MUSLIMS use the term ḥadīth (literally: "report") to denote, on the one hand, a tradition about the prophet Muḥammad or one of his Companions (the ṣaḥāba, sing, ṣaḥābī),¹ and on the other, the whole corpus or the genre of such traditions.² A complete ḥadīth consists of a text (matn) and information about its path of transmission (isnād, literally: "support"), i.e. a chain of transmitters through which the report is traced back to an eyewitness or at least to an earlier authority. The form of ḥadīth is also typical for reports about persons who lived later than the Companions, and the questions that arise in connection with the Ḥadīth apply also to them.

The contents of ḥadīths are diverse. They report historical events in the life of the Prophet, the first caliphs or other Companions; they also provide information about, opinions or actions concerning issues of belief, ritual, law, ethics, the Qur'ān and its interpretation, and so on. Therefore, ḥadīths are not only found in the so-called ḥadīth collections, but also in compilations devoted to the life of the prophet Muḥammad (sīra and maghāzī literature), in accounts of early Islamic history, in works on the exegesis of the Qur'ān, in juridical treatises, and in biographical dictionaries. Since the last-mentioned topics are dealt with elsewhere in this series, this volume will focus only on research on Ḥadīth in general. Yet the boundary is artificial, since studies on Ḥadīth, even Sf they purport to be general, are often based on a specific type of tradition.

The choice of the articles in this volume was made several years ago, and in the interim six articles have had to be translated³ and the entire work edited, printed and indexed. It was thus not possible to include very recent articles that might have fitted into this collection. The idea guiding the choice of articles was, first, to collect studies of interest from a methodological perspective and, second, to provide an overview of the development of ḥadīth research published by scholars trained in the Western academic tradition.4

Origins and Transmission of the Ḥadīth

THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN ḤADĪTH STUDIES

What the Ḥadīth is, how it was transmitted, and who the most important transmitters and authors of collections were, was known in Europe by the seventeenth century at the latest.⁵ Even so, the genuine scholarly study of this subject began only in the nineteenth century. A prerequisite was the blossoming of the study of history in general and the growing interest in other cultures encouraged by the colonial expansion of the European powers. Interest in Muslim religious literature was further stimulated in the nineteenth century by developments in Christian theology, the appearance of historical-critical studies on the life of Jesus, and the rise of a source-critical approach to Bible studies.

It was thus no coincidence that the first studies of Ḥadīth were written by scholars who were concerned first of all with the project of a historical critical biography of the prophet Muḥammad. They realised that next to the Qur'ān, the Tradition was the most important source for the life of the Prophet and the history of early Islam.⁶ This finding compelled them to investigate the historical reliability of this source, and in this they were followed by scholars who were interested in the religious and legal ideas and institutions of early Islam and who also realized the importance of the ḥadīth for these issues.

The first decisive Western studies on Ḥadīth, which were all published in the third quarter of the nineteenth century, described their subject more or less as follows. It was only natural that the person, words and deeds of the Prophet and founder of the new religion were central topics of conversation already during his lifetime. This custom continued and even intensified after his death, not only because of fascination and respect for the departed but above all because the Qur'ān proved to be insufficient as a source of guid ance for the practical life of the community as it spread beyond the confines of Arabia. The gap was filled by referring to the Prophet's decisions and example, his sunna ("habit").7 Muslims therefore tried to gather all the information about their Prophet that they could find; where required, they invented precedents and ascribed them to him.⁸ Semi-professional storytellers also contributed to the considerable stock of ḥadīths that were already circulating in the first Islamic century. The content of the traditions was mostly preserved by memory and transmitted orally. Nevertheless, already during the Prophet's lifetime, and then after his death, a few persons wrote ḥadīths down and preserved them in this form, although there was a marked opposition against this practice. At the end of the first/seventh century, initiatives of the caliphs and personal motives induced professional transmitters to collect a large part of the ḥadīths then available and write them down. These scholars passed the content of their collections on to their students, mostly in the form of lectures. The pupils took notes based on these lectures and later passed this material on to their own students. In this manner the compilations of the most important collectors were preserved, but unfortunately, no remains of the actual collections made before the middle of the second/eighth century have survived to the present day.⁹ In the course of the following centuries the stock of ḥadīths grew through collection and fabrication and found expression in more and more voluminous compilations.¹⁰

In view of this system of transmission, which was essentially oral, though partly supported by written notes, the opinion of the first Western scholars concerning the historical reliability of the Ḥadīth was ambivalent. On the one hand, they accepted as genuine part of the traditions of the Prophet (e.g. those that were generally recognized by Muslim scholars because of their impeccable isnāds) as well as several reports about his Companions and other individuals of the first/seventh century and the beginning of the second/eighth (e.g. those relating their views on the issue of writing down ḥadīths or about their notes and notebooks), although it was conceded that these may have been somewhat, distorted during the transmission process.11 On the other hand, Western scholars assumed that the vast majority of ḥadīths circulating in the third/ninth century and growing even thereafter comprised the results of invention and forgery.¹² According to the opinion of these scholars, two factors contributed to the distortion and falsification of traditions:

It was not exclusively through their own critical examination of the sources that the first Western scholars came to realise that the corpus of Muslim Ḥadīth that had emerged by the beginning of the third/ninth century was a conglomeration of genuine, distorted and forged traditions. They based themselves also on the views of the early Muslim ḥadīth critics, who had themselves already investigated the problem of the reliability of the ḥadīths and had developed their own methods for distinguishing genuine traditions from distorted and fictitious ones. Yet this ḥadīth criticism exclusively comprised, according to the impression that Western scholars had, examination of the chains of transmission (isnāds) and the transmitters mentioned in them, and did not investigate the internal evidence provided by the texts themselves (the matns). A few Western authors expressed their admiration for the Muslim scholars' accomplishments in this respect,¹⁵ but all were convinced that Muslim ḥadīth criticism had not been sufficiently rigorous and had only resulted in collections containing ḥadīths of varying degrees of reliability. If the invention of ḥadīths began shortly after the death of the Prophet, as was assumed, then it was not possible to sort out the fabricated ones merely by checking whether the isnāds were "unbroken" and whether the transmitters were trustworthy. Moreover, both the collective immunity of the Prophets' Companions from criticism and the renunciation of a rationalist investigation—i.e. one that would have analysed the content of traditions in isolation from considerations of religious dogma—thwarted the emergence of an effective method of ḥadīth criticism.16 Consequently, the first Western ḥadīth scholars estimated the number of genuine ḥadīths contained in the so-called "authentic collections" as much lower than Muslim scholars did: half of them at most (Weil, Muir, Dozy) or even just a few hundred (von Kremer).¹⁷ They thus declared it the task of modern ḥadīth criticism to filter the few genuine traditions from the thousands of fabricated ones,¹⁸ though most did not pursue this point and propose a method by which this end could be achieved.¹⁹

In the pioneering Western studies published between 1850 and 1875, the main questions that have occupied modern research up to the present day were thus already raised: When, how and why had this type of tradition arisen? How had it been transmitted? How reliable are the ḥadīths? To what extent and in what ways can they be used as sources in modern historical-critical scholarship? What methods allow one to distinguish genuine traditions from distorted ones and later fabrications? All these questions are of course interrelated, but for the sake of clarity the different issues will be dealt with separately here.

ORIGIN AND HISTORICITY

To what extent can the ḥadīth be used as a historical source? Muir's opinion is representative of the view that prevailed among the earliest Western ḥadīth scholars:

At the end of the nineteenth century this critical yet optimistic opinion gave way to a greater scepticism. Scholars who were mainly studying the legal Ḥadīth questioned its authenticity more radically and consequently developed other views on its origins and development.

In his comprehensive study "Ueber die Entwickelung des ḥadîth", written in 1890, Ignaz Goldziher also assumed, it is true, that reporting about the Prophet had already begun during the latter's lifetime and that the Companions supplied a basic stock of traditions that was enriched by following generations. But Goldziher doubted that it was possible to make secure judgments about this "original earliest stock of the ḥadīth".²² He concluded that the ḥadīth could not be used as a historical source "for the history of Islam's childhood", i.e. the time of the Prophet and the Companions, but only for the following stages of development that had actually generated the bulk of the Ḥadīth.²³ The aims of Goldziher's study were, therefore, completely different from that of the scholars who tried to reconstruct the historical life of the Prophet. He was looking for the forgeries, not the genuine traditions, or to put it more generally, he was interested in the ḥadīths that reflected the problems of the post-prophetic era of Islam.²⁴ Traditions served him as historical sources not for the times about which these traditions pretended to report, but rather for—and only for—the later times in which these materials originated.

The different reception of Goldziher's studies was not least the consequence of contradictions inherent to his work. On the one hand, he claimed that it was not possible to say anything certain about the original stock of ḥadīths being reported from the Prophet and the Companions, and that the bulk of traditions ascribed to them was merely the result of the religious, social and political developments that characterised the first two Islamic centuries. This could be interpreted as expression of a general scepticism towards the ḥadīth. On the other hand, Goldziher's proof that a number of ḥadīths were not genuine and rather reflected later developments within Islamic society does not sustain the conclusion that this is true for all ḥadīths.³⁰ Furthermore, if secure judgements about the original stock of ḥadīths are not possible,³¹ then the only traditions a scholar could use as historical sources would be those that could be proven to be later fabrications, e.g. by showing that they were anachronistic. But what then was one to do with the indefinite but certainly large number of traditions that could not clearly be identified as forgeries? Is it reasonable to generalise and consider these to be later fabrications as well? Since Goldziher assumed that the available sources contain both early (genuine) and later (fabricated) traditions, his argument led to the historically invalid conclusion that all early traditions would necessarily be classified as later, simply because his method did not allow for their identification as early. It could be concluded from Goldziher's studies that: 1) the historian must do without the Ḥadīth as a source for the beginnings of Islam (the time of the Prophet and roughly the first century), and 2) for later times he could only use as sources those few traditions that were demonstrably late.32 This meant that the source material available for the early history of Islam was drastically decreased. Most scholars, above all the historically minded ones, were not prepared to go this far. In any case, Goldziher himself was inconsistent in his scepti cism. He avoided using ḥadīths for his presentation of the Prophet's life, it is true,³³ but he did not hesitate to accept as historically true reports concerning the Companions and other individuals of the following two or three generations.³⁴ The difficulty here was that while he argued that in the case of the Prophet's time it was impossible to distinguish genuine from fictitious reports, when it came to the later period he did not explain what new criteria now made it possible to draw such distinctions.

Goldziher's studies on the Ḥadīth had the consequence that scholars dealt with Muslim Tradition, at least with the legal material, more critically and cautiously. The extreme interpretation that considered the Ḥadīth as a whole only as a product of later developments did not find much favour, especially not with the scholars interested in the religious history of early Islam. A few scholars like Johann Fueck even explicitly rejected Goldziher's scepticism. A translation of one of Fueck's studies that illustrates his reservations is included here (Chapter 1).³⁵ The article is at the same time a good summary of the less sceptical approach to the Muslim sources.

Radical scepticism was not given new impetus until 60 years after Goldziher's seminal study of the Ḥadīth had been published. In the mid-twentieth century Joseph Schacht advocated in several publications the thesis that none of the corpus of traditions from the Prophet and the Companions is genuine. In his first article devoted to the issue (Chapter 2), he wrote: "We must ... abandon the gratuitous assumptions that there existed originally an authentic core of information going back to the time of the Prophet".36 In his groundbreaking study The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence, which was to exert an enormous influence on subsequent work, he pursued this argument at greater length: "The first considerable body of legal traditions from the Prophet originated towards the middle of the second century AH, in opposition to slightly earlier traditions from Companions and other author ities"; "a great many traditions in the classical and other collections were put into circulation only after Shāfi'ī's time",³⁷ i.e. during the third/ninth century. With these claims Schacht clearly went beyond Goldziher's position.

Schacht's theses were based on two pillars: first, an investigation of the role that traditions from the Prophet and the Companions played in the theory and practice of legal scholars during the second/eighth century, and second, an examination of the growth of legal traditions. According to the first part of his argument, in every early centre of legal scholarship there emerged a common legal doctrine that was not yet exclusively embodied in traditions from the Prophet,³⁸ but was based to a great extent on individual reasoning, which in a secondary stage was put "under the aegis of Companions".³⁹ This "living tradition" of the ancient schools of law was disturbed and influenced by ḥadīths from the Prophet, put into circulation by traditionists towards the middle of the second/eighth century. This lead to a strong opposition on the part of the ancient schools of law against this type of ḥadīth,⁴⁰ an opposition that weakened only gradually and was finally overcome thanks to the influence of the theory on the sources of law propounded by al-Shāfi'ī (d. 206/821-22).⁴¹ Schacht concluded from this development "that the traditions are, generally speaking, later"⁴² than the original doctrine of the early schools that came into being at the beginning of the second/ eighth century. In the second dimension of his argument, Schacht attempted to describe the development of legal traditions more precisely by comparing the stock of traditions on selected topics that are found in the earliest preserved legal works (second half of the second/ eighth century), the classical ḥadīth collections (second half of the third/ninth century) and later legal and ḥadīth compilations (fourth/tenth century and later). He came to the conclusion that the materials in these works reflected several successive stages of growth. He then postulated a similar process of growth for "the pre-literary period",43 i.e. the time before ca. 150/767, and claimed that the bulk of legal traditions from the Prophet known to Mālik (d. 179 /796), the alleged author of the first substantial collection of legal traditions, originated in the generation preceding him.⁴⁴ Therefore the rule must be:

The same is true for traditions from the Companions and to a great extent also for those of the Successors; fabrication of this type of tradition began slightly earlier.⁴⁶ Consequently, the first half of the second/eighth century must be considered as the time in which there originated the bulk of the legal traditions that are found in the first preserved collections dating from the second half of the second/eighth century, i.e. in the first stage of the literary period.⁴⁷ Many traditions not found earlier than the classical and postclassical works, however, were only created from the second half of the second/eighth century onwards.⁴⁸ According to Schacht, the results of his study of the legal ḥadīth are also valid for traditions in other spheres, e.g. theological or historical ones. He states for the sīra traditions: "A consid erable part of the standard biography of the Prophet ... as it appeared in the second half of the second century AH, was of very recent origin and is therefore without independent historical value".⁴⁹

The research of the post-Schachtian era can be divided into three categories according to the scholars' attitudes towards Schacht's views: 1) scholars who flatly rejected them, 2) those who followed him in the main points, and 3) those who tried to modify them.

