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Early Shiite hermeneutics and the dating of KitbSulaym ibn
Qays
Robert Gleave
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies / Volume
78 / Issue 01 / February 2015, pp83 - 103DOI:
10.1017/S0041977X15000038, Published online: 17 March 2015
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How to cite this article:Robert Gleave (2015). Early Shiite
hermeneutics and the dating of Kitb Sulaym ibnQays. Bulletin of the
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Early Shiite hermeneutics and the dating of KitbSulaym ibn
Qays
Robert Gleave1
University of [email protected]
AbstractThe Kitb Sulaym ibn Qays, a collection of sayings
attributed to Al b. AbTlib, was supposedly collected by the
(otherwise unknown) Sulaym b.Qays al-Hill (d. 76/678); the work is
generally recognized as an import-ant source for early Sh thought.
There has been much debate, both with-in the Sh tradition and
outside of it, over when its contents reached theircurrent form and
how representative they were of Sh views in the earlycenturies of
Islam. Here, I take one passage from the Kitb Sulaym and setit
against the development of early Muslim hermeneutics in an attempt
toestablish a tentative dating for this passage. The result is a
dating betweenlate eighth century CE (second century AH) and the
early ninth century CE(early third century AH), roughly
contemporary with, and perhapspostdating the revolutionary
hermeneutic work of Muhammad b. Idrsal-Shfi (d. 204/820). This
conclusion tallies, to some extent, with ananalysis of the reports
various isnds.Keywords: Shiism, Legal hermeneutics, Abrogation, Al
b. Ab Tlib
Introduction
In the introduction to The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of
Islam, GeraldHawting gives a brief account of his critical
historical methodology, concludingwith the words:
Although to some it may seem that the following pages are mainly
criticaland deconstructive . . . the message is not intended to be
negative. On thecontrary, it is hoped that it furthers . . . more
historically persuasiveapproaches to the emergence of Islam as a
religion.2
1 An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Mellon
Islamic Studies Seminar,University of Chicago, when I was visiting
professor there, JanuaryMarch 2013. Iam grateful to the wonderful
faculty and students of the departments of Divinity,NELC and
History of the University for hosting me with such hospitality. I
am alsograteful to Professors Todd Lawson, Devin Stewart and Tahera
Qutbuddin who actedas discussants at the seminar, and made some
pertinent suggestions which, I hope,have improved the argument
presented here. I also thank Mohammed AliAmir-Moezzi, who read an
earlier version, giving very useful feedback, and theBSOAS
anonymous reader who saved me from some errors in presentation and
argument.
2 G.R. Hawting, The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam
(Cambridge, 1999), 19.
Bulletin of SOAS, 78, 1 (2015), 83103. SOAS, University of
London, 2015.doi:10.1017/S0041977X15000038
-
Hawtings important and impressive contribution to the study of
early Islam issometimes viewed as primarily destructive, as he
picks through the sources,questioning their reliability. Such a
characterization would, I think, be unjust:Hawting, if I understand
him correctly, aims to be constructive aiming todevelop a
historically persuasive account from the available evidence.
Whencontemporary historical records are scarce (as with the
emergence of Islam),the historians task is to triangulate the
evidence and propose credible accountsof historical processes. If
subsequent scholarship produces persuasive accountsof the evidence,
then one version is replaced by another. The crucial point is
thatthe account is, methodologically speaking, open to revision.
Attempting to workwithin Hawtings method, I present here the
analysis and tentative dating of ashort passage found in a
collection of early Sh hadth reports.
In its present published form, the Kitb Sulaym ibn Qays consists
of ninety-one reports attributed to the first Sh Imam, Al b. Ab
Tlib (d. 40/661) andtransmitted through his disciple, Sulaym b.
Qays al-Hill (d. 76/678). Sulaymhad, in turn, entrusted the book to
Abn b. Ab Ayysh (d. c. 138/7556)who is, according to the works
exordium (muftatih), responsible for its dissem-ination. The
process whereby the work survived the persecution of the Shaunder
the famously cruel Umayyad governor of Iraq, al-Hajjj (d. 95/714)
andgained its current form is described in the muftatih. Abn
invited Sulaym toescape oppression and to leave Iraq for the city
of Nawbandegn in southernFars. When Sulaym arrived, he proceeded to
transmit to Abn reports fromImam Al, the Companions of the Prophet
and the early Imams, includingreports from Salmn al-Fris, Mudh b.
