STUDIES in the COMPOSITION of Hadlth LITERATURE
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STUDIES IN THE COMPOSITION OF HADlTH LITERATURE A.A.M. Shereef Ph.D 1982 UNIVERSITY of LONDON School of Oriental and African Studies ProQuest Number: 10731481 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10731481 Published by ProQuest LLC(2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 ABSTRACT This work is concerned with the form and content of the hadith texts reported and preserved during the Classical Period (c. 175 - 300 A.H./792 - 912 A.D.*) and traditionally associated with the Stoning Penalty (SP) for adultery in Islam. Its main aim is to analyze the texts and to determine the course of their composition. The thesis is divided into two sections. Section One deals with the analyses of seven Prophetical hadiths preserved in three Sunni "Canons"; the Muwatta* of Malik (d-179)^ the gafrih of Bukhari (d.256), and the Jamic of Tirmidhi (d.279). Section Two examines the reasons for, and nature of the juridical disputes (Ikhtilaf al-fuqaha) of the Pre-Classical Period scholars (c. 100 - c. 200 A.H./718 - 815 AD*) with respect to the laws of adultery. Each section comprises seven chapters and an introduction. The conclusion reached in Section One is that the material examined reveals more about the concerns of those who transmitted and preserved the hadiths in question than it does - as is traditionally claimed - about the early community of Muhammad in Medina. The conclusion of Section Two is that the Ikhtilaf provoked the composition of fradith material dealing with the SP in Islam. This calls into question the established view that the disagreement of law specialists (fuqaha") is the result of varying individual understanding or interpretation of a particular textual prop (nags pi. nugus), and at the same time demonstrates that, in most instances, the Ikhtilaf is itself prior to the text under discussion. See below, Introduction, P.4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I owe so much to so many for the realization of this project. I should have liked to record them all, but space does not allow me to do so. A few names, however, must be mentioned. First and foremost my supervisor, Dr. John Wansbrough. My debt to him is not limited to the area of supervision and scholarly guidance. During my years at the School of Oriental and African Studies, both as undergraduate and postgraduate, I have profited extensively from his limitless assistance, in terms of academic advice as well as of general orientation. I am profoundly grateful to him for having piloted me through the thorny path of research, for the help he has readily given me of the vast store of his learning, and above all for his kindness, untiring patience, inspiration and constructive criticism. Any merit this thesis may possess is due in general measure to that help and guidance. I regret, however, that this work is still below the standard he represents. My special thanks go to my teachers at the School of Oriental and African Studies: C.F. Beckingham, emeritus Professor of Islamic Studies, for reading parts of the dissertation and for lending me support; and N.J. Coulson, Professor of Islamic Law, for his much appreciated comments on some early chapters, for advice on a number of technical legal terms, and for general encouragement. I am particularly grateful to my friend and colleague, Dr. Norman Calder, for the continuing dialogue of mutual scholarly criticism maintained during and after our years together at the University of London, and to all the others who provided valuable comments on my work. I acknowledge with gratitude as well the generous financial assistance which I have received from the Department of Education and Science and from the Scholarships Committee of the School of Oriental and African Studies. Their grants have enabled me to pursue my research and studies both in the United Kingdom and in the Middle East and North Africa. I am grateful too to all those who provided me with hospitality and assistance in those countries. Lastly, but not least, my family, my wife Fatma and my son Omar who have given me so much. I am deeply grateful to them, even if it were only for accepting me as part-time husband and father. With all I share the credit, if any, but alone will bear the responsibility. A A M SHEREEF SOAS London January 1982 Ltiildj j uyi ^Ah\ CONTENTS Volume One Page A bstract A cknowledge m ent Introduction 1 SECTION ONE TEXTS C hapter I The Story of the Jewish Couple 10 Chapter H The Story of Maciz 45 