The second group, the supporters of Schacht's theories, dismissed the argument of the first group as uncritical and their alleged evidence as unconvincing.⁵⁶ From the 1970s onwards several studies were published that took as their starting point Schacht's view that the ḥadīths of the Prophet and the Companions did not emerge before the second/eighth century and must be considered as fictitious. For them this was a proven fact that should no longer be doubted. This group followed the methodological principle that every ḥadīth and every tradition ascribed to Successors or later generations must be considered as fictitious until the contrary is proved.⁵⁷ Some researchers even refrained altogether from using the Ḥadīth as a historical source for early Islam because they were convinced that a compelling case for genuine ḥadīths could not be propososed.58

A third group consisted of scholars who accepted some but not all of Schacht's opinions concerning Ḥadīth, and who sought to moderate points that they considered too extreme or too generalized. Among them two different approaches can be distinguished. 1) Some scholars drew a distinction between the content and form of the traditions. They agreed with Schacht that many ḥadīths in the form in which they are found in the written collections are late, but they rejected the claim that there were no traditions from the Prophet and the Companions at all during the first/seventh century. To this subgroup Noel Coulson, G.H.A. Juynboll, John Burton, and David Powers can be assigned. 2) Others attempted to use some of Schacht's methods to check his results. They developed his source-critical approach further with the aim of dating ḥadīths more precisely and of examining whether there were really no ḥadīth in the first/seventh century. To this subgroup belong among others Josef van Ess, Gregor Schoeler and Harald Motzki.

The views of some of the two subgroups' representatives will be shortly presented. In his article "A Tentative Chronology of the Origins of Muslim Tradition",⁵⁹ Juynboll returned to the pre-Schachtian view, that the beginnings of Ḥadīth originate in the time of the Prophet.⁶⁰ He assumed that at first storytellers ( quṣṣāṣ) motivated by pious concerns spread edifying tales about the life and virtues (faḍā'il) of Muḥammad and the first Muslims. It was only about the end of the first/seventh century—not before the 670s or 80s—that more formal and standardized transmission began. Juynboll derived this hypothesis from biographical traditions about the origin of the isnād, the beginnings of transmission criticism, and the introduction of Ḥadīth in certain regions.⁶¹ That means that J uynboll, like Goldziher but in contrast to Schacht, was convinced that formal ḥadīths from the Prophet were circulated already in the last two decades of the first/seventh century. Because of the late standardization of the transmission, however, he agreed with Goldziher in doubting that, apart from exceptional cases, it would be possible to identify genuine ḥadīths of the Prophet.⁶² Juynboll followed Schacht in claiming that there were no legal traditions (ḥalāl wa-ḥarāam ḥadīths) in the first/seventh century.63 Ḥadīths of this kind originated only from the juridical opinions of legally minded Successors, i.e. during the second/eighth century, and lacked any direct connection with the Prophet.⁶⁴ On the other hand, in contrast to Schacht he stated that the traditions about the legal judgements of Companions and Successors, even if many of them were only ascribed to them later, must not be dismissed wholesale as ahistorical.⁶⁵ According to Juynboll, the time and place of origin of a ḥadīth can be determined by examining its chains of transmission, but in most cases this proved to establish transmission not further back than the generation of the Successors, i.e. the last two decades of the first/seventh century.⁶⁶

Burton advocated the thesis that a large part of the Islamic sunna originated from exegesis of the Qur'ān. Viewing the ḥadīth texts as rather academic exercises, he argued that they do not refer to the actual historical practice of the Prophet and his Companions and are in this sense not genuine. Yet in so far as the ḥadīths reflect discussions that have their starting point in the Qur'ān, and because the first participants in these discourses based themselves on raw material from the time of the Prophet and his Companions, they have roots in their time.⁶⁷

The scholars of this subgroup have rejected both the claim of the sceptics that the Ḥadīth must be considered as fictitious until the contrary is proven, and that of their opponents, who have argued for the contrary. They have avoided general statements about the historical reliability of the Ḥadīth and have postponed judgements about individual ḥadīths until they have examined them.⁷¹ It has been their opinion that many more ḥadīths and ḥadīth collections need to be source-critically analysed before judgements of a more general character about the origin of certain parts of the Ḥadīth can be proposed.72 The methods of these two subgroups will be described later on.⁷³

MEANS OF PRESERVATION AND TRANSMISSION

In discussions about the origin and historical reliability of the ḥadīth, it has been debated how long ḥadīths were orally transmitted and at what point they were preserved in writing. The importance of the issue is evident, since during the process of transmission every tradition is exposed to the danger of change. Oral transmission is particularly delicate, and the longer the oral transmission process continues the greater is the probability that the original information will become distorted, unless there are techniques and methods for receiving information and passing it on. Because setting down the information in a written form eliminates a dangerous weakness of oral transmission, i.e. the human memory, writing can contribute considerably to the more accurate preservation of the information. On the other hand, written transmission does not completely prevent changes. Mistakes in reading or copying, negligence in preserving the text, or conscious tampering with it cannot be excluded.

In the 1960s several scholars, above all Muslim researchers, tried to invalidate the common Western proposition of a long period of mainly oral Ḥadīth transmission. They collected a great number of reports from the sources that speak of writing down Ḥadīths in the first/seventh century and of written collections made in the second/eighth century. They also unearthed fragments of old manuscripts of such collections, or argued that these early collections could be reconstructed from later compilations on the basis of their chains of transmission (isnāds, riwāyas).⁷⁸ These scholars sought to relativise the traditions speaking of an interdiction or aversion to writing down Ḥadīths, or emphasizing that certain well-known persons did not possess books or did not use them in public. They countered the view of a centuries-long oral transmission with the idea that the Muslims very early and continuously used to write down Ḥadīths and traditions in general.

The advocates of the "oral theory" reacted with studies showing the differences between the several variants that are preserved from early compilations. They argued that this fact contradicts the idea of written transmission and makes a reconstruction of the original texts impossible.⁷⁹

The divergences between the variant transmissions of a work ascribed to an early author cannot be explained, therefore, by simply assuming an oral transmission, but by this combined manner of written and oral/aural transmission and by the liberties that students took when passing on the material received from their teachers, such as abbreviating, combining or even changing texts.⁸¹ The discussion that developed during the first two centuries of Islam over whether or not it was permissible to write down ḥadīths was probably of minor importance for the real practice of transmission.⁸² Schoeler's most important contribution to the discussion of this point in the field of ḥadīth is translated in Chapter 5.

NON-SUNNĪ ḤADĪTH

Most Western scholars had a rather low opinion of Muslim ḥadīth criticism because they thought that it focused almost exclusively on the isnāds and neglected the texts of traditions.⁹⁰ In contrast, they considered the isnād to be historically unreliable.91 This judgement was not so much based on a thorough examination of the isnāds or the principles of Muslim ḥadīth criticism, but on the realization that there were ḥadīths that were obviously anachronistic or tendentious and could therefore be identified as not genuine; these were nevertheless found in the canonical collections regarded in Muslim scholarship as the culminating products of ḥadīth criticism. That is, they provoked no objections among Muslim ḥadīth critics because their isnāds were deemed to be trustworthy. This phenomenon led Western scholars to the conclusion that the isnād system was generally doubtful and that ḥadīth criticism based on examination of isnāds would not be able to detect false traditions.⁹² This conclusion was in harmony with Goldziher's and Schacht's theory that most or all ḥadīths are not genuine and that their isnāds, at least those parts that extended back to the Prophet and the Companions, must accordingly be fictitious as well.⁹³

Discussion of the reliability of isāids in general and of their earliest parts in particular leads inevitably to the question of the origin of the isāid, that is, of when it became a custom for transmitters to name their source or informant. On this issue there developed a long discussion in which Muslim scholars also participated. Three dates were proposed: 1) already during the lifetime of the Companions (untilcea. AH 60); 2) in the generation of the Successors (betweencea. AH 60 and 120); 3) in the following generation (betweencea. AH 120 and 180). The arguments for the three dates are based on various considerations: historical speculation, reports on the origins of the isāid found in the Muslim sources, and/or investigations of the isāids themselves. They will be summarized in the following, and a more detailed exposition of the different views may be found in James Robson's article reprinted here (Chapter 9).

The advocates for an early origin of the custom for a transmitter to name his informant for a ḥadīth assumed that after the death of the Prophet the Muslims wished to base their lives on his example, and that from this time onwards reports about the Prophet began to circulate. When someone who had not met the Prophet reported something about him or on his authority, then it seemed likely that he would have been asked to produce his source, especially where a delicate or contested issue was concerned.⁹⁴ The division of the Muslim community after the murder of the third caliph 'Uthmān (d. 35/656) was thought to have comprised an especially important incentive for the emergence of the isnād.⁹⁵

The proposition that the isnād originated in the generation of the Successors is based on the reasoning that after the death of most of the Companions, direct information about the Prophet was no longer available. This made it imperative to ask for a source when anyone related information about the Prophet.⁹⁶ Sometimes this dating is associated with a specific historical trigger: further strife within the Muslim community, usually labelled the Second Civil War (fitna), that broke out after the death of the fifth caliph and founder of the Umayyad dynasty, Mu'awiya (d. 60/680).⁹⁷ Another argument for the existence of isnāds already in the generation of the Successors is based on some ḥadīths themselves. Josef Horovitz, for instance, concluded from a tradition in the isnād of which al-Zuhrī (d. 124/742) is said to have given several informants with their authorities (a so-called "collective isnād") for his report, that the isnād was already use in the generation before al-Zuhrī, i.e. among the old Successors who died at the end of the first/seventh century.⁹⁸ A translation of Horovitz's article, which was one of the earliest contributions on the issue, is included in this volume together with further remarks added by himself (Chapters 7 and 8). Recent studies have confirmed that there were traditions with isnāds already in the second half of the first/seventh century.⁹⁹

A late origin for the isnād was advocated by Schacht, who did not see its use established before the beginning of the second/eighth century and connected its rise with the unrest in which the Umayyad family lost the caliphate to the 'Abbāsids (126-32/744-50). Schacht expressly rejected Horovitz's opinion that the isnād came into use in the circles of learned collectors or transmitters not later than in the last third of the first century.¹⁰⁰ Schacht 's opinion that the isnād developed late is connected with his conviction that the traditions that refer to authorities of the first/seventh century were created only in the second/eighth century. Wansbrough dates the introduction of the isnād to not earlier than the end of the second century AH.¹⁰¹

Some of the advocates for the proposed three dates for the origin of the isnād refer to historical events that are thought to have triggered the use of the isnād, especially civil wars within the Muslim community. Strangely enough, all use the same source, a report ascribed to Ibn Sīrīn (d. 110/728-29), who says that people began to ask for an isnād "after the fitna". Scholars who claim an early origin of the isnād interpret the phrase as referring to the so-called first fitna that broke out after the murder of 'Uthmān. Those who place the start of the isnād in the last decades of the first century AH think that Ibn Sīrīn meant the second fitna after the death of Mu'āwiya. Schacht identified Ibn Sīrīn's fitna as the civil war between the Umayyads and the 'Abbāsids that ended with the downfall of the Umayyad caliphate.¹⁰²

DATING BY ISNĀDS

Schacht and Juynboll limited the validity of their new method of dating ḥtadīths by assuming that in both the fictitious and the genuine parts of the isnāds, transmitters were more or less systematically fabricated. On the one hand, isnāds could have been "improved" by adding more ancient authorities, e.g. by adding the Prophet to an isnād that stopped at a Cornpanion. Schacht called this the "backward growth of isnāds".113 On the other hand, it was supposed that additional isnād branches were invented to suppress the fact that transmission of a tradition consisted of only one or more single strand isnāds, or to conceal a common link.¹¹⁴ Schacht reckoned, for instance, with the possibility that a tradition was put into circulation by someone who used the name of somebody else,¹¹⁵ and Juynboll even claimed that transmitters of all generations, including the compilators of the great ḥadīth collections, created artificial isnād strands.¹¹⁶ Schacht labelled such alleged practices the "spread of isnāds".¹¹⁷

The assumed practices of isnād fabrication or falsification endangered the reliability of the isnād - analytical method of dating ḥadīths. Michael Cook realised the problem and denied that the method can lead to reliable results. He argued that if the spread of isnāds could in principle affect any part of the isnād, and if the spread of isnāds was a process operative on a historically significant scale, then dating on the basis of isnāds becomes impossible.¹¹⁸ In a study of eschatological traditions datable on external grounds, Cook tested the validity of the way in which Schacht dated traditions on the basis of the common link, and found that the method could easily lead to erroneous conclusions.¹¹⁹ This important contribution to the discussion is reproduced here as Chapter 11.