Jabal and Ab Dharr. Abn was com-manded not to pass on the work to
anyone outside of trusted individuals (mantathiqu bihi ka-thiqatika
bi-nafsika those whom you trust as you trust your-self). One month
before his death, Abn gave the book to his pupil Umar b.Udhayna (d.
c. 169/784), demonstrating its accuracy by saying that he had
notonly read it back to Sulaym; he had also read it to the fourth
Imam Al b.al-Husayn al-Sajjd (d. 94/712). The Imam, on hearing the
recitation, statedSulaym speaks the truth; these are the hadth we
know.3 Furthermore, its con-tents had also been confirmed by the
famous al-Hasan al-Basr (d. 110/728). It isthis work, transmitted
through Sulaym, Abn and Umar, which allegedlyformed the text of the
Kitb Sulaym, and from which the manuscript traditionof the
collection developed. These manuscripts form the basis for the
variousmodern published editions of the Kitb Sulaym. The first
edition was publishedin 1361 AH (1942) in Najaf and was based on a
manuscript supposedly belong-ing to the great Safavid hadth expert
al-Hurr al-mil (d. 1104/1693). The mostrecent edition is a worthy
publication by Muhammad Bqir al-Ansr al-Zanjn,published in Qum in
1415 AH (1995) in three volumes with continuous pagenumbering
between the volumes. The set comprises a lengthy introduction
(vol-ume 1) in which the internal Sh debate as to the works history
and authenti-city are introduced; a text, constructed on the basis
of fourteen manuscripts(volume 2) and a very useful set of indexes
(volume 3). The number of reports
3 Sulaym b. Qays al-Hill, Kitb Sulaym ibn Qays ed. Muhammad Bqir
al-Ansral-Zanjn (Qum, 1415), II, 564.
84 R O B E R T G L E AV E
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within the Kitb Sulaym is not consistent across the manuscript
tradition, and thevarious editions reflect this; I shall use the
numbering from the latest Ansr edi-tion. The reports themselves
have many variants and versions, and Ansr givesthe transmission
variants in his copious footnotes. I shall use the text in this
edi-tion as my principal source in the analysis below, though at
times the variantversions of the report are enlightening (and
referred to in the footnotes).
The Kitb Sulaym ibn Qays (also referred to as the Asl Sulaym,
and the Kitbal-Saqfa in subsequent Sh tradition) has been the
subject of some disputewithin the tradition, and has received a
recent flourish of scholarly commentin the secondary literature.
Within the Sh tradition, the debate primarily con-cerns the
authoritativeness of the work (that is, whether it can be trusted
as asource of doctrine).4 Part of the argument for the works
doctrinal authorityis, of course, linked to its authenticity and
correct attribution. Consequently,scholars within the Imm tradition
have investigated the evidence supporting(or contradicting) the
claims which the work makes for itself in its muftatih.There are,
however, separate and discrete questions to be addressed when
dis-cussing the authenticity of Kitb Sulaym, and these are rarely
distinguished bywriters within the tradition. First, there is the
issue of whether or not the materialis attributable to Al; then
there are questions concerning individual reportswithin the work
and whether any can be individually traced back to Sulaym,and
beyond him to Imam Al; then there are the issues of when and how
thismaterial was collected, and the extent of editing which
occurred either duringor before the process of collection in a
single volume entitled Kitb Sulaymor some other locution. There are
those within the Imm tradition who arenot willing to concede
authenticity on any of these levels;5 there are manywho have
trusted the work and considered it a sound source of religious
doc-trine;6 and there are various possible positions between these
two extremes.Western scholarship, from Goldziher onwards, has been
almost unanimouslysceptical concerning the work.7 Recently
Modarressi has stated that the workis early (and in that sense it
is an authentic expression of early Sh thought),but not traceable
to Al through Sulaym. Modarressi dates it to the period beforeAbns
death (that is, before 138/7556), and speculates that perhaps he
isresponsible for its contents. The person of Sulaym b. Qays,
however, is, forModarressi, a fiction, invented to give the
anti-Umayyad critique an early prov-enance. For him, the material
in the Kitb Sulaym in its current form represents
4 These are given full coverage by Ansr: Sulaym b. Qays, Kitb
Sulaym, I, 10148.5 Ibn al-Ghadir (d. 411/1020) and his rejection of
the books authenticity is the best
known case. The debate is catalogued thoroughly by Ansr in his
introduction. SeeSulaym b. Qays, Kitb Sulaym, I, 155200 (editors
introduction).