Chapter HI The Story of Ghamidiyya 79 Chapter TV The Story of Juhaniyya 109 Chapter V The Story of *Asif (the Hired-Hand) 120 Chapter VI The Story ofcU mar 146 Chapter VIE The Story of*Ubada 173 SECTION TWO IKHTILAF Introduction 188 Chapter VHI Zina (Adultery in Islam) 196 Chapter]X Shahada (Evidence of Witnesses) 235 Chapter X Iqrar (Acknowledgement/Confession) 262 Chapter XI ffabal (Illegal Pregnancy) 271 Chapter XU Jald (Flogging) 278 Chapter XHE Rajm (Stoning Penalty, SP) 290 Chapter XIV Dual Punishments 317 Jald plus Banishment Jald plus Stoning to Death Volume Two A bbreviations Bibliography Foot Notes Arabic Texts Table of Names INTRODUCTION Islamic TOralf 1 Tradition, the Hadith- or the Sunna, 2 is an enormous corpus of literature covering virtually everything essential for a Muslim to conduct his life in relation to both his fellow human beings and God, Its contents form the main base of Islamic teachings. Because of its voluminous nature, it practically occupies a more influential position in the formation and articulation of Islamic 3 jurisprudence than does the Scripture - the Our’an . Its most significant feature is its virtual dependence upon the sayings, actions and deeds of one man - the Prophet. Muslim scholars maintain that the content of the fradith literature originated from the Prophet Muhammad himself; since, the argument goes on, it was handed down by pious trust-worthy Muslims, generation after generation, through a chain of transmitters - known as the isnad. Thus, as far as the Muslim scholars are concerned, the authenticity of the content of the hadith material lies in the trust-worthiness of the _ 5 reporters i.e. the persons named in the isnad. Several criteria for authenticating the hac*ith content have been set forth, all of which, strictly speaking, are subsidiary to the scrutiny of the isnad. In short, the scrutiny of the isnad is exclusively the yardstick for 7 assessing the credibility of the hadith content. In recent years this traditional attitude has been rejected - 0 mainly by Western scholarship - on the ground that as much as it is easy to produce a false statement and ascribe it to a person who is no longer in a position to confirm or deny the ascription, it is also easy, or even much easier, to invent a chain of transmitters, or to insert a name in it and thus, to extend it back -without a break - to the 9 Prophet. Furthermore, the stipulations and demands for the notarization - tawthiq - of the reliability of an individual transmitterCs) are first and foremost not only based on, and derived from, a personal judgement, but also have never been agreed upon. 10 There is no single transmitter 11 whose trust-worthiness is a subject of absolute agreement. In many instances, statements of tawthiq or its opposite: tajrih - invalidation, defamation of one’s character, are more likely to appear as pseudo-biographical dicta or as tendentious prejudices than as an adequately objective first-hand information. 12 Thus, it has been argued that the acceptance or rejection of hadith material should be based 13 primarily upon the examination of the text itself - the matn. Of the most recent contributions to that end is the work of J. Schacht, The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence, which in general is the confirmation and at the same time an extension of the general, but 14 cautious, conclusion of Goldziher’s main thesis. Schacht’s general 15 conclusion, however, is not adequately supported. With regard to the wholly available pertinent hadith material, arbitrary selection of limited Traditions, which can hardly be demonstrated to have anything in common, other than being ’legal’, cannot in my opinion, support a superfluous conclusion to include every single Tradition of the same topic and theme, which ought to have been 16 included, let alone every single Tradition of a legal nature. With such undertaking, the conclusion ought to be confined only to those individual Traditions which form the basis of discusssion of such work. ^ In other words, although Schacht’s method is scientific and sound, his general conclusion for the whole corpus of legal nature is 2 unacceptable. The only time when such an over-simplified conclusion could have much validity is when such a method has been applied thoroughly to at least half of the whole corpus of legal materials. To do so, for a single scholar is almost impossible. An alternative would be to deal with one type of hadith material, traditionally assigned not only to one topic and theme, but also engaged in identical problems.