Cook's objections to the dating of traditions on the basis of isnāds did not fail to have an effect. Juynboll tightened the criteria for a genuine—that is, a historically acceptable—lowest common link. He argued that such a common link needed a large number (plausibly three or more) of "partial common link" transmitters, i.e. transmitters who themselves had several pupils transmitting the tradition from them.¹²⁰ When the lowest common link had only one partial common link who transmits from him, however, beside single transmitters who have only one or two pupils allegedly transmitting from them, then the lowest common link can only be considered a "seeming common link" that can be neglected for the dating of the tradition. In such a case, the creation of the tradition must be ascribed to the partial common link of the following generation.121

Substantial criticism of Schacht's and Juynboll's assumptions concerning isnāds and of their dating methods on the basis of the transmission chains was not limited to radical sceptics like Cook. Objections came also from Muslim scholars and moderate sceptics. Muhammad M. Azami wrote a detailed refutation of Schacht's opinions concerning the isnāds from a Muslim scholar's perspective.¹²² Harald Motzki doubted the plausibility of Schacht's and Juynboll's generalised assumptions about backward growth, the spread of isnāds, and the common link.¹²³ He argued that the common link in isnāds can have different causes. The lowest common link in the generation of the Successors or later should not generally be considered the author or originator of the tradition in question. In many cases this transmitter could better be characterised as an early systematic collector who professionally passed his material on to students in a teaching circle. This allows for the possibility that the tradition may be older than the common link. It cannot be excluded, it is true, that particular common links came into being through invention of or tampering with isnāds, but there is insufficient evidence to generalise this possibility.¹²⁴ The lowest common link clearly marks a borderline or a hurdle for the isnād-analytical dating method, but not necessarily the dividing line between fiction and genuine transmission. Moreover, Motzki argues, one may doubt the usefulness of Juynboll's premises and methods by which he claimed to be able to distinguish between genuine and apparent common links.125 He also suggests that one must account for the possibility of genuine common links in the first century AH, as has been positively shown for the generation of the Companions by Conrad,¹²⁶ and for that of the early Successor 'Urwa ibn al-Zubayr by Schoeler and Goerke.¹²⁷

Motzki also objected to Cook's rejection of dating traditions on the basis of isnāds, arguing as follows:

Methods of Analysing and Dating Ḥadīths

The method of dating traditions on the basis of the earliest sources in which they appear could also be employed without linking it with arguments from silence. In his numerous studies of Muslim traditions, M.J. Kister has labelled traditions "early" when they were found in sources of the second/eighth century,¹³⁷ but he has not inferred from this that the traditions in question originated in the time of the sources; similarly, the fact that a tradition is only to be found in a late source does not lead him to conclude that the tradition in question is late and cannot be early. Kister has been very reserved in giving dates for traditions, and for the most part he has confined himself to very broad dating. He has rather aimed at documenting particular topics through recourse to traditions and at giving as complete an overview as possible of the material contained in the sources from the earliest to the latest ones and from the literature of different Muslim groups. In general, he has not attempted to sketch the historical development of the issue reflected in the variants of the texts.¹³⁸ As an example of Kister's approach, his article "Pare Your Nails" has been included here as Chapter 14.

A few scholars have completely rejected the method of dating traditions on the basis of the sources in which they first appeared. These researchers deny that the compilations that are usually ascribed to authors of the second/eighth and third/ninth centuries were really composed by them, and they argue instead that these works were the result of a longer process of compilation and editing by scholars affiliated with emerging schools; when a work reached a stable or mature form, it was ascribed to earlier authorities whose teachings had figured in the formation of the work's contents or doctrine. Traditions found in those compilations cannot be dated, therefore, to the time of the alleged authors, and the lifespans of these persons thus provide no terminus ante or post quem for the traditions contained in them.139 Three reasons have been given for this conclusion: 1) The ascription of an early work to an author is based on the evidence taken from its isnāds or riwāyas, i.e. the lines of transmitters added to a work as a whole or to its parts or even to the particular traditions contained in it. However, the isnāds are generally not reliable and cannot be used for dating purposes; 2) The early compilations and the material that they contain show indications of transmission, adaptation and editing; 3) Several hypotheses on the development of Muslim scholarship during the second/eighth and third/ninth centuries also point in this direction.¹⁴⁰

Scholars who are convinced that isnāds are not reliable and are therefore useless for dating purposes, but who are not prepared to completely put aside Muslim tradition as a historical source, have had two alternatives: either they could give up the idea of dating the traditions altogether and content themselves with very rough outlines of the historical development of early Islam, or they could look for other evidence apart from the isnāds that could be used for dating traditions. The only evidence that remained beside the isnāds and the datable compilations of traditions are the texts of the traditions themselves. Scholars choosing this alternative are faced with the problem of dating traditions solely on the basis of content and form. This matn-based approach to traditions in general and ḥadīths in particular was made popular by Goldziher, who usually neglected the isnāds. Although he did not mention explicitly the criteria he used to distinguish between an earlier and a later tradition, some of his examples reveal his methodological principles. Four of them are easily found here and there:

The method of establishing the dates of ḥadīths on the basis of their matns was also used by Schacht. Although he relied on other criteria as well, such as the isnāds and the collections in which traditions are first found, the matn had priority over the isnād. If he arrived at a dating based on the matn and this dating contradicted the isnād, then he ignored the latter. Schacht's most important principles in dating the matns were the following:

In the 1970s form analysis, a method developed in Biblical studies, made its entrance into Islamic studies, and R. Marston Speight applied it to Islamic traditions. In a study of a well-known ḥadīth of the Prophet (Chapter 13), he attempted to reconstruct its chronological development by comparing the variants in its matn.¹⁴⁹ Speight proceeded from the assumption that all textual variants had been part of an oral tradition before they "became frozen in a written compilation", and he used premises similar to Schacht's to identify early and later forms of the text.¹⁵⁰ His method consisted of the following steps: 1) He compiled a corpus of nineteen traditions that he considered to be variants, i.e. related by their content. 2) The texts were then arranged according to their complexity. 3) Each text was analysed as to a) its degree of development, b) the internal cohesion of its elements, and c) indications of style and vocabulary that suggest an earlier or later stage of the development. 4) The texts were then classified from the point of view of related content, and on this basis a chronology of the traditions was established.

The method of dating on the basis of the ḥadīth texts has been refined since then. Several studies have taken a.s their starting point the assumption, already crucial for Schacht's dating, that the traditions are part of a discourse that evolved in the course of the first centuries of Islamic history. The different stages of that discourse are thought to be reflected in the traditions: the more sophisticated the content is and the more problems it answers, as compared to other texts dealing with the same topic, the later the tradition must be. This approach is clearly described and documented in two articles by Lawrence I. Conrad.¹⁵¹

At the end of the 1940s some scholars began to look for more sophisticated methods of dating ḥadīths than relying either on the compilations containing traditions or on the matn. As mentioned above, Schacht, in his endeavour to date traditions more precisely, made use of the isnād as a secondary source of dating alongside his dating on the basis of the matns. At the same time, Johannes H. Kramers returned to a more balanced combination of both methods that had already been applied by such scholars of the nineteenth century as Aloys Sprenger.¹⁵³ In an almost forgotten article written in French, Kramers analysed a dozen variants of a ḥadīth ascribed to the Prophet by comparing the different matns and the isnāds attached to them.¹⁵⁴ He carefully noted the interrelationship between the matns and isnāds and by that method arrived at very detailed conclusions regarding the origin and development of the ḥadīth in question and its textual elements. An English translation of Kramer's important article is given in Chapter 12. A similar method was used some 25 years later by Josef van Ess in his study on the origins of predestinationist traditions.¹⁵⁵ In the first chapter of his book he illustrates the functioning of a combined approach of matn and isnād analysis and discusses the problems that arise. Michael Cook, however, dismissed this method in his critical examination of van Ess' study, arguing that the possibility of isnād. forgery by spread of isnāds does not allow for use of the isnāds for dating purposes.¹⁵⁶ Cook's hypothetical and generalising criticism of van Ess' method and the fact that van Ess' book was written in German probably were the reasons why his method did not find much support.

The approach of Kramer and van Ess was resumed, however, at the end of the 1980s. Gregor Schoeler studied contents and isnāds of the traditions for and against writing ḥadīths,157 Lawrence I. Conrad analyzed an apocalyptic ḥadīth,¹⁵⁸ and Harald Motzki examined several legal ḥadīths in his studies on the origins of Islamic jurisprudence.¹⁵⁹ In an important study on the concept of martyrdom in jihād and its relation with the virgins of Paradise,¹⁶⁰ Maher Jarrar took as his point of departure a set of traditions found in a collection ascribed to 'Abd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak (d. 181/797) and attempted to reconstruct the history of these traditions by using information from the isnāds and by comparing the various texts as to structure and motifs. By studying similar traditions found in later collections, Jarrar was able to sketch their further development as part of a literary genre. Jarrar's study was at the same time an example of how motifs of Muslim traditions can be interpreted and explained by philosophical and sociological considerations of a broader cultural background.¹⁶¹ An English translation of his study comprises Chapter 17 of this volume. A similar concern for both isnād and matn variants is found in several other recent studies: e.g. in Uri Rubin's article on the legal tradition al-walad li-l-firāsh;¹⁶² in Ludwig Ammann 's book about laughter and joking in Islam,¹⁶³ in Franz Rosenthal's study of the ḥadīth of Umm Zar'; in Marco Schöller's investigation of traditions about the interpretation of a Qur'ānic verse; in Suliman Bashear's study on Arabs and non-Arabs; and in Irene Schneider's analysis of the Surraq ḥadīth.164 In a recent study van Ess has also pursued his earlier approach to ḥadīth analysis. In comparing and interpreting the variants of a theological ḥadīth, its matns and isnāds, he reconstructed its developments from its origins in Syria in the first half of the first century AH until its reception in the compilations of the third century and later. At the same time van Ess looked into the manifold facets of the theological, socio-political, historical and literary background of the tradition in question.¹⁶⁵

The combined analysis of main and isnād, which has also been called matn-cum-isnād analysis, has been further developed by Gregor Schoeler and Harald Motzki, who have used it as a method to distinguish between cases of genuine transmission and cases of spreading isnāds.¹⁶⁶ They have studied ḥadīths allegedly transmitted via several transmission lines and have shown that investigating the textual variants in the different levels of transmission can be helpful in order to answer the question of whether the texts are dependent on one another (which would suggest the spread of isnāds) or not. The method has been tested since then in several other studies.¹⁶⁷ It allows not only for the more precise dating of traditions but also for the reconstruction of the transmission history of a ḥadīth and the changes of its text in the course of this transmission. According to the findings of the scholars working with that method, the spread of isnāds did occur, but not on a significant scale as Cook had claimed, at least not in the material they had studied. The same method of analysis has also been used to evaluate the reliability of the transmitters.¹⁶⁸

Motzki has attempted to improve on Sezgin's method of source reconstruction by looking for other criteria, besides the isnāds, that may indicate genuine or fictitious transmission. In his studies of a pre-canonical ḥadīth collection compiled in the second half of the second/eighth century he showed that there are several such criteria that allowed for the identification of the most important sources of the collection in question, and also the sources of these sources. By this method large groups of traditions ascribed to one and the same informant or transmitter could be dated one or two generations earlier than the collection itself. Motzki used the results of this dating method to check or improve the dating of individual traditions arrived at by other methods.174 His method of source reconstruction is summarized in the article reprinted as Chapter 15.

OTHER APPROACHES TO ḤADITH ANALYSIS

Modern literary concepts and theories have only rarely been applied in the study of ḥadīths up till now; two dissertations written in the 1960s,¹⁷⁵ for example, did not find followers until recently.¹⁷⁶ That this approach can be rewarding has been shown by the studies of Daniel Beaumont and Sebastian Gü"nther.¹⁷⁷ Beaumont has used the concepts and theories of Gérard Genette's Narrative Discourse for an analysis of structure and style of the khabar narrative. Günther has argued that the traditions in question can best be interpreted as fictional narratives,¹⁷⁸ and that the application of narratological findings "brings a number of astonishing internal characteristics of these texts to light". In cases of traditions transmitted in variant versions, literary analysis may even help to trace the stages of the transmission process.

Western scholarship has shown little interest in Muslim ḥadīth criticism. There are virtually no studies that have attempted to examine and test its methods or to investigate which methods the critical compilers of the third/ninth century used to distinguish reliable traditions from spurious or distorted ones.¹⁷⁹ This lack of interest may be the consequence of Goldziher's harsh judgement about Muslim ḥadīth criticism. According to him, this system focused almost completely on formal criteria like the isnād. The matn or content of the ḥadīths was ignored or played only a very marginal role.180 The efficiency of Muslim ḥadīth criticism was very low and, in Goldziher's eyes, it was not able to eliminate even traditions bearing "the crudest anachronisms".¹⁸¹ This view was adopted by most Western scholars, even by specialists of Muslim ḥadīth scholarship.¹⁸² Albrecht Noth, although convinced of the supremacy of the isnād in Muslim ḥadīth criticism as well, attempted to give a more balanced and understanding picture of the aims, development and performance of Muslim ḥadīth criticism and of the role of matn criticism in it in comparison to the critical Orientalist approach.¹⁸³ His article, a translation of which is given in Chapter 16, highlights the need for detailed studies of both the development of Muslim ḥadīth criticism and the methods that the critical collectors of the third century applied.¹⁸⁴

It will be seen from the foregoing that the concern of this volume is not with the specific contents of Ḥadīth, but rather with more general critical issues: form, origins, transmission, preservation, and authenticity. As will be clear from many of the studies included here, and further, from other volumes in this series, ḥadīth literature touches upon many aspects of Islamic culture and intellectual life. It would not be possible to do justice here to all the many ways in which this rich material can enrich our understanding of the formation of the classical Islamic world.

Bibliography

General Monographs

Azami, Muhammad M. Studies in Hadīth Methodology and Literature. Indianapolis, 1977.

Burton, John. An Introduction to the Ḥadīth. Edinburgh, 1994.

Goldziher, Ignaz. "Über die Entwicklung des Hadîth", in his Muhammedanische Studien, II (Halle, 1890), 1-274. English translation: Muslim Studies, ed. S.M. Stern, trans. C.R. Barber and S.M. Stern, II (Chicago, 1971), 1-251.

Guillaume, Alfred. The Traditions of Islam: an Introduction to the Study of the Hadith Literature. Oxford, 1924.

Juynboll, Gautier H.A. Muslim Tradition: Studies in Chronology, Provenance and Authorship of Early Ḥadīth. Cambridge, 1983.

Ṣiddīqī, Muḥammad Z. Ḥadīth Literature: Its Origin, Development and Special Features, ed. and rev. by Abdal Hakim Murad. Cambridge, 1993 [1st edition, Calcutta 1961].

I. Origins and Transmission of the Ḥadīth

ORIGIN AND HISTORICITY

Abbott, Nabia. Studies in Arabic Literary Papyri, II: Qur'ānic Commentary and Tradition (Chicago, 1971).