6 Those who support its authenticity and its significance are
listed by Ansr, KitbSulaym, I, 10614, the last of whom was the
famous Ayatallh Shihb al-Dnal-Marash (d. 1990).
7 The earliest expression of scepticism is Goldzihers
categorization of the Kitb Sulaym,and other early Sh literature as
pseudo-evidential, and saying that the Sha are evenmore prone than
orthodox Islam itself to refer back to apocryphal books. See
I.Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien, Halle 188890, II, 1011 and
Muslim Studies(trans. C.R. Barber and S.M. Stern, London 19689, II,
234). See also MoktarDjebli, Sulaym b. Kays in Encyclopaedia of
Islam, second edition.
E A R L Y S H I I T E H E R M E N E U T I C S A N D T H E D A T
I N G O F K I T B S U L A Y M I B N Q A Y S 85
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the views of rank and file Kufan Sha in the (late) Umayyad
period. Though thetext has been subject to addition and emendation
over time (occasionallyunorthodox content has been corrected),
Modarressi argues, at least part ofthe original text can be
restored.8 A similar position has been adopted byDakake.9
Amir-Moezzi, in a thorough bibliographical note, is a little
lesshasty than Modarressi to dismiss the early history as a total
fabrication; onthe other hand, he is less sanguine about the
possibility of recovering the originaltext since the alterations
have effectively made the original unrecoverable.10
Modarressi considers the insertions and interpolations to be
easily recogniz-able;11 Amir-Moezzi considers it difficult, perhaps
impossible, to recover theoriginal text, such is the volume of
accretions and alterations.12
Given that the work as a whole is problematic (or at least
viewed as so), aproductive (though certainly time-consuming)
approach might be to explorethe history of individual elements of
the Kitb Sulaym, in order to build up apicture of the development
of the material within the book before its collection.Crone has
begun such an enterprise with her examination of the
twenty-thirdreport within the Kitb Sulaym.13 She concludes the
report is a fabrication, asindicated by not only the anachronistic
references to the Black Banners of theAbbsids but also the
Hashimite form of Shiism advocated in the text. Sheopts for a
composition date of sometime between the Abbsids coming topower and
762, but in any case not after the 780s.14 As a tentative
continu-ation of this approach, I have selected the first portion
of the tenth report inwhich Imam Al is asked by Sulaym about the
opinions current amongst thepeople concerning the interpretation of
the Quran and the transmission of reportsfrom the Prophet (min
tasfr al-qurn wa-min al-riwya an al-nab).15 Thereport (or a version
of it) is not only to be found within the Kitb Sulaym.Variants can
also be located in other early sources such as al-Kulayns
8 Hossein Modarressi, Tradition and Survival: A Bibliographical
Survey of Early ShiteLiterature Volume 1 (Oxford, 2003), 826.
Modarressi views this as the oldest survivingShite book.
9 Massi Maria Dakake, Love, loyalty and faith: defining the
boundaries of the earlyShiite community, PhD dissertation,
Princeton, 2000, 34656.
10 Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, Note bibliographique sur le Kitb
Sulaym b. Qays,le plus ancien ouvrage shiite existent, in M.A.
Amir-Moezzi, M.M. Bar-Asher andS. Hopkins (eds), Le shisme Immte
quarante ans aprs. Hommages EtanKohlberg (Paris, 2009), 3348.
Amir-Moezzi has an extended examination in his LeCoran Silencieux
et le Coran parlant (Paris, 2011), 2762; with an English
summary:The silent Quran and the speaking Quran: history and
scriptures through the study ofsome ancient texts, Studia Islamica
108, 2013, 14374 (the Kitb Sulaym is discussed,pp. 1469).
11 Modaressi, Tradition and Survival, 86.12 Amir-Moezzi, Note
bibliographique, 40.13 P. Crone, Mawl and the Prophets family: an
early Shite view, in Monique Bernards
and John Nawas (eds), Patronate and Patronage in Early and
Classical Islam (Leiden,2005), 16794.
14 Crone, Mawl, 179.15 For reasons that become clear below, I
view the tenth report in the current edition of
Kitb Sulaym as a composite report, consisting of (at least) two
separate reports. Inthe following analysis, the report refers not
to the whole of the tenth report, butonly to this first
section.
