.g., Muslim's Ṣaḥiḥ, no. 2470 according to the edition of the Thesaurus Islamicus Foundation, Vaduz 2000; in other editions it is ḥadīth no. 3 in kitāb al-zakāt [no. 12], bāb takhawwuf mā yakhruj min zahrat al-dunyā [no. 41]). According to Ibn Ḥajar, Tahdhīb al-tahdhīb (Hyderabad, AH 1327), XI, 82, he was a mawlā of the tribe al-'Āmir and died around 724. This information is inconsistent with the claim that he was a son of Maymūna, the wife of the Prophet. Ibn Ḥajar does not mention this claim. H.M.].
10 Ibn Sa'd, V, 404.
11 See Yāqūt, Mu'jam al-buldān, ed. Ferdinand Wüstenfeld (Leipzig, 1866-73), II, 574.
12 Ibn Sa'd, V, 307.
13 [The distance is 36 years. H.M.].
14 Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, I, 36; also see A.J. Wensinck et al., Concordance et indices de la tradition musulmane (Leiden, 1936-88), s.v. thalāth, I, 297.
15 Ibn Ḥajar, Iṣāba, no. 9365.
16 [For Muḥammad ibn 'Ajlān, who died 148/765 or 149/766, see Ibn Ḥajar, Tahdhīb, IX, 341-42; oil Sufyān ibn 'Uyayna (d. 198/813-14) see ibid., IV, 117-22. A variant of version I is also found in al-Ḥumaydī, Musnad (Beirut, 1409/1988), II, 325-26. H.M.].
17 Ibn Sa'd, V, 180. [According to Ibn Ḥajar's Taqrīb he died at the beginning of the year 100/719; see the note in Ibn Ḥajar, Tahdhīb, VIII, 201. H.M.].
18 Ibn Sa'd, V, 198.
19 See inter alia Ibn Khailikān, Wafayāt al-a'yān wa-anbā' abnā' al-zamān (Būlāq, AH 1299), no. 559.
20 See Gustav Flügel, Mani, seine Lehre und Schriften (Leipzig, 1862).
21 Konrad Kessler, Mani. Forschungen über die manichäische Religion (Berlin, 1889), 365-69.
22 Al-Ya'qūbī, Ta'rīkh. Historiae, ed. Martijn Theodoor Houtsma (Leiden, 1883), I, 180.
23 See also Kessler, Mani, 327-28.
24 'Abd al-Raḥīm ibn Muḥammad al-Khayyāṭ, Kitāb al-intiṣār wa-l-radd 'alā Ibn al-Rāwandī, ed. Henrik Samuel Nyberg (Cairo, 1344/1925), 30-31.
25 Ibid., 48, 50.
26 Michelangelo Guidi, La Lotta tra l'Islam e il Manicheismo (Rome, 1927), 7-8.
27 'Umar al-Khayyām, Rubā'īyāt (Calcutta 1252/1836), no. 147; The Quatrains of Omar Khayyām, trans. Edward Henry Whinfield, 2nd rev. ed. (London, 1893), no. 193.
28 Ibn al-Athīr, Nihāya, 299, s.v. al-khaḍir.
29 E.g., it does not appear in Georg Wilhelm Freytag, Lexicon Arabico-Latinum (Halle, 1830-37).