Hadiths As Historical Sources for a Biography of the Prophet

Home , Abu Mikhnaf, Ibn Habib, Ibn Hisham, Ibn Ishaq, Patricia Crone

HADITHS AS HISTORICAL SOURCES FOR A BIOGRAPHY OF THE PROPHET

Akira GOTO*

The term hadith is used today in both a narrow and broad sense. In the narrow sense of the term, hadiths are traditions that have been incorpo- rated into Islamic law. It is well known that al-Shafi'i (d. 820) ranked such hadiths in the highest position of legal authority next to the Qur'an to guide his followers. As far as they have been admitted as the basis of law, hadith should be considered as valid and true (sahih) traditions, but by the middle of the ninth century, hadith had multiplied into the hundreds of thousands of items. Most of them were considered quite spurious, "weak" or "infirm" so it is said, forcing legal scholars to develop a methodology for selecting just which ones were valid for Islamic law. As a result, several collections of "valid" hadiths were compiled, giving rise to the narrow, legal meaning of the term referring to the traditions that were selected for these authorized collections. Hadith in the broader sense therefore indicates the whole body of narratives and commentary on Muhammad that have been handed down through Islamic history. These traditions provide information about the Prophet, the people who lived during his generation, and the society of the time. The present paper will deal with hadiths in this latter sense as sources for studying the life of Muhammad and his times. Originally oral in nature, these hadiths have been collected without regard to validity in such work as al- sira al-nabawiya by Ibn Ishaq. Since the eleventh century in which the science of Islamic law became a key part of Islamic learning, the value of valid hadith has been greatly enhanced. Even Ibn Taymiya (d. 1328), a thinker who tried to understand Islam by strictly going back to its starting point, undoubtedly recognized

*professor, the University of Tokyo

82 ORIENT HADITHS AS HISTORICAL SOURCES FOR A BIOGRAPHY OF THE PROPHET hadiths recorded in al-sahihayn by al-Bukhari (d. 870) and Muslim (d. 875) as true valid. On the other hand, western scholars of Islam have expressed doubts from the standpoint of the modern science of history about valid hadiths judged to be traditionally correct and some of them have criticized these hadiths as inaccurate ones concerning the words and deeds of the Prophet. Predating such doubts, however, were muslim intellectuals who themselves did not agree with how valid hadiths were selected. According to al-fihrist (The Bibliography) by Ibn al-Nadim (d. 990), the works of Ibn Ishaq (d. 767), the biographer of Muhammad (sahib al-sira), were not rated very highly. Ibn al-Nadim asserted that it was impossible for Ibn Ishaq to get information directly from Fatima bint al-Mundhir, one of his important "informants." Moreover, Ibn al-Nadim indicates that the poems cited in Ibn Ishaq's works were written only for his works, that they include many genealogical errors, and that there are many mistakes due to over-reliance on information from Christians and Jews. Ibn al-Nadim's criticism of Ibn Ishaq was in common with people like al-Bukhari, who sought for valid traditions. Al-Bukhari would not admit a hadith to be valid merely because the name of Ibn Ishaq was written in its isnad. Most of the hadiths that passed through the hands of Ibn Ishaq were estimated to be "weak" (da'if), or at most good (hasan). Therefore, the authorized six collections of valid hadith contain few hadiths gathered by Ibn Ishaq and recorded in his al-sira al-nabawiya. In this way Ibn Ishaq was ignored by the editors of the authorized collections of the ninth century and criticized severely by Ibn al-Nadim, a bibliographer of the tenth century. Was Ibn Ishaq therefore forgotten by Islamic society in the tenth century? The answer is no. Five collections of valid traditions were compiled in the latter part of the ninth century, and al-Nasa'i compiled the sixth at the beginning of the tenth century. It was at this time that a great scholar, al-Tabari (d. 923) became known to the world. In his al-fihrist, Ibn al-Nadim introduced al- Tabari in the sixth chapter concerning legal scholars and called him, with admiration, "a wise man," "a leader of the age," and "a legal scholar of the age." He was appreciated highly as an authority on hadith even during his lifetime (cf. Ibn Hajar) and also during the second half of the tenth century. Today, however, al-Tabari is not generally known as a legal scholar, but rather as the author of voluminous works, called tafsir (cf. al-