_____. "Ḥadīth Literature - II: Collection and Transmission of Ḥadīth", in Alfred F.L. Beeston et al., eds., The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature, I: Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period (Cambridge, 1983), 289-98.

Abdul Ghaffar, Suhaib H. Criticism of Hadith among Muslims with Reference to Sunan Ibn Maja. London, 1986.

Abdul Rauf, Muhammad. "Ḥadīth Literature - I: The Development of the Science of Ḥadīth", in Alfred F.L. Beeston et al., eds., The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature, I: Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period (Cambridge, 1983), 271-88.

Ansari, Zafer I. "The Authenticity of Traditions - A Critique of Joseph Schacht's Argument e silentio", Hamdard Islamicus 7 (1984), 51-61.

al-Azami, Muhammad M. On Schacht's Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence. Riyadh and New York, 1985.

Azmi, Muhammad M. Studies in Early Ḥadīth Literature. 2nd ed. Indianapolis, 1978 [1st ed., Beirut 1968].

Berg, Herbert. "Hadith Criticism", in Herbert Berg, ed., The Development of Exegesis in Early Islam: the Authenticity of Muslim Literature from the Formative Period (Richmond, Surrey, 2000), 6-64.

Burton, John. "Notes Towards a Fresh Perspective on the Islamic Sunna", British Society for Middle Eastern Studies Bulletin 11 (1984), 3-17 (Chapter 3 in this volume).

Crone, Patricia. "A Practical Guide to the Study of Islamic Law - (c) Tradition (Ḥadīth)", in her Roman, Provincial and Islamic Law: the Origins of the Islamic Patronate (Cambridge, 1987), 23-34.

Ess, Josef van. Zwischen Ḥadīt und Theologie. Studien zum Entstehen prädestinatianischer Überlieferung. Berlin, 1975.

Fueck, Johann. "Die Rolle des Traditionalismus im Islam", Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 93 (1939), 1-32. English translation: "The Role of Traditionalism in Islam", trans. Merlin L. Swartz, in his Studies on Islam (New York, 1981), 99-122 (Chapter 1 in this volume).

Goldziher, Ignaz. "Ḥadîth und Neues Testament", in his Muhammedanische Studien, II, 382-400.

_____. "Neuplatonische und gnostische Elemente im Ḥadīt", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und verwandte Gebiete 22 (1908), 317-44 [repr. in his Gesammelte Schriften, ed. J. Desomogyi (Hildesheim, 1967-73), V, 107-34].

_____. "Neutestamentliche Elemente in der Traditionslitteratur des Islam", Oriens Christianus 2 (1902), 390-97 [repr. in his Gesammelte Schriften, III, 315-22].

_____. Vorlesungen über den Islam (Heidelberg, 1910). English translation: Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, trans. Andras and Ruth Hamori (Princeton, 1981).

Hallaq, Wael B. "The Authenticity of Prophetic Ḥadīth: a Pseudo-Problem", Studia Islamica (1999), 75-90.

Ḥamīdullāh, Muḥammad. "History of the Early Ḥadīth Compilation", in his Sahifah Hammam ibn Munabbih, 10th ed. (Luton, 1979), 1—111 [the 1st ed. in Arabic, Damascus 1953; the first English ed. Luton 1961].

al-Khaṭīb, Muḥammad 'Ajjāj. Al-Sunna qabla l-tadwīn. Cairo, 1963.

Motzki, Harald. Die Anfänge islamischer Jurisprudenz. Ihre Entwicklung in Mekka bis zur Mitte des 2./8. Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart, 1991; English translation: The Origins of Islamic Jurisprudence: Meccan Fiqh before the Classical Schools, trans. Marion Katz. Leiden, 2002.

_____. "The Muṣannaf of 'Abd al-Razzāq al-Ṣan'ānī as a Source of Authentic Aḥādīth of the First Century AH", Journal of Near Eastern Studies 50 (1991), 1-21 (Chapter 15 in this volume).

_____. "Der Fiqh des -Zuhrī: die Quellenproblematik", Der Islam 68 (1991), 1-44. English translation: "The Jurisprudence of lbn Šihāb az-Zuhrī: a Source-Critical Study" (Nijmegen, 2001), http://webdoc.ubn.kun.nl/mono/ m/motzki_h/juriofibs.pdf.

_____. "The Question of the Authenticity of Muslim Traditions Reconsidered: a Review Article", in Herbert Berg, ed., Method and Theory in the Study of Islamic Origins (Leiden, 2003), 211-57.

Nöldeke, Theodor. "Zur tendenziösen Gestaltung der Urgeschichte des Islām's", Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 52 (1898), 16-33.

Powers, David. "The Will of Sa'd b. Abī Waqqāṣ: a Reassessment", Studia Islamica 58 (1983), 33-53.

_____. Studies in Qur'an and Ḥadīth: the Formation of the Islamic Law of Inheritance. Berkeley, 1986.

Robson, James. "Muslim Tradition: the Question of Authenticity", Memoires and Proceedings of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society 93 (1951-52), 84-102.

_____. "Tradition, the Second Foundation oflslam", Muslim World 41 (1951), 22-33.

Schacht, Joseph. "A Revaluation of Islamic Traditions", Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1949, 143-54 (Chapter 2 in this volume).

_____. The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence, 4th impression. Oxford, 1967 [1st ed. 1950].

Schoeler, Gregor. Chamkter und Authentie der muslimischen Überlieferung über das Leben Mohammeds. Berlin, 1996.

Schwally, Friedrich. "Die muhammedanischen Quellen und die neuere christliche Forschung über den Ursprung der Offenbarungen und die Entstehung des Qorānbuches", in Theodor Nöldeke, Geschichte des Qurāns, 2nd ed. by Friedrich Schwally, Gotthelf Bergsträsser, and Otto Pretzl (Leipzig, 1909-38)' 11, 122-224.

Sezgin, Fuat. "Ḥadīt", in his Geschichte des ambischen Schrifttums, I (Leiden, 1967), 53-233.

al-Sibā'ī, Muṣṭafā. Al-Swma wa-makānatuhā fī l-tashrī' al-islāmī. Cairo, 1961.

MEANS OF PRESERVATION AND TRANSMISSION

Calder, Norman. Studies in Early Muslim Jurisprudence. Oxford, 1993.

Cook, Michael "The Opponents of the Writing of Tradition in Early Islam", Arabica 44 (1997), 437-530.

Goldziher, lgnaz. "Kämpfe urn die Stellung des Hadīth im Islam", Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlāndischen Gesellschaft 61 (1907), 860-72

[repr. in his Gesammelte Schriften, V, 86-98] (trans. as Chapter 4 in this volume).

Günther, Sebastian. Quellenuntersuclwngen zu den "Maqātil aṭ-Ṭālibiyyīn" des Abū 'l-Faraǧ al-Iṣfahānī (gest. 356/967). Ein Beitrag zur Problematik der mündlichen und schriftlichen Überlieferung in der mittelalterlichen arabischen Literatur. Hildesheim, 1991.

Kister, M.J. " ... Lā taqra 'ūna l-qur'āna 'alā l-muṣḥafiyyīn wa-lā taḥmilū l-'ilma 'ani l-ṣaḥafiyyīn ...: Some Notes on the Transmission of Ḥadiṭh", Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 22 (1998), 127-62.

Leder, Stefan. Der I<orpus al-Haitam ibn 'Adī (st. 207/822). Herkunft, Überlieferung, Gestalt früher Texte der ah̆bār Literatur. Frankfurt, 1991.

Schoeler, Gregor. "Die Frage der schriftlichen oder mündlichen Überlieferung der Wissenschaften im frühen Islam", Der Islam 62 (1985), 201-30.

_____. "Weiteres zur Frage der schriftlichen oder mündlichen Überlieferung der Wissenschaften im Islam", Der Islam 66 (1989), 38-67.

_____. "Mündliche Thora und Ḥadīt. Überlieferung, Schreibverbot, Redaktion", Der Islam 66 (1989), 213-51 (trans. as Chapter 5 in this volume).

_____. "Schreiben und Veröffentlichen. Zur Verwendung und Funktion der Schrift in den ersten islamischen Jahrhunderten", Der Islam 69 (1992), 1-43. English translation by Claude Gilliot: "Writing and Publishing: On the Use and Function of Writing in the First Centuries of Islam", Arabica 44 (1997), 423-35.

_____. Écrire et tmnsmettre dans les débuts de l'islam. Paris, 2002.

NON-SUNNĪ ḤADĪTH

Afsaruddin, Asma. "An Insight into the Ḥadīth Methodology of Jamāl al-Dīn b. Ṭāwūs", Der Islam 72 (1995), 25-46.

Amir-Moezzi, Mohammed Ali. "Remarques sur les critères d'authenticité du hadîth et l'autorité du juriste clans le shi'isme imâmite", Studia Islamica 85 (1997), 5-39.

Bergsträsser, Gotthelf. Review of E. Griffini, Corpus Juris di Zaid b. 'Alī in Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 25 (1922), 114-23.

Ennāmi, 'Amr K. Studies in Ibāḍism {al-Ibāḍīya). Beirut, 1972.

Kohlberg, Etan. "An Unusual Shī'ī Isnād", Israel Oriental Studies 5 (1975), 142-49.

_____. "Shī'ī Ḥadīth", in Alfred F.L. Beeston et al., eds., The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature, I: Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period (Cambridge, 1983), 298-307.

_____. "Al-uṣūl al-arba'umi'a", Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 10 (1987), 128-66 (Chapter 6 in this volume).

Lecomte, Gérard. "Aspects de la littérature du Ḥadīt chez les Imamites", in Le shî'isme imâmite: Colloque de Strasbourg (6-9 mai 1968) (Paris, 1970), 91-103.

Madelung, Wilferd. Der Imam al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm und die Glaubenslehre der Zaiditen. Berlin, 1965.

Strothmann, Rudolf. "Das Problem der literarischen Persönlichkeit Zaid b. 'Alī", Der Islam 13 (1923), 1-52.

Wilkinson, J.C. "Ibāḍī Ḥadīth: an Essay on Normalization", Der Islam 62 (1985), 231-59.

II. Origin and Reliability of the Isnād

al-Azami, Mul:tammad M. "The Isnād System: Its Validity and Authenticity", in his Schacht's Origins, 154-205.

Cook, Michael. "The Dating of Traditions", in his Early Muslim Dogma: a Source-Critical Study (Cambridge, 1981), 107-16.

_____. "Eschatology and the Dating of Traditions", Princeton Papers in Near Eastern Studies 1 (1992), 23-47 (Chapter 11 in this volume).

Goldziher, Ignaz. "Neue Materialien zur Litteratur des Überlieferungswesens bei den Muhammedanern", Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlāndischen Gesellschaft 50 (1896) [repr. in his Gesammelte Schriften, IV, 67-110].

Görke, Andreas. "Eschatology, History, and the Common Link", in Herbert Berg, ed., Method and Theory in the Study of Islamic Origins (Leiden, 2003), 179-208.

Horovitz, Josef. "Alter und Ursprung des Isnād", Der Islam 8 (1918), 39-47 (trans. as Chapter 7 in this volume).

_____. "Noch einmal die Herkunft des Isnād", Der Islam 11 (1921), 164-65 (trans. as Chapter 8 in this volume).

Juynboll, Gautier H.A. "The Date of the Great Fitna", Arabica 20 (1973), 142-59.

_____. "Muslim's Introduction to his Ṣaḥīḥ, Translated and Annotated with an Excursus on the Chronology of Fitna and Bid'a", Jerusalem Studies in A rabic and Islam 5 ( 1984), 263-311. Repr. in his Studies on the Origins and Uses of Islamic Hadith (Aldershot, 1996), 263-311.

_____. "Some Isnād-Analytical Methods Illustrated on the Basis of Several Woman-Demeaning Sayings from Ḥadīth Literature", al-Qanṭara 10 (1989), 343-84. Repr. in his Studies, 343-83 (Chapter 10 in this volume).

_____. "Nāfi', the Mawlā of Ibn 'Umar, and his Position in Muslim Ḥadīth Literature", Der Islam 70 (1993), 207-44. Repr. in his Studies, 207-44.

_____, "Early Islamic Society as Reflected in its Use of Isnāds", Le Muséon 107 (1994), 151-94. Repr. in his Studies, 151-94.

_____. "Shu'ba b. al-Ḥajjāj (d. 160/776) and his Position among the Traditionists of Baṣra", Le Muséon 111 (1998), 187-226.

_____. "(Re)appraisal of Some Technical Terms in Ḥadīth Science", Islamic Law and Society 8 (2001), 303-49.

_____. "Ḥadīth and the Qur'ān", in Jane Dammen MacAuliffe, ed., Encyclopaedia of the Qur'ān, II (Leiden, 2002), 376-97.

Robson, James. "The Isnād in Muslim Tradition", Transactions of the Glasgow University Oriental Society 15 (1953), 15-26 (Chapter 9 in this volume).

III. Methods of Analysing and Dating Ḥadīths

DATING ḤADĪTHS

Amman, Ludwig. Vorbild und Vernunft. Die Regelung von Lachen und Scherzen im mittelalterlichen Islam. Hildesheim, 1993.

Bashear, Suliman. Arabs and Others in Early Islam. Princeton, 1997.

Conrad, Lawrence I. "Portents of the Hour: ḥadīth and History in the First Century AH", Paper presented at the Colloquium on Ḥadīth and History, Cambridge 1986.

_____. "Epidemic Disease in Formal and Popular Thought in Early Islamic Society", in Terence Ranger and Paul Slack, eds., Epidemics and Ideas: Essays on the Historical Perception of Pestilence (Cambridge, 1992), 77-99.

_____. '"Umar at Sargh: the Evolution of an Umayyad Tradition on Flight from the Plague", in Stefan Leder, ed., Story-Telling in the Framework of Non-Fictional Arabic Literature (Wiesbaden, 1998), 488-528.

van Ess, Josef. Der Fehltmtt des Gelehrten. Die "Pest von Emmaus" und ihre theologischen Nachspiele. Heidelberg, 2001.