Vol. XXX-XXXI 1995 83 Tabari: Tafsir) and ta'rikh, which covered history from the time of Adam to the beginning of the tenth century (cf. al-Tabari: Ta'rikh). It is also true that he cited many hadiths recorded in Ibn Ishaq's al-sira al-nabawiya, showing that this renowned legal scholar of the tenth century did not reject Ibn Ishaq. There were other people besides al-Tabari who held Ibn Ishaq's works in high estimation. Both Ibn Qutayba (d. 889) and al-Baladhuri (d. 892), intellectuals in the days when the six collections were compiled, are often found quoting Ibn Ishaq. In a period of one or two generations prior to them, Ibn Ishaq was an important source of information for al-Waqidi (d. 822) and his follower Ibn Sa'd (d. 845), while Ibn Hisham (d. 833) revised Ibn Ishaq's al-sira al-nabawiya, omitting unnecessary information and criti- cizing the quoted poetry. In sum, there were two different currents among muslim scholars in the ninth century concerning the works of Ibn Ishaq, who was active in the middle of the previous century. One was the group of people who sought for valid hadiths and did not hold Ibn Ishaq in very high estimation. The other group consisted of those who used Ibn Ishaq's works as sources for the books they wrote. Therefore, is it accurate to say that intellectuals like al-Tabari, who quoted "weak" hadiths from Ibn Ishaq, totally believed in him? The answer may be no. At present, we can not find a complete version of Ibn Ishaq's al-sira al-nabawiya. Many copies of the book must have existed for some time, but now, all of them have become scattered or lost. We only have about two-thirds of his works, through the al-sira al-nabawiya fortunately revised by Ibn Hisham and quoted passages by al-Tabari and others. However, Ibn Hisham himself seemed not to intend to hand down Ibn Ishaq's al-sira al-nabawiya to posterity, but was intent on diminishing the bad effects caused by the spread of the original versions. He eliminated doubtful, un- believable and useless parts from the original and made notes on the quoted poetry. Ibn Hisham seems not to have much appreciated the scholarship of Ibn Ishaq. It is clear that al-Tabari did not stress accuracy when writing his tafsir and ta'rikh. In his tafsir, when explaining verses from the qur'an, he would include various contradictory hadiths. In other words, it is impossible

84 ORIENT HADITHS AS HISTORICAL SOURCES FOR A BIOGRAPHY OF THE PROPHET to pursue what may be the correct explanation of each verse of the qur'an using al-Tabari's tafsir. On the contrary, one may find various interpreta- tions of the qur'an through his work. His ta'rikh also contains various hadiths describing various historical events, that are contradictory in regard to such basic data as dates and the names of places and people. Hadiths cited from Ibn Ishaq, in most cases, were recorded as possible contradictory examples. In fact, al-Tabari quoted hadiths from Ibn Ishaq's works, not because he judged them to be correct, but because he wanted his readers to estimate the value of each hadith for themselves. Both tafsir and ta'rikh by al-Tabari were voluminous works, but they did not contain all of the hundreds of thousands hadiths which seemed to be current at that time. Al-Tabari selected hadith carefully, though he does not indicate his criteria for his selection. He probably chose them relying upon his own experiential intuition. Al-Tabari's view about hadiths seemed to be the same as Ibn Ishaq's. Ibn Ishaq often introduced a few contradictory hadiths about a certain historical event, concluding that only God knew which one was correct. He also did not apparently consider all of the hadiths in his al-sira al-nabawiya to be correct. However, he did not discuss how to select hadiths from among his extensive collection either. He must have used what could be called his "synthetic judgement." The present writer is in no position to evaluate the results of efforts made by various people to put restrictions on the number and the contents of hadiths in their eagerness to find legally valid hadith, but it may well be that we will come across very few valid hadiths interesting enough to include in a body of historical materials for the biographical study of Muhammad and an investigation of the society in which he lived. On the other hand, it is useful for us to know about the existence of such people as Ibn Ishaq and al-Tabari, who gathered hadiths extensively without regard to their accuracy when compiling books, even though they were selective according to their own discretion. Many of those various and interesting hadiths will be the subject of this paper.

Both western scholars of Islamic studies and present day muslim scholars have relied on various hadiths recorded in Ibn Ishaq's al-sira al-nabawiya

Vol. XXX-XXXI 1995 85 and books of others including al-Tabari when studying the life of Muhammad and Arab society of his time. It took Patricia Crone, however, to suggest that such a pursuit may be all for naught in her Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam (cf. Crone: Meccan Trade, pp. 203ff., Part III: Conclusion, 9: The Sources). Crone examines the hadiths related to Chapter 106 of the qur'an called sura quraysh as follows:

For the ilaf of Quraysh their ilaf of the journey in winter and summer, so worship the lord of this house, who fed them against a hunger, and gave them security from a fear.

In the first place, Crone decries, what is "their ilaf of the journey in winter and summer?" A certain hadith says it means "the hajj in dhu al- hijja and the 'umra in rajab". Another says it is "the migrations of Quray- sh to Ta'if in the summer and their return to Mecca if in the winter." However, many hadiths say they are "trading journeys." Then, where did they go? Various hadiths say various things. For example, "Quraysh would travel by the hot coastal route to Ayla in the winter and by the cool inland route to Busra and Adhri'at in the summer." "Quraysh would go to Syria in the summer and to the Yemen in the winter, when Syria was too cold." Quraysh would go to "Syria in the winter and the Yemen in the summer, when the route to Syria was too hot." "They went to Syria and Ethiopia." "They went to Syria, the Yemen and Ethiopia; or to Syria and Rum, on the one hand, and the Yemen and Ethiopia, on the other; or to Syria, the Yemen, Ethiopia, and Iraq." The third verse of the chapter, "so worship the lord of this house", relates to "journeys" and various reasons are mentioned why they worship. They say "Quraysh are being told to worship God because He enabled them to go on their journeys, thereby securing provisions for Mecca." "They are being told to worship Him instead of travelling, the journeys leaving them no time to do so." "They are being told to worship Him because He put an end to these journeys, Ethiopians and/or others having taken over the provisioning of Mecca." What does it mean by "fed them against a hunger" in the fourth verse? 86 ORIENT HADITHS AS HISTORICAL SOURCES FOR A BIOGRAPHY OF THE PROPHET

It means "He enabled Quraysh to provision Mecca." And "this He did by letting Hashim institute the two journeys, or by defeating the Ethiopans so that they could continue to go on these journeys, at any rate by means of these journeys." Others are "the verse refers to a specific famine in Mecca" and "it was the pre-Islamic famine to which Hashim reacted by importing bread from Syria". Or else it was the later famine with which Quraysh were afflicted by God in response to Muhammad's prayer." "In Pre-Islamic times when impoverished families would withdraw to the desert until they died: Hashim put an end to this practice by instituting the two trading journeys." What Crone wants to say here is that there is much variety in hadiths even how to explain this short chapter of the qur'an. Therefore, she argues that it is impossible to understand the phrases of the qur'an correctly and to gather historical facts from hadiths We should admit Crone's gallant efforts to collect various hadiths on the theme, but we can easily find out that there are many contradictory hadiths in explaining these verses of the qur'an, if we just open the related pages of al-Tabari's tafsir. Al-Tabari of the tenth century, took it for granted that he could not get the right meaning of each verse of the qur'- an through the, hadiths. It was the premise of his learning. It was also a matter of course among other muslim intellectuals at that time. They understood that they could explain the verses of the qur'an diversely by making most use of various hadiths. They noticed, on the other hand, that it was difficult to define meanings of some terms appearing in the qur'an (cf. Goto: Note II). In this context what Crone says is correct, but it does not mean that those hadiths or any other are of no value as historical sources. Let us follow Crone's argument a little further. It is needless to say that the motif of this chapter titled sura quraysh is ilaf. Several hadiths concerning ilaf are recorded in the works of Ibn Habib (d. 860) and al-Kala'i (d. 1237). According to these hadiths, Hashim, a great-grandfather of Muhammad, went to Syria and received permission to trade from the ruler there and then made ilaf agreements with people on his way back home. Watt (cf. Watt: Mecca) and Hamidullah studied ilaf on the basis of these hadiths. Watt considered the ilaf institution as the basis of Meccan trade. And Hamidullah concluded that just before the rise of Islam, Arabian society was unified under this institution and Mecca was