Görke, Andreas. "The Historical Tradition about al-Ḥudaybiya: a Study of 'Urwa b. al-Zubayr's Account", in Harald Motzki, ed., The Biography of Muḥammad: the Issue of the Sources (Leiden, 2000), 240-75.

_____. Das Kitāb al-Amwāl des Abū Ubaid al-Qāsim b. Sallām. Entstehung und Überlieferung eines frühislamischen Rechtswerkes. Princeton, 2003.

Jarrar, Maher. "Mashāri' al-'ushshāq: dirāsa fī aḥādīth faḍl al-jihād wa 'al-ḥūr al-'īn'", al-Abḥāth 41 ( 1993), 27-121.

_____. "The Martyrdom of Passionate Lovers: Holy War as a Sacred Wedding" in Angelika Neuwirth, Birgit Embaló, Sebastian Günther, and Maher Jarrar, eds., Myths, Historical Archetypes and Symbolic Figures in Arabic Literature: Towards a New Hermeneutic Approach (Beirut, 1999), 87-107 (Chapter 17 in this volume).

Juynboll, Gautier H.A. "The man kadhaba Tradition and the Prohibition of Lamenting the Dead", in his Muslim Tradition, 96-133.

Kister, M.J. 'You Shall Only Set Out for Three Mosques: a Study of an Early Tradition", Le Muséon 82 (1969), 173-96.

_____. "Ḥaddithū 'an banī isrā'īla wa-lā ḥaraja: a Study of an Early Tradition", Israel Oriental Studies 2 (1972), 215-39.

_____. "Pare Your Nails: a Study of an Early Tradition", Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society of Columbia University 11 (1979), 63-70 (Chapter 14 in this volume).

_____. "On 'Concessions' and Conduct: a Study in Early Ḥadīth", in G.H.A. Juynboll, ed., Studies on the First Century of Islamic Society (Carbondale and Edwardsville, 1982), 89-107, 214-30.

Kramers, J.H. "Une tradition à tendence manichéenne (la 'mangeuse de verdure')", Acta Orientalia 21 (1950-53), 10-22 (trans. as Chapter 12 in this volume).

Melchert, Christopher. "Bukhārī and Early Ḥadīth Criticism", Journal of the American Oriental Society 121 (2001), 7-19.

Mitter, Ulrike. Das frūhislamische Patronat. Eine Untersuchung zur Rolle von fremden Elementen bei der Entwicklung des islamischen Rechts. Ph.D. diss., Nijmegen, 1999.

_____. "Unconditional Manumission of Slaves in Early Islamic Law: a Ḥadīth Analysis", Der Islam 78 (2001), 35-72.

Motzki, Harald. "Quo vadis Ḥadīt-Forschung? Eine kritische Untersuchung von G.H.A. Juynboll: 'Nāfi' the Mawlā of Ibn 'Umar, and his Position in Muslim Ḥadīth Literature'", Der Islam 73 (1996), 40-80, 193-231 (English translation forthcoming).

_____. "The Prophet and the Cat: On Dating Mālik's Muwaṭṭa' and Legal Traditions", Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 22 (1998), 18-83.

_____. "The Murder of Ibn Abī-l:Ḥuqayq: On the Origin and Reliability of some Maghāzī-Reports", in idem, ed., The Biogmphy of Muḥammad: the Issue of the Sources (Leiden, 2000), 170-239.

_____. "Der Prophet und die Schuldner. Eine Ḥadīt-Untersuchung auf dem Prüfstand", Der Islam 77 (2000), 1-83.

_____. "Ar-radd 'alā r-radd - Zur Methodik der Ḥadīt-Analyse", Der Islam 78 (2001), 147-63.

_____. "The Author and his Work in the Islamic Literature of the First Centuries: the Case of 'Abd al-Razzāq's Muṣannaf", Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 28 (2003), 1-31.

_____. "Dating Muslim Traditions: a Survey", Arabica 51 (2004), forthcoming.

Muranyi, Miklos. "Bemerkungen zu einem Ḥadīt des Yaḥyā b. Sa'īd al-Anṣārī. Die Problematik des Tayammum in der frühislamischen Überlieferung", Israel Oriental Studies 5 (1975), 129-41.

_____. "'Man ḥalafa 'alā minbarī ātiman ... ' Bemerkungen zu einem frühen Traditionsgut", Die Welt des Orients 18 (1987), 92-131.

_____. "Zwischen 'aṣr und magrib in Mekka. Ein Augenzeugenbericht von al-Lait b. Sa'd aus dem Jahr 113/732", Die Welt des Orients 23 (1992), 101-28.

Peters, Rudolph. "Murder in Khaybar: Some Thoughts on the Origins of the Qasāma Procedure in Islamic Law", Islamic Law and Society 9 (2002), 132-67.

Rosenthal, Franz. "Muslim Social Values and Literary Criticism: Reflections on the ḥadīth of Umm Zar'", Oriens 34 (1994), 31-56.

Rubin, Uri. "'Al-walad li-l-firāsh ': On the Islamic Campaign against 'zinā'", Studia Islamica 78 {1993), 5-26.

_____. Between Bible and Qur'ān: the Children of Israel and the Islamic Self-Image. Princeton, 1999.

Schacht, Joseph. "The Growth of Legal Traditions in the Literary Period", in his Origins, 140-51.

Schneider, Irene. I<inderverkauf und Schuldknechtschaft. Untersuchungetl zur fruühen Phase des islamischen Rechts. Stuttgart, 1999.

Schöller, Marco. 'Die Palmen (līna) der Banū n-Naḍīr und die Interpretation von Koran 59:5. Eine Untersuchung zur Bedeutung des koranischen Wortlauts in den ersten Jahrhunderten islamischer Gelehrsamkeit", Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 146 (1996), 317-80.

Speight, R. Marston. "The Will of Sa'd b. a. Waqqāṣ: the Growth of a Tradition", Der Islam 50 (1973), 249-67 (Chapter 13 in this volume).

Zaman, Iftikhar. "The Science of Rijāl as a Method in the Study of Ḥadīths", Journal of Islamic Studies 5 (1994), 1-34.

OTHER APPROACHES OF ḤADĪTH ANALYSIS

Brown, Daniel. Rethinking Tradition in Modern Islamic Thought. Cambridge, 1996.

Calamawy, Sahair El. "Narrative Elements in the Ḥadīth Literature", in Alfred F.L. Beeston et al., eds., The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature, I: Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period (Cambridge, 1983), 308-16.

Dickinson, Eerik. The Development of Early Sunnite Ḥadīth Criticism: the Taqdima of Ibn Abī Ḥātim al-Rāzī (240/854~327/938). Leiden, 2001.

Elad, Amikam. "Some Aspects of the Islamic Traditions Regarding the Site of the Grave of Moses", Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 11 (1988), 1-15.

Fierro, Isabel. "The Introduction of Ḥadīth in al-Andalus (2nd/8th-3rd/9th centuries)", Der Islam 66 (1989), 68-93.

Graham, William A. Divine Word and Prophetic Word in Early Islam: a Reconsideration of the Sources with Special Reference to the Divine Saying of Ḥadīth Qudsî. The Hague and Paris, Paris, 1977.

Günther, Sebastian. "Fictional Narration and Imagination within an Authoritative Framework: Towards a New Understanding of Ḥadīth," in Stefan Leder, ed., Story-Telling in the Framework of Non-Fictional Arabic Literature (Wiesbaden, 1998), 433-71.

_____. "Modern Literary Theory Applied to Classical Arabic Texts: Ḥadīth Revisited", in Verena Klemm and Beatrice Gruendler, eds., Understanding Near Eastern Literatures (Wiesbaden, 2000), 171-76.

Juynboll, Gautier H.A. The Authenticity of the Tradition Literature: Disscussions in Modem Egypt. Leiden, 1969.

Landau-Tasseron, Ella. "The 'Cyclical Reform': a Study of the Mujaddid Tradition", Studia Islamica 70 (1989), 79-116.

Lecker, Michael. "The Death of the Prophet Muḥammad's Father: Did Wāqidī Invent Some of the Evidence", Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 145 (1995), 9-27.

_____. "Wāqidī's Account on the Status of the Jews of Medina: a Study of a Combined Report", Journal of Near Eastern Studies 54 (1995), 15-32.

Muranyi, Miklos. "Ein altes Dokument fiber Ḥadīt Fabrikationen in der frühen medinensischen Jurisprudenz", Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 10 (1987), 119-27.

_____. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Ḥadīt- und Rechtsgelehrsamkeit der Mālikiyya in Nordafrika bis zum 5. Jh. d. H. Bio-bibliographische Notizen aus der Moscheebibliothek von Qairawan. Wiesbaden, 1997.

Nagel, Tilman. "Ḥadīt - oder die Vernichtung der Geschichte", in: XXV. Deutscher Orientalistentag vom 8.-13.4-1991 in München. Vorträge (Stuttgart, 1994; Zeitschrift der Deutsclien Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, Supplement 10), 118-28.

_____. "Die Inschriften im Felsendom und das islamische Glaubensbekenntnis - der Koran und die Anfänge des Ḥadīt, Arabica 47 (2000), 329-65.

Noth, Albrecht. "Gemeinsamkeiten muslimischer und orientalistischer Ḥadīt-Kritik: Ibn al-Ǧauzīs Kategorien der Ḥadīt-Fälscher", in Udo Tworuschka, ed., Gottes ist der Orient, Gottes ist der Okzident. Festschrift für Abdoldjavad Falaturi zum 65. Geburtstag (Köln and Vienna, 1991), 40-46 (trans, as Chapter 16 in this volume).

Robson, James. "Tradition: Investigation and Classification", Muslim World 41 (1951), 98-112.

_____. "The Material of Tradition", Muslim World 41 (1951), 166-80, 257-70.

_____. "The Form of Muslim Tradition", Transactions of the Glasgow University Oriental Society 16 (1955-56), 38-50.

_____. "Standards Applied by Muslim Traditionists", Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 43 (1960), 459-79.

Speight, R. Marston. "The Musnad of al-Ṭayālisī: a Study of Ḥadīth as Oral Literature- Ph.D. diss., Hartford, 1970.

_____. "Narrative Structures in the Ḥadīth", Journal of Near Eastern Studies 59 (2000), 265-71.

Stetter, Eckart. Topoi und Schemata im Ḥadīt. Ph.D. diss., Tübingen, 1965.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anees, Munawwar A., and Alia N. Athar. Guide to Sira and Hadith Literature in Western Languages. London and New York, 1986.

von Denffer, Ahmad. Literature on Hadith in European Languages: a Bibliography. Leicester, 1981.

Geddes, C.L. An Analytical Guide to the Bibliographies on Islam, Muhammad and the Qur'ān. Denver, 1973.

Juynboll, Gautier H.A. "Hadith Literature", in Paul Auchterlonie, ed., Middle East and Islam: a Bibliographical Introduction. Supplement 1977-1983 (Zug, 1986), 60-68.

Saadeghy, Behnaam, et al., eds. A Selective Bibliography of Hadith Studies (1995ff: http://www-personal.umich,edu/~beh/islam-hadith.bibl.html).

1Many modern Muslims and some Western authors restrict the term to traditions of the Prophet.

³I wish to thank the translators for their accurate work: Gwendolin Goldbloom for the German articles and Matthew Gordon for the French one. I am also grateful to Lawrence I. Conrad, the general editor of the series, for suggestions to improve the translations.

⁴ I am thankful to John Smedley of Ashgate Publishing and Lawrence I. Conrad for proposing corrections to my English style. I am particularly grateful to the latter for his valuable suggestions on my Introduction.

⁵See Barthélémy d'Herbelot, Bibliothèque orientale, ou dictionnaire universel (Paris, 1697), 416.

⁷Muir, Life of Mahomet, xxix-xxxi; Aloys Sprenger, "Über das Traditionswesen bei den Arabem", Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 10 (1856), 2.

⁸Muir, Life of Mahomet, xxxi; Otto Loth, "Ursprung und Bedeutung der Ṭabaḳât", Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 23 (1869), 594.

⁹Muir, Life of Mahomet, xxxii-xxxiv; Sprenger, "Traditionswesen", 4-8; idem, "On the Origin and Progress of Writing Down Historical Facts Among the Musulmans", Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 25 (1856), 375-81; R.P.A. Dozy, De voornaamste Godsdiensten. Het Islamisme (Leiden, 1863), 80; Alfred von Kremer, Geschichte der herrschenden Ideen des Islams (Leipzig, 1868), 138; idem, Culturgeschichte des Islams unter den Chalifen (Wien, 1875), I, 475-76.

¹¹Muir, Life of Mahomet, xxxv, xxxvi-viii; Sprenger, "Traditionswesen", 2, 7; idem, "Writing Down Historical Facts", 376, 379, 380-81.

¹²Dozy, Islamisme, 81; von Kremer, Geschichte der herrschenden Ideen, 142-43; idem, Culturgeschichte, I, 477-81.

¹⁷Muir, Life of Mahomet, xliii; Dozy, Islamisme, 82; von Kremer, Geschichte der herrschenden Ideen, 142.

¹⁸Muir, Life of Mahomet, lii; Dozy, Islamisme, 82; von Kremer, Geschichte der herr schenden Ideen, 136, 142.

¹⁹An exception was Muir, who discussed criteria that may prove useful for historical ḥadīth criticism (Life of Mahomet, liii-lxxxvii).

²¹Muir, The Life of Moḥammad, revised ed. by T. Weir (Edinburgh, 1923), lxxv (a less emphatic rendering of the passage contained in the first edition, ixxxvii).

²²Ignaz Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien (Halle, 1889-89), II, 5; English translation: Muslim Studies, ed. S.M. Stern, trans. C.R. Barber and S.M. Stern (Chicago, 1967-71), II, 18-19. This was already the opinion of Loth ("Ursprung", 595).

²⁴See also Ignaz Goldziher, Vorlesungen über den Islam (Heidelberg, 1910), 43; English trans., Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, trans. Andras and Ruth Hamori (Princeton, 1981), 40.

²⁵Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien, II, 28-130 (= Muslim Studies, II, 38-125).