Vol. XXX-XXXI 1995 87 the center of financial operations. The present writer does not agree with these assertions. Crone has also criticized them. She calls the above hadith an "ilaf tradition" and doubts its value. Crone says that most of the hadiths were created to interpret the qur'an, and that the ilaf tradition was created by Ibn al-Kalbi (d. 820) in order to explain the term ilaf which is contained only in Chapter 106. If there were not the word ilaf in the qur'an, the "ilaf tradition" would not have existed and later Islamicists would not have created the "ilaf institution". As Crone insists, among a great number of the hadiths explaining Meccan trader movements in the time of Muhammad, we find no hadith concerning trade carried out under the "ilaf institution." Hadiths concerning ilaf are only the "ilaf tradition" which Crone points out, though its story varies slightly from book to book (cf. Kister: Tamim). There is no eviden- ce that Ibn al-Kalbi created the "ilaf tradition", but it may well be that someone collected various hadiths and made a story from them. In the hadiths the word ilaf is used in the context of the activities of Hashim and people of his generation. Therefore, in the time of Muhammad ilaf was probably not an established institution for Meccan people. Intellec- tuals such as Ibn Ishaq and al-Tabari do not cite the ilaf tradition in their works, because they might not have judged it to be a trustworthy criterion in selecting their hadiths. Crone assumes that storytellers (qass) were behind Ibn al-Kalbi's crea- tions. She says that the qur'an exegesis in the early period was not a product of learning, like al-Tabari's tafsir in the later days, but merely a collection of narratives told by storytellers. And she takes tafsir by Muqatil b. Sulayman (d. 767) or al-Kalbi (d. 763), Ibn al-Kalbi's father, as a typical qur'an exegesis in the early period. She thinks that the words of storytellers have no value as historical materials, the "ilaf tradition" being a typical example. J. Wansbrough has already pointed in his book Quranic Studies that most of the hadiths interpreting the qur'an were completed in a certain form by storytellers. Jones also demonstrates that the hadiths of Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi were mostly based on storytellers (of Jones). Some hundreds of thousands of hadiths with a certain length and nar- rative style in the ninth century might have been arranged by storytellers

88 ORIENT HADITHS AS HISTORICAL SOURCES FOR A BIOGRAPHY OF THE PROPHET in the seventh and eighth centuries. Crone's argument is valid so far, but it would be rash to conclude that qass created stories without foundation, and that their stories have no value as historical sources.

III

After the ninth century, biographies of people who handed down hadiths began to be complied in a form arranged by generation. According to at least one such collection written by Ibn Sa'd, the first and second generations of tabi'un had not yet edited any tafsir or any maghazi, but they started gathering traditions composed mainly of genealogies. Ibn al-Nadim introduced books on "history" in Chapter 3 of his al-fihri st. He named Ziyad b. Abihi as the first person who wrote a book on "history." Ziyad b. Abihi was a famous bureaucrat in the time of Mu'awiya and was borne by a prostitute. It was known later that Mu'awiya confessed that his father, Abu Sufyan, was Ziyad b. Abihi's real father. Ibn al-Nadim said that Ziyad b. Abihi wrote a book about his birth for his offspring. Ibn al-Nadim continued to introduce many persons, such as Daghfal, a genealogist (al-nassab) who was already active at the time of Muhammad and visited Mu'awiya as a delegate, al-Bakri, a Christian genealogist, Wiqa' b. al-'Ash'ar, the most proud genealogist, 'Ubayd b. Sharya who was from the Jurhum tribe of Yemen and invited by Mu'awiya, Suhar al-'Abdi who belonged to the 'Uthman party then to the Khariji sect, al-Shargi b. al- Qatami, and Ibn al-Kawwa' of the 'Ali party. Under such titles as al-nassabun and ashab al-akhbar, Ibn Qutayba named almost the same people as Ibn al-Nadim chose. In the latter part of the seventh century, nobody was active among people grouped under the names of ashab al-hadith, ashab al-qira'at and ruwat al-shi'r by Ibn Qutayba. They took an active part later. In the time of political chaos and transition during and after the first and second civil wars, each muslim must have wanted to establish his own social identity. For an Arab a genealogy was most important to prove his identity. Since the names of his father and ancestors were a part of his name, he thought he would become one with his father and ancestors. He tried to survive in a changing society by showing who he was. If his father was a muslim from an earlier time and participated in battles with

Vol. XXX-XXXI 1995 89 Muhammad, he could make the most use of his background to strengthen his political and social status. Then, he could ask for protection of rights which could be easily taken away in a disordered society. A nomadic Arab whose father had participated actively in a battle of conquest could attempt to secure various rights including receiving a pension according to his family record. As for a tabi'un, who had nothing to do with Muhammad, no other information was more important than a genealogy traced back to ancestors who had some connection with Muhammad, his companions, or the leaders in the time of conquest. In the same way, it was necessary for political leaders like Mu'awiya, who tried to manage an disordered Arab society, to have information on each Arab's genealogy. Abu Bakr, the first caliph, was famous for his large personal body of information on Arab genealogies. He was the one who had to organize Arabs for the battle of ridda. After the wars of conquest, when muslim society was split, leaders-to-be wanted experts on genealogy around them. Authorities on nasab mentioned in al-fihrist were at the same time also experts on both akhbar and poetry. Nasab not only means genealogy, but also a collection of records concerning ancestors' achievements (akhbar) and poetry, the form in which genealogies and akhbar were explained and confirmed. We can not find any books written by the early authorities on the nasab recorded in al-fihrist. However, it is known that a part of Ibn Ishaq's al-sira al-nabawiya, written in the middle of the eighth century, consisted of hadiths that included genealogies, akhbar and poetry. On the other hand, in the works of Ibn Sa'd and Ibn Qutayba in the ninth century, most genealogies were separated from akhbar and poetry. So it may well be said that the form of early nasab remains in Ibn Ishaq's work. Nasab was necessary for all muslims of that era. They desired nasab to trace their ancestors back as early as possible and to find akhbar on the battle of conquest after Muhammad's death. It is a matter of course that the most important thing among akhbar were items about the battles led by Muhammad and those of ridda and conquest, which have given muslims proof of their various rights. Since every muslim wanted his own nasab, there were many nasabs full

90 ORIENT HADITHS AS HISTORICAL SOURCES FOR A BIOGRAPHY OF THE PROPHET

of contradictions. One can always see a certain event from a different angle owing to one's situation. Early oral tradition therefore, was not intended to relate Muhammad's words and deeds, or the meaning of verses in the qur'an. Rather, they were nasabs consisting of poems and historical information, of which each muslim intended to make good use for confirming his identity in a time of political turmoil. Therefore, as a whole, oral tradition was inconsistent, but by no means incoherent.

In the middle of the Umayya period, people still had an interest in nasab due to social concerns apart form each muslim's personal and actual interest. It was fashionable to choose information on some certain special topics from the nasabs and compiled the information into one hadith. For example one would choose the names from each akhbar which had something to say about who had participated in battles led by Muhammad. A complete list of names could be compiled, because every descendant of the participants proudly recorded the fact in his nasabs. Thus, lists of participants, that seem to have been compiled by some storeytellers through nasab of each muslim as above mentioned, in various battles under the command of Muham- mad have been handed down to the present. It is known that in the first half of the eighth century several collections of traditions called maghazi were compiled. Maghazi is a record of a battle (ghazwa), but it does not mean that only. The original title of the main part of Ibn Ishaq's al-sira al-nabawiya was probably maghazi. Likewise, akhbar on Muhammad's life or his ancestors was called maghazi. Some maghazis seemed to have embraced events from the time of Muhammad at least to the era of conquest (cf. E. I. n. e. qv. al-maghazi). Maghazi is, as it were, "historiography" of muslim society. Before Ibn Ishaq, the following persons are known as the writers of maghazis: 'Urwa b. al-Zubayr (d. 712); Wahb b. Munabbih (d. 728); Shurahbil b. Sa'd (d. 741); al-Zuhri (d. 742); and Musa b. 'Uqba (d. 758). Their works have been lost. However, Ibn Ishaq obtained information from their maghazis (except Musa b. 'Uqba, his rival), when he compiled his al-sira al-nabawiya. Muslim intellectuals of the first half of eighth century wrote "histories" of various groups of tribes based on the nasab of each muslim. They were