²⁷ On the issues of origin and historicity of the Ḥadīth, Goldziher published severed other articles, among them: "Ḥadîth und Neues Testament", in his Muhammedanische Studien, II, 382-400 (= Muslim Studies, II, 346-62); "Neutestamentliche Elemente in der Traditionslitteratur des Islam", Oriens Christianus 2 (1902), 390-97 [repr. in his Gesammelte Schriften, ed. J. Desomogyi (Hildesheim, 1967-73), III, 315-22]; "Neuplatonische und gnostische Elemente im Ḥadīt", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und verwandte Gebiete 22 (1908), 317-44 [repr. in Gesammelte Schriften, V, 107-34].

²⁸See, for instance, Theodor Nöldeke, "Zur tendenziösen Gestaltung der Urgeschichte des Islām's", Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 52 (1898), 1633; Carl Heinrich Becker, Islamstudien. Vom Werden und Wesen der islamischen Welt (Leipzig 1924-32), I, 521-22. This opinion is not very different from that of the critical Muslim ḥadīth scholars of the classic era. The difference lies in the methods applied.

²⁹E.g. Friedrich Schwally, "Die muhammedanischen Quellen und die neuere christliche Forschung über den Ursprung der Offenbarungen und die Entstehung des Qorānbuches", in Theodor Nöldeke, Geschichte des Qurāns, 2nd ed. by Friedrich Schwally, Gotthelf Bersträsser, and Otto Pretzl (Leipzig, 1909-38), II, 146: "Every legal ḥadīth has to be principally considered as a forgery until the contrary is proven" (translation: H.M.). Schwally restricts this rule, however, to legal ḥadīth.

³⁰Instructive for Goldziher's tendency to generalization on the basis of a few examples is his opinion of the ḥadīths contained in the canonical collections. Although he proved at most for one percent of them that they are anachronistic, he concludes: "Judged by a scientific criterion, only a very small part, if any, of the contents of these canonical compilations can be confidently referred to the early period from which they profess to date" ("Principles of Law in Islam", in The Historian's History of the World, New York 1904, VIII, 302).

³¹ It may be noted in passing that this claim too could not be sustained by the material he had studied.

³²Consequently, in his Vorlesungen über den Islam Goldziher refrained from using sīra traditions to give a sketch of Muḥammad's life and restricted his presentation to the Qur'ān (except on pp. 5 and 36; Eng. trans., 7, 32). Schwally recognized the problem and tried to save the sīra material by claiming that Goldziher's findings are only valid for the legal Ḥadīth (Schwally, "Quellen", 144). Yet he does not give the reasoning behind this argument.

³⁴See, e.g., Muhammedanische Studien, 11, 17, 19, 20, 29, 31, and passim ( = Muslim Studies, II, 29, 31, 32, 39, 41, etc.); idem, Vorlesungen, 41 {Eng. trans., 38-39).

³⁵Joha.rm Fueck, "Die Rolle des Traditionalismus im Islam", Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 93 (1939), 19-20, but without naming Goldziher; English translation: "The Role of Traditionalism in Islam", trans. Merlin L. Swartz in his Studies on Islam (New York, 1981), 111-12.

³⁶ Joseph Schacht, "A Revaluation of Islamic Traditions", Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1949, 146-47.

³⁷ Joseph Schacht, The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence, 4th impression (Oxford, 1967), 4 (1st edition 1950).

⁴⁵ Ibid. This had already been claimed by Schwally 40 years earlier (seen. 29 above).

⁵⁰For a detailed description of the reactions, see Harald Motzki, The Origins of Islamic Jurisprudence: Meccan Fiqh before the Classical Schools, trans. Marion Katz {Leiden, 2002), 27-28.

⁵¹ Cf. Erich Gräf, Jagdbeute und Schlachttier im islamischen Recht. Untersuchung zur Entwicklung der islamischen Jurisprudenz {Bonn, 1959), 338; S.G. Vesey-Fitzgerald, "Nature and Sources of the Sharī'a", in Majid Khadduri and H.J. Liebesny, eds., Law in the Middle East, 1: Origin and Development of Islamic Law (Washington, 1955), 93-94; Noel Coulson, A History of Islamic Law (Edinburgh, 1964), 64-65; Fazlur Rahman, Islamic Methodology in History {Karachi, 1965), 1-87, esp. 76 (for the opinions of these authors see also Motzki, Origins, 29-34, 38).

⁵² John Burton, "Notes Towards a Fresh Perspective on the Islamic Sunna", British Society for Middle Eastern Studies Bulletin 11 (1984), 3-17.

⁵³ Among the latter Johann Fueck (on his reaction see Motzki, Origins, 29) and Nabia Abbott (see below).

⁵⁴ Cf. Fuat Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, I (Leiden, 1967), 53-233; Muḥammad Ḥamīdullāh, "History of the Early Ḥadīth Compilation", in Sahifah Hammam ibn Munabbih, lOth ed. {Luton, 1979), 1-111 [the 1st edition in Arabic, Damascus 1953; the first English edition, Luton 1961]; Muṣṭafā al-Sibā'ī, al-Sunna wa-makānatuhā fī l-tashrī" al-isāmī (Cairo, 1961 [but already written in the 1940s]), 1-235; Muḥammad 'Ajjāj al-Khaṭīb, al-Sunna qabla 1-tadwīn (Cairo, 1963); Nabia Abbott, Studies in Arabic Literary Papyri, II: Qur'āntc Commentary and Tradition (Chicago, 1967), 1-83; Muhammad M. Azmi, Studies in Early Haīth Literature, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis, 1978) [1st edition, Beirut 1968]. Severed of these authors attacked only Goldziher, yet their criticism applies also to Schacht because they interpreted Goldziher in a radical way. See also Motzki, Origins, 35-45.

⁵⁵ Muhammad M. Azmi/al-Azami attacked Goldziher and Schacht already in his Studies and later Schacht again in his On Schacht's Origins of Muhatnmadan Jurisprudence (Riyadh and New York, 1985). Ahmad Hasan, The Early Development of Islamic Jurisprudence (Islamabad, 1970), refuted some of Schacht's ideas from a more juridical point of view. Cf. for both Motzki, Origins, 38-45.

⁵⁶ See, e.g., John Wansbrough's review of Abbott's book in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 31 (1968), 615. Cf. also Motzki, Origins, 37-38.

⁵⁷ Cf. Patricia Crone, Roman, Provincial and Islamic Law: the Origins of the Islamic Patronate (Cambridge, 1987), 32-34; Albrecht Noth, "Gemeinsamkeiten mulimischer und orientalistischer Ḥadīt-Kritik. Ibn al-Ǧauzīs Kategorien der Ḥadīt-Fälscher", in Udo Tworuschka, ed., Gottes ist der Orient, Gottes tst der Okzident. Festschrift für Abdoldjavad Falaturi zum 65. Geburtstag (Köln and Vienna, 1991), 40-41 (trans, as Chapter 16 in this volume).

⁵⁸ E.g. John Wansbrough, The Sectarian Milieu: Content and Composition of Islamic Salvation History (Oxford, 1978), ix-x and passim; Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, Hagarism: the Making of the Islamic World (Cambridge, 1977), 3, 152; Patricia Crone, Slaves on Horses: the Evolution of the Islamic Polity (Cambridge, 1980), 14-15.

⁵⁹ Published in his book Muslim Tradition: Studies in Chronology, Provenance and Authorship of Early Ḥadīth (Cambridge, 1983), 9-76.

⁶³ Goldziher, on the other hand, counted the traditions on the rules of blood money (diya), for example, among the earliest and genuine ones (Muhammedanische Studien, II, 88; = Muslim Studies, II, 89).

⁶⁷ Burton, "Notes", 3-17; idem, An Introduction to the Ḥadīth (Edinburgh, 1994), 181 and passim. David Powers holds a similar opinion in his Studies in Qur'an and Ḥadīth: the Formation of the Islamic Law of Inheritance (Berkeley, 1986). See also Coulson, History of Islamic Law, Chapter 2.

⁶⁸ Josef van Ess, Zwischen Ḥadīt und Theologie. Studien zum Entstehen prädestinatianischer Überlieferung (Berlin, 1975), 1-30, 104

⁶⁹ Harald Motzki, Die Anfänge islamischer Jurisprudenz. Ihre Entwicklung in Mekka bis zur Mitte des 2./8. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart, 1991 ); English edition, Origins (see above, n. 50); idem, "The Muṣannaf of 'Abd al-Razzāq al-Ṣan'ānī as a Source of Authentic Aḥadīth of the First Century AH", Journal of Near Eastern Studies 50 (1991 ), 1-21 (Chapter 15 of this volume); idem, "Der Fiqh des -Zuhrī: die Quellenproblematik", Der Islam 68 (1991), 1-44 (English translation: "The Jurisprudence of Ibn Šihāb az-Zuhrī: a Source-Critical Study" (Nijmegen, 2001: http://fwebdoc.ubn.kun.nl/mono/m/motzkLhfjuriofibs.pdf).

⁷⁰ Gregor Schoeler, Charakter und Authentie der muslimischen Überlieferung über das Leben Mohammeds (Berlin, 1996); Harald Motzki,· "The Prophet and the Cat: On Dating Mālik's Muwaṭṭa' and Legal Traditions", Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 22 (1998), 18-83; idem, "The Murder of Ibn Abī l-Ḥuqayq: On the Origin and Reliability of Some Maghāzī-Reports", in Harald Motzki, ed., The Biography of Muḥammad: the Issue of the Sources (Leiden, 2000), 170-239; idem, "Der Prophet und die Schuldner. Eine ḤadītUntersuchung auf dem Prüfstand", Der Islam 77 (2000), 1-83.

⁷¹ Wael B. Hallaq has recently argued that Western scholarship dealing with the issue of the authenticity of Ḥadīth "is largely, if not totally, pointless" and that it treated a "pseudo-problem"; see his "The Authenticity of Prophetic Ḥadīth: a Pseudo-Problem", Studia Islamica 89 (1999), 75-90. His reproach certainly does not affect this group of scholars, because they refrain from general statements on the matter. It is even question able whether Hallaq's judgement applies to other Western scholars, since it was usually not their principal aim to refute or confirm the Muslim scholar's view on Ḥadīth. Their actual problem has been the reliability of ḥadīths as historical sources, that is, which period of time they reflect. The fact that Muslim scholars of uṣūl al-fiqh (not those of uṣūl al-ḥadīth!) considered most ḥadīths only as probably (not certainly) genuine is irrelevant for the problem faced by Western scholars who wish to use these materials as historical sources.

⁷² See also the conclusions that Schoeler has drawn from his discussion of the different approaches in Western scholarship concerning the issue of the historical reliability of the Muslim traditions (Charakter und Authentie, 9-19).

⁷³ See below, xxxvii-li. One important issue closely related to the question of the origins and historicity of the Ḥadīth has been left out of this introduction because it should better be dealt with in the context of the development of Muslim jurisprudence: the issue of how the Ḥadīth became integrated into Muslim jurisprudence. Nevertheless, the most important studies dealing with this question are quoted in this introduction: Schacht, Origins; Motzki, Origins; Calder, Studies', Button, Origins (see the bibliography to this volume); Ahmad Hasan, Development (see n. 55); Ali Dere, Die Ḥadīthanwendung bei Imām Mālik b. Anas (-179/795) im Spiegel der an ihn von aš-Šaibānī (-189/804) und aš-Šāfi'ī (-204/819) gerichteten Kritik (Aachen, 1995).

⁷⁵ A late advocate of a long period of oral transmission was Norman Calder. Cf. his Studies in Early Muslim Jurisprudence (Oxford, 1993), 161-71 (in relation to the juristic literature).

⁷⁶ Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien, II, 203-45 (= Muslim Studies, II, 189-226).

⁷⁷ Cf. lgnaz Goldziher, "Kämpfe um die Stellung des Ḥadīt im Islam", Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 61 (1907), 860-72 [reprinted in Gesammelte Schriften, V, 86-98]. It is doubtful, however, whether the conclusion drawn from Goldziher's studies was really his opinion. In his Muhammedanische Studien, II, 8-9 (=Muslim Studies, II, 21-22), he assumed that writing ḥadīths down was a very early form of their preservation, and he had collected several reports that ḥadīths were indeed written down already in the first century. Moreover, he was well aware that the hostility against the writing of ḥadīths inplies that they were indeed written down (Muhammedanische Studien, II, 194-202; = Muslim Studies, II, 181-88).

⁷⁸ Abbott, Studies, 11, 2; Sezgin, Geschichte, I, 53-84 and passim; Azmi, Studies, Part II and passim.

⁷⁹ E.g. Georg Stauth, Die Übedieferung des Korankommentars Muǧāhid b. Ǧabrs (Ph.D. diss., Giessen, 1969); Fred Leemhuis, "1075 Tafsīr of the Cairene Dār al-kutub and Muǧāhid's Tafsīr", in Rudolph Peters, ed., Proceedings of the Ninth Congress of the Union Européenne des Arabisants et lslamisants (Leiden, 1981), 169-80; Sadun M. Al-Samuk, Die historischen Überlieferungen nach Ibn Isḥāq (Ph.D. diss., Frankfurt, 1978).

⁸⁰ Sebastian Günther proposes to speak therefore of "aural" instead of "oral" transmission; cf. his "Modem Literary Theory Applied to Classical Arabic Texts: ḥadīth Revisited", in Verena Klemm and Beatrice Gruendler, eds., Understanding Near Eastern Literatures (Wiesbaden, 2000), 175.