Vol. XXX-XXXI 1995 91 composed of descriptions of the movements of each group in the battlefield in Arabia before Islam, at the time of Muhammad and in the days of conquest. Rearrangement of nasabs also meant rearrangements of akhbar and poetry. People called ruwat al-shi'r by Ibn Qutayba began to be active at this period. Naturally, people from various districts spoke various dialects, so that it was necessary to understand the languages correctly in order to rearrange akhbar or poetry of each group. The second chapter of al-fihrist is an introduction to books on grammar (nahw). According to this chapter, Abu al-Aswad al Du'ali (d. 688), who learned nahw from 'Ali, the fourth Caliph, established Arabic grammar, and the first authors of written books on grammar were his followers from the first half of the eighth century on. People called ashab al-qira'at by Ibn Qutayba also began to take an active part at the same time. Al-Kalbi, the father of Ibn al-Kalbi and a contemporary of Ibn Ishaq, belonged to the same generation of the first ashab al-qira'at. Al-Kalbi, was called sahib al-tafsir by Ibn Qutayba and the creator of "ilaf tradition" by Crone. According to the episodes cited in al-fihrist and other works, he was ordered to be a teller of al-tafsir in al- Basra by its governor-general at the time of the establishment of the 'Abbas dynasty. He was, so to speak, a qass that Crone suggested. Al-Kalbi, who is supposed to be the first muslim to arrange tafsir systematically, was also a genealogist. He learned genealogies of the Quraysh from Abu Salih, those of the Kinda from Abu al-Kannas al-Kindi, those of the Ma'add b. 'Adnan from al-Najjar b. Aws al-'Adwani, and those of the Iyad tribes from Adi b. 'Waththab al-Iyadi. Unfortunately, biographies of the genealogists who taught al-Kalbi can not be found at present, but it may well be proved that every tribe had an authority on genealogy from the second half of the seventh century to the first half of the eighth century. However, Al-Kalbi and his son, Ibn al-Kalbi, were not authorities for specific genealogical groups. They investigated all Arab genealogies (cf. Ibn al-Nadim; E. I. n. e. qv. Ibn al-Kalbi). Therefore, it can be said that al-Kalbi's al-tafsir and Ibn al-Kalbi's voluminous works were produced from much reliance on their knowledge of nasab. Some muslim intellectuals at this time also started to gather legal hadith. For example, Malik b. Anas who was hostile toward Ibn Ishaq, wrote al- muwatta'. Hadtihs gathered by him seemed to have been chosen among

92 ORIENT HADITHS AS HISTORICAL SOURCES FOR A BIOGRAPHY OF THE PROPHET nasabs of people whose ancestors had personal contact with Muhammad. Ibn Ishaq and Malik b. Anas were completely different in their intellectual interest and were consequently confronted each other; but they gathered the same materials containing personal and fragmentary information derived from nasab of each muslim.

If "history" means chronology (ta'rikh), it would be difficult to compose such history from the akhbay contained in nasab. Akhbar is basically a record of events that an individual and his ancestors took part in. Akhbar, however, tells only that the events happened during one's lifetime or the lifetime of his ancestor, and does not indicate any specific date. Therefore, even akhbar telling of someone's bravery in a battle does not tell about an exact time or place, though it does indicate names of battles, such as "the battle of so-and-so camel", "the battle of so-and-so entrance to so-and-so valley" or "the battle of the neighing horse". It is needless to say that poetry, another component of nasab, is not useful either to fix the time or name of a battlefield. Crone cites two descriptions of an expedition of muslims to Kharrar, in order to explain the reasons why she does not rely on hadiths of muslims as a whole. Ibn Ishaq tells about the expedition as follows: Meanwhile the messenger of God sent Sa'd b. Abi Waqqas on compaign [sic.] with eight men from among the muhajiyun. He went as far as Kharrar in the Hijaz, then he returned without having had a clash with the enemy. And al-Waqidi describes about the same event as follows: Then the messenger of God (may God bless him and give him peace) appointed Sa'd b. Abi Waqqas to the command against Kharrar-Kharrar being part of Juhfa near Khumm-in dhu-l-qa'da, eighteen months (sic. nine months) after the hijra of the messenger (may God bless him and give him peace). Abu Bakr b. Isma'il b. Muhammad said on the authority of his father then on 'Amil b. Sa'd, then on his father (sc. Sa'd b. Abi Waqqas): the messenger of God (may God bless him and give him peace) said, "O Sa'd, go to Kharrar, for a caravan belonging to Quraysh will pass through it." So I went out with twenty or twenty-one men, on foot. We would hide