⁸¹ Gregor Schoeler, "Die Frage der schriftlichen oder mündlichen Überlieferung der Wissenschaften im frühen Islam", Der Islam 62 (1985), 201-30; idem, "Weiteres zur Frage der schriftlichen oder mündlichen Überlieferung der Wissenschaften im Islam", Der Islam 66 (1989), 38-67; idem, "Mündliche Thora und Ḥadīt. Überlieferung, Schreibverbot, Redaktion", Der Islam 66 (1989), 213-51 (the translation is Chapter 5 in this volume); idem, "Schreiben und Veröffentlichen. Zur Verwendung und Funktion der Schrift in den ersten islamischen Jahrhunderten", Der Islam 69 (1992), 1-43, English translation of an earlier shorter version by Claude Gilliot as "Writing and Publishing: On the Use and Function of Writing in the First Centuries of Islam", Arabica 44 (1997), 423-35; idem, Écrire et transmettre dans les débuts de l'islam (Paris, 2002). Cf. also Stefan Leder, Der Korpus al-Haiṭam ibn 'Adī (st. 207/822}. Herkunjt, Überlieferung, Gestalt früher Texte der ahbār Literatur (Frankfurt, 1991 ), 3-14; Motzki, Origins, 95-104.

⁸² For that discussion see Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien, II, 194-202 (= Muslim Studies, 11, 181-88); Schoeler, "Mündliche Thora und Ḥadīt", passim; Michael Cook, "The Opponents of the Writing of Tradition in Early Islam", Arabica 44 (1997), 437-530. M.J. Kister, " ... Lā taqra'ūna 'alā l-muṣḥafīyīn wa-lā taḥmilūna l-'ilma 'ani l-ṣaḥafīyīn ...: Some Notes on the Transmission of Ḥadīth", Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 22 (1998), 127-62.

⁸³ Eugenio Griffini, ed., Corpus Juris di Zaid b. 'Alī (Milan, 1919), with the review by Gotthelf Bergsträsser in Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 25 (1922), 114-23; Rudolf Strothmann, "Das Problem der literarischen Persönlichkeit Zaid b. 'Alī", Der Islam 13 (1923), 1-52; Wilferd Madelung, Der Imam al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm und die Glaubenslehre der Zaiditen (Berlin, 1965), 53-61; Sezgin, Geschichte, I, 552-60.

⁸⁴ Gérard Lecomte, "Aspects de la littérature du Ḥadīt chez les Imamites", in Le shî'isme imâmite. Colloque de Strasbourg (6-9 mai 1968) (Paris, 1970), 91-103.

⁸⁵ Etan Kohlberg, "Al-uṣūl al-arba'umi'a", Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 10 (1987), 128-66. See also idem, "An Unusual Shī'ī isnād", Ismel Oriental Studies 5 (1975), 142-49; idem, "Shī'ī Ḥadīth", in Alfred F.L. Beeston et al., eds., The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature, I: Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period (Cambridge, 1983), 298-307.

⁸⁶ E.g. Asma Afsaruddin, "An Insight into the Ḥadīth Methodology of Jamāl al-Dīn b. Ṭāwūs", Der Islam 72 (1995), 25-46; Mohammed Ali Amir-Moezzi, "Remarques sur les critères d'authenticité du hadîth et l'autorité du juriste dans le shī'isme imâmite", Studia Islamica 85 (1997), 5-39; Ron P. Buckley, "On the Origins of Shī'ī Ḥadīth", The Muslim World 88 (1998), 165-84.

⁸⁷ 'Amr K. Ennāmi, Studies in Ibāḍism (al-Ibāḍya) (Beirut, 1972), 81-102; J.C. Wilkinson, "Ibāḍī Ḥadīth: an Essay on Normalization", Der Islam 62 (1985), 231-59. For a discussion of their different judgements on the sources of Ibāḍī Ḥadīth see also Ersilia Francesca, Teoria e pratica del commercia nell'Islām medievale. I contratti di vendita e di commenda nel diritto ibāḍita (Rome, 2002), 32-39; idem, "La fabbricazione degli isnād nella scuola ibāḍita: il Musnad ar-Rabī' b. Ḥabīb", in U. Venneulen and J.M.F. van Reeth, eds., Law, Christianity and Modernism in Islamic Society: Proceedings of the Eighteenth Congress of the Union Européenne des Arabisants et Islamisants (Leuven, 1998), 39-59.

⁸⁸ Cf. Eerik Dickinson, The Development of Early Sunnite Ḥadīth Criticism: the Taqdima of Ibn Abī Ḥātim al-Rāzī (240/854-327/938) (Leiden, 2001), 41ff.

⁸⁹ The first systematic treatises of Muslim ḥadīth criticism were al-Rāmiiurmuzī's (d. 360/971) al-Muḥaddith al-fāṣil and al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī's (d. 405/1014) al-Ma'rifa fī 'ulūm al-ḥadīth; the most sophisticated work was Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ's (d. 643/1245) Muqaddima fī 'ulūm al-ḥadīth. All of these works are published in numerous editions.

⁹⁰ See, e.g., Schwally, "Quellen", 127. It seems, however, that Western scholarship underestimated the role that the matn played in the practice of Muslim ḥadīth criticism. To give an example, judgements about transmitters are mostly regarded as part of isnād criticism, yet several judgements found in the sources suggest that they are also based on a comparison of the matns of the transmitter in question with the those of other transmitters.

⁹¹ Among the few scholars who were convinced of the importance and usefulness of the isnāds for historical research were Aloys Sprenger and Johann Fueck. Cf. Sprenger, Das Leben und die Lehre des Moḥammad nach bisher grösstentheils unbenutzten Quellen (Berlin, 1861 ), I, 330-49, and passim; Fueck, "Traditionalismus", 22-24 ( = "Traditionalism", 113-14).

⁹² This argument was already made by Muir: "Many traditions, though supported by unexceptionable names, and corresponding to others even to minute verbal coincidence, abound in stories so fabulous, and statements so erroneous, as to render it impossible that they could ever have formed part of any contemporary record, and to shake our confidence in the whole system of 'respectable names'" (Life of Mahomet, I, xlix). Fueck, by contrast, was much less negative about Muslim Hadith criticism; see his "Traditionalismus", 13-19 ( = "Traditionalism", 107-11).

⁹³ See above, xviii, xxii-xxiii; also Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien, 11, 147-52 (= Muslim Studies, 11, 140-44}; idem, "Neue Materialien zur Litteratur des Überlieferungswesens bei den Muhammedanern", Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 50 (1896}, 478, 484-86 [reprinted in Gesammelte Schriften, IV, 67-110]; Schwally, "Quellen", 125-27; Schacht, Origins, 163.

⁹⁶ Loth, "Ursprang", 595-96; James Robson, "The Isnād in Muslim Tradition", Transactions of the Glasgow University Oriental Society 15 (1953), 15-26; Motzki, Origins, 119.

⁹⁷ Robson, "The Isnād in Muslim Tradition", 21; G.H.A. Juynboll, "The Date of the Great Fitna", Arabica 20 (1973), 142-49; idem, Muslim Tradition, 17-18; 75; idem, "Muslim's Introduction to his Ṣaḥīḥ, Translated and Annotated with an Excursus on the Chronology of Fitna and Bid'a", Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 5 (1984), 263-311.

⁹⁸ Josef Horovitz, "Alter und Ursprang des Isnād", Der Islam 8 (1918), 43 (the translation of this article comprises Chapter 7 in this volume). At his time he could not prove, however, that the ḥadīth in question really went back to al-Zuhrī. This has been shown only much later; cf. G.H.A. Juynboll, "Early Islamic Society as Reflected in its Use of Isnāds", Le Musēon 107 (1994), 179-85; Schoeler, Charakter und Authentic, 62-79.

⁹⁹ Apart from the studies mentioned in the preceding note see Lawrence I. Conrad, "Portents of the Hour: Ḥadīth and History in the First Century AH", paper presented at the Colloquium on Ḥadīth and History, Cambridge 1986; Motzki, Origins, 126-36, 157-67, . 240-41; idem, "The Muṣannaf of 'Abd al-Razzāq", 13-21; idem, "Die Fiqh des -Zuhrī", 29-42 (English trans., 32-47); idem, "The Prophet and the Cat", 73-74 and passim; idem, "Der Prophet und die Schuldner", 22-46.

¹⁰⁰ Schacht, Origins, 37 n. 1, referring to Horovitz, "Alter und Ursprung", 43-44. Schacht's rejection of Horovitz' opinion is not compelling, since the views of both scholars are compatible. Schacht says "that the regular practice of using isnāds" is not older than the beginning of the second century (italics H.M.). Horovitz does not speak of "a regular practice" but only of "the use" of the isnād and its "first entrance" in the ḥadīth literature. Moreover, one must reckon with the possibility that the use of the isnād developed differently in the various provinces of the Muslim empire. Cf. Motzki, Origins, 22-23, 240-41.

¹⁰¹ John Wansbrough, Quranic Studies: Som·ces and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation (Oxford, 1977), 179.

¹⁰² One may wonder whether or to what extent the report ascribed to lbn Sīrīn can be accepted as factual. Firstly, it is not certain that the statement really goes back to him; secondly, even if it does, we do not know whether he intended it as a general statement. It would be more appropriate to assume that he only referred to his own scholarly milieu at al-Baṣra. Cf. also Motzki, Origins, 22-23.

¹⁰⁵ According to Juynboll the lowest common link mostly belongs to the second or third generation after the Prophet. See his "Some Isnād-Analytical Methods Illustrated on the Basis of Several Woman-Demeaning Sayings from Ḥadīth Literature", al-Qanṭara 10 (1989), 353 (Chapter 10 in this volume).

¹⁰⁷ Ibid., 172. Juynboll has described the Muslim concept in more detail in his article "(Re)appraisal" of Some Technical Terms in Ḥadīth Science", Islamic Law and Society 8 (2001), 307-15.

¹⁰⁸ Sprenger, Moḥammad, I, 330-49; J.H. Kramers, "Une tradition à tendence manichéenne (la 'mangeuse de verdure')", Acta Orientalia 21 (1950-53), 10-22 (the translation is Chapter 12 in this volume).

¹⁰⁹ The importance of the phenomenon has been stressed by Juynboll in several studies, e.g. "Some Isnād-Analytical Methods", 353.

¹¹⁰ Schacht., Origins, 171-72; Juynboll, "Some Isnād-Analytical Methods", 353 and passim.

¹¹¹ Since Schacht was convinced that the Ḥadīth originated in the second century AH at the earliest, the older Successors, the Companions and the Prophet were ruled out as genuine common links. He thus did not regard, for instance, Nāfi', the mawlā of Ibn 'Umar, as a genuine common link when the latter seems to have such a position in isnād bundles, and he doubted that this could be so even in the case of the younger al-Zuhrī. Cf. Schacht, Origins, 175-79. For Juynboll, by contrast, who dates the beginning of the isnād a generation earlier than Schacht, a Successor, even an old one, may also be a genuine common link. Cf. his "Some Isnād-Analytical Methods", 369. Yet in the case of Nāfi' he sides with Schacht; see his "Nāfi', the mawlā of Ibn 'Umar, and his Position in Muslim Ḥadīth Literature", Der Islam 70 (1993), 207-44.

¹¹² The common link phenomenon has attracted several scholars who used it for dating ḥadīths, e.g. Amikam El'ad, "Some Aspects of the Islamic Traditions Regarding the Site of the Grave of Moses", Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 11 (1988), 1-15; idem, Medieval Jerusalem and Islamic Worship: Holy Places, Rituals, Pilgrimage (Leiden, 1995), 15-22; Franz Rosenthal, "Muslim Social Values and Literary Criticism: Reflections on the Ḥadīth of Unun Zar'", Oriens 34 (1994), 35-38 (without using the term common link); Rudolph Peters, "Murder in Khaybar: Some Thoughts on the Origins of the Qasāma Procedure in Islamic Law", Islamic Law and Society 9 (2002), 132-67.

¹¹⁷ Ibid., 166-69, 171. Juynboll called the fabrication of isnād-elements to conceal a common link "diving". Cf. e.g., his "Some Isnād-Analytical Methods", 366-70.

¹¹⁸ Michael Cook, Early Muslim Dogma: a Source-Critical Study (Cambridge, 1981), 107-16.

¹¹⁹ Michael Cook, "Eschatology and the Dating of Traditions", Princeton Papers in Near Eastern Studies 1 (1992), 23-47.

¹²⁰ Juynboll, "Some Isnād-Analytical Methods", 354-56. He calls a common link formed by too few partial common links or only single strand isnāds a "spider" (ibid., 380).

¹²¹ This approach is amply illustrated in his article "Nāfi' ". It was followed by others, e.g., Marco Schöller, "Die Pahnen (līna) der Banū n-Naḍīr und die Interpretation von Koran 59:5. Eine Untersuchung zur Bedeutung des koranischen Wortlauts in den ersten Jahrhunderten islamischer Gelehrsamkeit", Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenläandischen Gesellschaft 146 (1996), 337-49; Irene Schneider, Kinderverkauf und Schuldknechtschaft. Untersuchungen zur frühen Phase des islamischen Rechts (Stuttgart, 1999), 74-121.

¹²³ Motzki, Origins, 24-25; idem, "The Prophet and the Cat", 53-64. The theory of backward growth of isnāds was also questioned by Uri Rubin, The Eye of the Beholder (Princeton, 1955), 234-38. By generalised assumptions about backward growth and spread of isnāds, I mean the conclusion that these phenomena, of which several cases can indeed be proven, explain the course of the development of Ḥadīzth in general.

¹²⁴ The fact that the common link, or other phenomena that can be detected when studying isnāds—such as "dives" and "spiders", appear very frequently does not necessarily validate the explanation given for the phenomenon in question, since the fact of frequent occurrence can just as easily be used to conoborate some other explanation. What Motzki criticises is the claim that one explanation or one method is sufficient to explain and solve all the problems encountered when studying ḥadīths as historical sources.

¹²⁵ Harald Motzki, "Quo vadis Ḥadīt-Forschung? Eine kritische Untersuchung von G.H.A. Juynboll: 'Nāfi' the mawlā of Ibn 'Umar, and his Position in Muslim Ḥadīth Literature'", Der Islam 73 (1996), 40-80, 193-231; idem, "The Prophet and the Cat"; idem, "Der Prophet und die Schuldner"; idem, "Ar-radd 'alā r-radd - Zur Methodik der Ḥadīt-Analyse", Der Islam 78 (2001), 147-63; idem, "The Murder of Ibn Abī l-Ḥuqayq".

¹²⁷ Schoeler, Charakter und Authentie, Chapters 2 and 3; Andreas Goerke, "The Historical Tradition about al-Ḥudaybiya: a Study of 'Urwa b. al-Zubayr's Account", in Motzki, ed., Biography, 240-75.

¹²⁸ In Cook's Early Muslim Dogma only two biographical anecdotes are given as "proof". He of course could have given some further examples, but even then the generalisation remains precarious.

¹²⁹ According to Cook, Early Muslim Dogma, 107-108, "in a traditionist culture... the relevant value is not originality but authority", and this "value of the system" necessarily leads to "falsely ascribing" one's opinions "to a greater authority".

¹³¹ Harald Motzki, "The Question of the Authenticity of Muslim Traditions Reconsidered: a Review Article", in Herbert Berg, ed., Method and Theory in the Study of Islamic Origins (Leiden, 2003), 222-23; more detailed in idem, "Dating Muslim Traditions: a Survey", Arabica 51 (2004), forthcoming. For further arguments against Cook's test see also the study by Andreas Görke, "Eschatology, History, and the Common Link", in Berg, Method, 179-208.

¹³² Schacht, Origins, 140-51; G.H.A. Juynboll, "The man kadhaba Tradition and the Prohibition of Lamenting the Dead", in idem, Muslim Tradition, 96-133; M.J. Kister, "Pare Your Nails: a Study of an Early Tradition", Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society of Columbia University 11 (1979), 63-70. This is only one of the many articles by Kister in which this method is used. See also below.

¹³⁵ Juynboll, Muslim Tradition, 98. He recently used this method to date the traditions that report the origin of the Qur'ānic verse prescribing the "partition" (ḥijāb) for the wives of the Prophet, see idem, "Ḥadīth and the Qur'ān", in Jane Dammen MacAuliffe, ed., Encyclopaedia of the Qur'ān, II (Leiden, 2002), 392-93.

¹³⁶ Cf. Motzki, Origins, 22, 90-91; idem, "Quo vadis Ḥadīt-Forschung", 57-60.

¹³⁷ E.g. Kister, "Pare Your Nails". Kister speaks here of an "early tradition" because the topic appears already in a papyrus written at the end of the second/eighth century and in Qur'ānic commentaries of the same century. See also his articles "You Shall Only Set Out for Three Mosques: a Study of an Early Tradition", Le Muséon 82 (1969), 173-96, and "Ḥaddithū 'an banī isrā'īla wa-lā ḥaraja: a Study of an Early Tradition", Israel Oriental Studies 2 (1972), 215-39. Sometimes Kister's dating is not based on the data of the collections but on the date of death of persons (Companions, Successors) whose opinions are given in the traditions. But cf. for example his "Lā taqra'ūna", 157-62.

¹³⁸ Several scholars take a similar approach: e.g. Uri Rubin, "Morning and Evening Prayers in Early Islam", Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 10 (1987), 40-64; idem, "Apes, Pigs, and the Islamic Identity", Israel Oriental Studies 17 (1997), 89-105; Roberto Tottoli, "Traditions and Controversies Concerning the suğūd al-Qur'ān in Ḥadīth Literature", Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlāndischen Gesellschaft 147 (1997), 371-93; idem, "The Thanksgiving Prostration (sujūd al-shukr) in Muslim Traditions", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 61 (1998), 309-13.

¹³⁹ Wansbrough expressed this view for early exegetical works in his Quranic Studies, 122-48. Calder made similar claims for works of jurisprudence in the first six chapters of his Studies.

¹⁴⁰ For objections against these assumptions cf. Miklos Muranyi, "Die friihe Rechtsliteratur zwischen Quellenanalyse und Fiktion", Islamic Law and Society 4 (1997), 224-41; Yasin Dutton, The Origins of Islamic Law: the Qur'an, the Muwaṭṭa' and Madinan 'Amal (Richmond, 1999), 26-27; Motzki, "The Prophet and the Cat", passim; idem, "The Author and his Work in the Islamic Literature of the First Centuries: the Case of 'Abd al-Razzāq's Muṣannaf", Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 28 (2003), 166-97; Christopher Melchert, "Bukhārī and Early Ḥadīth Criticism", Journal of the American Oriental Society 121 (2001), 7-19; Andreas Görke, Das Kitāb al-Amwāl des Abu Ubaid al-Qāsim b. Sallām. Entstehung und Überlieferung eines frühislamischen Rechtswerkes (Princeton, 2003).

¹⁴¹ Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien, 11, 23-27, 138-40 (= Muslim Studies, 11, 34-37, 133-34).

¹⁴⁸ Joseph Schacht, "Modernism and Traditionalism in a History of Islamic Law", Middle Eastern Studies 1 (1965), 393.

¹⁴⁹ R. Marston Speight, "The Will of Sa'd b. a. Waqqāṣ: the Growth of a Tradition", Der Islam 50 (1973), 249-67. See also idem, "A Look at Variant Readings in the Ḥadīth", Der Islam 77 (2000), 169-79.

¹⁵¹ Lawrence I. Conrad, "Epidemic Disease in Formal and Popular Thought in Early Islamic Society", in Terence Ranger and Paul Slack, eds., Epidemics and Ideas: Essays on the Historical Perception of Pestilence (Cambridge, 1992), 77-99; idem, "'Umar at Sargh: the Evolution of an Umayyad Tradition on Flight from the Plague", in Stefan Leder, ed., Story- Telling in the Framework of Non-Fictional Arabic Literature (Wiesbaden, 1998), 488-528. A similar approach has been used by Josef van Ess, but combined with an examination of the isnāds and other evidence (as Conrad also did in his "Portents of the Hour"), in his Zwischen Ḥadīt. und Theologie and Der Fehltritt des Gelehrten. Die "Pest von Emmaus" und ih1·e theologischen Nachspiele (Heidelberg, 2001).

¹⁵² Cf. Harald Motzki, "Dating Muslim Traditions". For smother critical assessment of Speight's article cf. David Powers, "The Will of Sa'd b. Abī Waqqāṣ: a Reassessment", Studia Islamica 58 (1983), 33-53.

¹⁵⁵ Van Ess, Zwischen Ḥadīt und Theologie, passim. The first chapter of the book, which illustrates his method, has been translated into Arabic by Maher Jarrar in al-Abḥāth 47 (1999), 5-101.

¹⁵⁷ Schoeler, "Mündliche Thora und Ḥadīt", 231-49 (= "Oral Torah", 20-42).

¹⁵⁹ Motzki, Anfänge, 115-24, 129-32, 143-51 (= Origins, 125-36, 142-48, 158-67); idem, "Der Fiqh des -Zuhrī", 29-42 ( = "The Jurisprudence of Ibn Šihāb az-Zuhrī", 32-47); idem, "Quo vadis Ḥadīt-Forschung", 68-80, 193-226; idem, "The Prophet and the Cat", passim; idem, "Der Prophet und die Schuldner", 22-50; idem, "The Murder of Ibn Abī l-Ḥuqayq", passim.

¹⁶⁰ Maher Jarrar, "Mashāri' al-'ushshāq: dirāsa fī aḥādīth faḍl al-jihād wa 'al-ḥūr al-'īn"', al-Abḥāth 41 (1993), 27-121. The author has published an improved English version of the first part of the study (without the Arabic sources) with the title "The Martyrdom of Passionate Lovers: Holy War as a Sacred Wedding", in Angelika Neuwirth, Birgit Embaló, Sebastian Günther, and Maher Jarrar, eds., Myths, Historical Archetypes and Symbolic Figures in Arabic Literature: Towards a New Hermeneutic Approach (Beirut, 1999), 87-107.

¹⁶¹ See the paragraphs "Eras/Death", "The Sacred Wedding", and "Elaboration of a Genre".

¹⁶² Uri Rubin, '"Al-walad li-l-firāsh': On the Islamic Campaign against 'zinā"', Studia Islamica 78 (1993), 5-26; idem, The Eye of the Beholder; idem, Between Bible and Qur'ān: the Children of Israel and the Islamic Self-Image (Princeton, 1999). In these studies Rubin uses isnāds "to determine the general provenance of the traditions, i.e. the geographic region in which they originated and were first circulated" (Between Bible and Qur'ān, 3).

¹⁶³ Ludwig Ammann, Vorbild und Vernunft. Die Regelung von Lachen und Scherzen im mittelalterlichen Islam (Hildesheim, 1993), 39-73, 144-70.

¹⁶⁴ Rosenthal, "Muslim Social Values and Literary Criticism", 31-56; Marco Schöller, "Palmen", 337-62; Suliman Bashear, Arabs and Others in Early Islam (Princeton, 1997); and Irene Schneider, Kinderverkauf, 74-121.

¹⁶⁶ Schoeler, Chatrakter und Authentie, Chapters 2 and 3; Motzki, "Quo vadis Ḥadīt-Forschung".

¹⁶⁷ See the studies of Motzki mentioned above, n. 159; also Andreas Görke, "The Historical Tradition about al-Ḥudaybiya", 240-75; Ulrike Mitter, Das frühislamische Patronat. Eine Untersuchung zur Rolle von fremden Elementen bet der Entwicklung des islamischen Rechts (Ph.D. diss., Nijmegen, 1999), Part B; idem, "Unconditional Manumission of Slaves in Early Islamic Law: a Ḥadīth Analysis", Der Islam 78 (2001), 35-72; Peters, "Murder in Khaybar", 140-52.

¹⁶⁸ Iftikhar Zaman, "The Science of Rijāl as a Method in the Study of Ḥadīths", Journal of Islamic Studies 5 (1994), 1-34.

¹⁶⁹ Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena zur äaltesten Geschichte des Islams, in his Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, VI (Berlin, 1899).

¹⁷⁰ Fuat Sezgin, Buḫârî'nin kaynakları hakkında araştırmalar (Istanbul, 1956); idem, Geschichte, I, passim.

¹⁷² Sebastian Günther, Quellenuntersuchungen zu den "Maqātil aṭ- Ṭālibiyyīn" des Abū 'l-Faraǧ al-Iṣahānī (gest. 356/967). Ein Beitrag zur Problematik der mündlichen und schriftlichen Überlieferung in der mittelalterlichen arabischen Literatur (Hildesheim, 1991).

¹⁷³ Cf. also Ella Landau-Tasseron, "On the Reconstruction of Lost Sources", in Lawrence I. Conrad, ed., History and Historiography in Early Islamic Times: Studies and Perspectives (Princeton, forthcoming).

¹⁷⁴ Motzki, Anfänge/Origins; idem, "The Muṣannaf of 'Abd al-Razzāq"; idem, "Der Fiqh des -Zuhrī"/"The Jurisprudence of Ibn Šihāb az-Zuhrī".

¹⁷⁵ Eckart Stetter, Topoi urid Schemata im Ḥadīt (Ph.D. diss., Tübingen, 1965); R. Marston Speight, The Musnad of al-Ṭayālisī: a Study of Ḥadīth as Oral Literature (Ph.D. diss. Hartford, 1970).

¹⁷⁶ The issue had only been touched upon in the short article by Sahair El Calamawy, "Narrative Elements in the Ḥadīth Literature", in Cambridge History of Arabic Literature, I, 308-16, and in Jarrar's study mentioned above.

¹⁷⁷ Daniel Beaumont, "Hard-Boiled: Narrative Discourse in Early Muslim Traditions", Studia Islamica 83 (1996), 5-31; Sebastian Günther, "Fictional Narration and Imagination within an Authoritative Framework: Towards a New Understanding of Ḥadīth", in Leder, ed., Story-Telling, 433-71. See also idem, "Modern Literary Theory Applied to Classical Arabic Texts", 171-176. A more conservative approach of analysis characterises R. Marston Speight, "Narrative Structures in the Ḥadīth", Journal of Near Eastern Studies 59 (2001), 265-71.

¹⁷⁸ Günther explains in his "Theoretical Premises" that in the modern theory of literature "fictional" is not equated with "fictitious".

¹⁷⁹ Only a few summaries have been written concerning the rides of Muslim ḥadīth criticism.

¹⁸⁰ Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien, II, 138-52 (= Muslim Studies, II, 133-44). A similar verdict was already given by Muir, Life of Mahomet, I, xlii-xlv.

¹⁸¹ Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien, II, 149 (= Muslim Studies, II, 141).

¹⁸² See above, xxxiii-xxxiv, and James Robson, "Standards Applied by Muslim Traditionists", The John Rylands Librm·y Bulletin 43 (1960), 479, though he makes this view less crudely explicit than Goldziher does. The impression that the Muslim ḥadīth scholars gave too much preference to criticism of isnāds and transmitters instead of text and content was based on the writings of the leading Muslim ḥadīth scholars themselves. Of the 65 ḥadīth disciplines enumerated by Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ in his Muqaddima, for example, only 25 percent touched upon the matn, the rest exclusively concerned the isnād.

¹⁸⁴ A beginning has been made by Claude Gilliot, "Le traitement du Ḥadīt clans le Tahdīb al-ātār de Ṭabarī', Arabica 41 (1994), 309-51, and Dickinson, Development of Early Sunnite Ḥadīth Criticism.

Introduction

Ḥadīth: Origins and Developments

Origins and Transmission of the Ḥadīth

THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN ḤADĪTH STUDIES

ORIGIN AND HISTORICITY

MEANS OF PRESERVATION AND TRANSMISSION

NON-SUNNĪ ḤADĪTH

Origin and Reliability of the Isnād

THE ISNĀD IN MUSLIM AND WESTERN STUDIES

DATING BY ISNĀDS

Methods of Analysing and Dating Ḥadīths

DATING ḤADĪTHS

OTHER APPROACHES TO ḤADITH ANALYSIS

Bibliography

General Monographs

I. Origins and Transmission of the Ḥadīth

ORIGIN AND HISTORICITY

MEANS OF PRESERVATION AND TRANSMISSION

NON-SUNNĪ ḤADĪTH

II. Origin and Reliability of the Isnād

III. Methods of Analysing and Dating Ḥadīths

DATING ḤADĪTHS

OTHER APPROACHES OF ḤADĪTH ANALYSIS

BIBLIOGRAPHY