Vol. XXX-XXXI 1995 93 during the day and travel at night until we arrived there on the morning of the fifth day. We found that the caravan had passed through the day before. The messenger had enjoined upon us not to go beyond Kharrar. Had he not done so, I would have tried to catch up with it. Al-Waqidi (d. 822) was younger than Ibn Ishaq (d. 767) by a few generations. Regarding their accounts of the event, al-Waqidi is far superior to Ibn Ishaq in details. Crone says that "unlike Ibn Ishaq, Waqidi knows the exact date of the expedition, and also the whereabouts of Kharrar; he knows that the purpose of the expedition was to intercept a caravan, that the men went on foot, but travelled only at night, that it took them five days, and that the reason why no fighting took place is that the caravan had come and gone; he even knows that the number of participants in the raid was larger than hitherto assumed". Al-Waqidi's description almost satisfies what historians wish to know, but Crone raises the question as to whether we can believe the part of his description which Ibn Ishaq did not cover. She also says, "if spurious information accumulated at this rate in the two generations between Ibn Ishaq and Wagidi, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that even more must have accumulated in the three generations between the Prophet and Ibn Ishaq". In fact, al-Waqidi tried to write ta'rikh, though it is hard to judge whether his attempt was successful or not. On the other hand, Ibn Ishaq did not write ta'rikh. His al-sira al-nabawiya was, so to speak, the nasab of Muhammad. He gathered and compiled various information on Muhammad and his ancestors, relatives, companions and enemies, which was compiled in the forms of genealogy, akhbar and poetry. He naturally cited the verses of the qur'an frequently. However, he did not intend to compile his book as an interpretation of the qur'an. On the contrary, it is used as a material to identify an event by citing the related verses of the qur'an in addition to presenting genealogy, akhbar and poetry. Authors of maghazis (not only Ibn Ishaq but also his seniors) made the most use of the verses of the qur'an for compiling their nasabs of Muhammad. In Muslim society from the latter part of the seventh century to the first half of the eighth century, intellectuals did not ignore the knowledge of ta'rikh. As for Ibn Ishaq, he seemed to try to chronologize events happened after Hijra. Abu Mikhnaf (d. 774) and 'Awana (d. 764), whose descriptions

94 ORIENT HADITHS AS HISTORICAL SOURCES FOR A BIOGRAPHY OF THE PROPHET of events in the time of conquest are cited by al-Tabari and others, stuck to exact dates. However, it is hard to say that they were historians who adhered to precise information about dates, place names and people and so forth. Historians in this sense may have first appeared during al-Waqidi's generation. Al-Waqidi made an effort to collect information which Ibn Ishaq did not transmit. He may well have carried out field surveys of old battlefields. He gathered over and over again hadiths derived from nasabs handed down by descendants of the participants in battles. Eventually he fixed dates, locations, participants and other details of each battle. So, should we accept the results of his efforts? For this question, we find the answer in al-Tabari's works of the tenth century. For example, he cites al-Waqidi's description of the battle of Yarmuk, in which the Arab- Islam army won a decisive victory over the Roman army. But, at the same time, he also quotes from the works of Abu Minkhnaf, 'Awana and al-Mada'ini (d. 830). As a result, we find that there were various views on the date of the battle of Yarmuk, and al-Waqidi's view was only one of them.

People must have talked much about Muhammad, the community led by him during his lifetime, and also the time just after his death. However, dispassionate, objective and comprehensive information about him and his community was not handed down as hadith. Hadiths available as historical sources are composed merely of personal, subjective and fragmentary information, saying that someone met and heard Muhammad at a certain time and/or place, or that someone took part in the same event as Muhammad. Muslim intellectuals in the ninth century provided answers through such information to such questions as who, when, where, why, and how. We must indeed accept their answers grudgingly, but we must not but despair like Crone. Let's look again at the "ilaf tradition" that Crone criticizes. The theme of the "ilaf tradition" is that Hashim, Muhammad's great- grandfather, went to Syria; and after obtaining permission to trade there, concluded ilaf agreements with various tribes on the way back to Mecca. From this tradition, modern scholars assume that the "ilaf institution" existed and assert that the institution was the basis of Meccan trade. However, the

Vol. XXX-XXXI 1995 95 "ilaf tradition" tells nothing about the institution itself. It is only modern scholars who discuss "the institution". In fact, Crone criticizes both "the ilaf tradition" and "the ilaf institution" together. They should be separated, however. We have no way of drawing from the "ilaf tradition" what ilaf means. In practice, it was not easy to trade by caravan in Arabia. It may easily be imagined the high risk of caravans being attacked and plundered of their merchandise. Actually, Muhammad, after leaving Mecca, intercepted Meccan caravans frequently. Various traditions say that the Meccans tried to form various relation- ships with the Arabs, in order to avoid trouble. We may suppose that from the "ilaf tradition", ilaf (according to surat quraysh of the qur'an) may indicate a certain aspect of the human relations established by Muhammad's predecessors. We do not have reliable materials to judge the actual meaning of the phrase "their ilaf of the journey in winter and summer". But we may well infer from hadiths on Quraysh trading journeys that the Quraysh often went in the direction of Syria and very rarely went in the direction of Yemen. Here is difference from many modern scholars, who conventionally assume that a Quraysh trading journey meant that they visited southern Arabian ports when trading ships arrived from India to purchase luxurious imported goods and carry them to Syria. We can also suppose that the number of persons who took part in each expedition was probably from several to scores according to a hadith on the expedition to Kharrar and others on expeditionary forces led by Muhammad to attack Meccan caravans. This means that most Quraysh caravans were not as large as those with thousands of camels and hundreds of guards. From all the hadiths we know of, it is impossible to reproduce a chronicle of Muhammad in which dates, places and names of events are specified. Moreover, it would be difficult to revive fully the political and economic systems of those days. For a scholar who wants to find established institutions of the time or its historical facts, hadiths are not valid. However, the study of history does not stop there. Hadiths as sources for the biography of Muhammad are based on subjective, personal and fragmentary information derived from the nasab of each muslim who lived in a chaotic period after Muhammad's death. Hadiths,

96 ORIENT HADITHS AS HISTORICAL SOURCES FOR A BIOGRAPHY OF THE PROPHET as a whole, are full of contradictions and inconsistencies. Fortunately, muslim intellectuals such as Ibn Ishaq and al-Tabari understood this character of the hadith. That is why various hadiths remain today. The study of history requires in a flexible attitude in digesting such information.

References

This article is a revised version of a paper which was submitted to the Sixth International Colloquium on: From Jahiliyya to Islam organized by the Institute for Advanced Studies, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, September 5-10, 1993. This is also based on the author's Japanese paper published in 1992, Crone: Meccan Trade Patricia Crone: Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, Princeton, 1987 E. I. n. e. Encyclopaedia of Islam, Leiden, 1960- Goto: II Goto, Akira: "al-qur'an as historical source for the Prophet Muhammad," Yamagata Historical Studies, vol. 5 1987 (in Japa- nese) Guillaume A. Guillaume: The Life of Muhammad; a Translation of Ishaq's sirs rasul allah, London, 1955 Hamidullah Muhammad Hamidullah: "Al-ilaf. ou les rapports economico- diplomatique de la Mecque pre-islamique," Melange Louis Mass- ignon, vol. 2, 1959 Ibn Habib Muhammad b. Habib: kitab al-munammaq, Hyderabad, 1964 Ibn Hajar Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalani: tahdhib al-tahdhib, 12 vols., Beirut, 1325- 27 Ibn Ishaq al-sirs al-nabawiya li-ibn hisham, 2 vols., al-Qahira, 1955 Ibn al-Nadim Abu Faraj Muhammad b. Ishaq: al-fihrist, Beirut, 1974; English Tr. by Bayard Dodge: 2 vols., New York, 1970 Ibn Qutayba 'Abd Allah b. Muslim b. Qutayba: al-ma'arif, n. p., 1970 Ibn Sa'd Muhammad b. Sa'd: al-tabaqat al-kubra, 8 vols., Beirut, 1957-60 Jones J. M. B. Jones: "Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, vol. 22, 1959 al-Kala'i Sulayman b. Salim al-Kala'i: kitab al-iktifa', Algiers, 1931 Kister: Tamim M. J. Kister: "Mecca and Tamim (Aspects of their relation)," Journal of the Economic and Social History of Orient, vol. 8, 1965 Malik b. Anas Malik b. Anas: kitab al-muwatta', n. p. n. d. Shaban M. A. Shaban: Islamic History; A. D. 600-750 (A. H. 132), Cambridge, 1971 al-Tabari: Tafsir Abu Ja'far Muhammad b. Jarir al-Tabari: jami' al-bayan 'an ta'wil ay al-qur'an, 20 vols., al-Qahira, 1953 al-Tabari: Ta'rikh do: ta'rikh al-rusul wa-l-muluk (Annales), 16 vols., Leiden, 1879- 1901 al-Waqidi Muhammad b. 'Umar al-Waqidi: kitab al-magazi, 3 vols., Oxford, 1966 Watt: Mecca W. M. Watt: Muhammad at Mecca, Oxford, 1953

Vol. XXX-XXXI 1995 97