86 R O B E R T G L E AV E
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(d. 329/939) al-Kf, Ibn Bbawayhs (d. 381/991) al-Khisl and the
KitbTuhaf al-Uql of Ibn Shaba al-Harrn (fl. fourth/tenth century),
always attrib-uted to Sulaym, and transmitted through Abn. In the
following analysis, I makereference to these variants of the
report, together with a version in the survivingfragment of the
Mukhtasar ithbt al-raja of al-Fadl b. Shdhn (d. 260/874).16A
version of the report makes an appearance in the Nahj al-Balgha
(originallycollected by al-Sharf al-Rad (d. 406/1015)) as sermon
201 of Imam Al,though there is extensive abbreviation and also some
embellishment in that ver-sion.17 A textual analysis of the report,
alongside its variants, set against theearly history of Muslim
hermeneutics, enables us to propose, tentatively, a com-position
date for this part of the tenth report of Kitb Sulaym ibn Qays.
Kitb Sulaym ibn Qays: Report ten (First part)In report 10 of the
recent Ansr edition of Kitb Sulaym, Imam Al is askedabout the
differences in transmission and Quranic interpretation found
amongstthe people.18 In response, he lists the four (and only four)
types of transmitter hehas identified. These I have named the
hypocrite, the presumptuous, the mis-taken and the reliable, and in
the report each is given a short description oftheir
characteristics. These descriptions are significant for, as we
shall see,they presume a certain level of hermeneutic awareness.
Only the fourth (the
16 Muhammad b. Yaqb al-Kulayn, al-Kf ed. Al Akbar Ghaffr
(Tehran, 1363 Sh), I,624; Ibn Bbawayh, al-Khisl ed. Al Akbar Ghaffr
(Qum, 1403 AH), 2557; al-Fadlb. Shdhn, Mukhtasar ithbt al-raja, ed.
Bsim al-Msaw, printed in the journalTurthun, XV, 193223 the report
is found on pp. 20106; Ibn Shaba al-Harrn,Tuhaf al-Uql ed. Al Akbar
Ghaffr (Qum, 1404 AH), 1936. Below, I refer to themfor variants by
the initials: Kulayn: K; Ibn Bbawayh: IB; Al-Fadl b. Shdhn: F;and
alHarrn: H. Tamima Bayhom-Daou has analysed the version found
inKulayns al-Kf in her doctoral thesis, completed under the
supervision of ProfessorHawting: The Imm Sh conception of the
knowledge of the Imm and the sourcesof religious doctrine in the
formative period: from Hishm b. al-Hakam to Kuln,unpublished PhD
thesis, School of Oriental and African Studies, University
ofLondon, 1996, 2009. Her dating of the report there, and in her
contribution to this vol-ume, is based primarily on treating the
report as an integral whole; I prefer to distinguishbetween this
early section and the reports later, more extensive, section, as
they draw onquite different sources. There are some differences
between the Kulayn version and thatfound in the Kitb Sulaym which I
refer to below. The Sh tradition also saw them asdetachable (hence,
the various versions, including the Nahj al-Balgha, in which
onlythe first section is presented).
17 I will not here discuss in detail the Nahj al-Balgha variant
(al-Sharf al-Rad, Nahjal-Balgha, ed. Muhammad Abdh (Qum 1412 AH),
II, 18991, no. 310); though itis undoubtedly a version of this
report, it shows extensive signs of adjustment and updat-ing; this
is important for the dating of the Nahj al-Balagha (a topic for
another occasion),but it does not shed much light on the history of
the report within the Kitb Sulaym.
18 I have already discussed this report briefly in R. Gleave,
Islam and Literalism: LiteralMeaning and Interpretation in Islamic
Legal Theory (Edinburgh, 2011), 12830. Thisarticle is, to an
extent, a development of the arguments presented there. In addition
tothe alternative translation of Bayhom-Daou found in this volume,
and the translationof the Kulayn version of the report in her PhD
thesis, we have a French translation ofpart of the report by
Amir-Moezzi (Le Coran silencieux et le Coran parlant (Paris,2011),
413).
E A R L Y S H I I T E H E R M E N E U T I C S A N D T H E D A T
I N G O F K I T B S U L A Y M I B N Q A Y S 87
-
reliable) can be trusted to transmit the reports; only this
fourth type has masteryof the hermeneutic skills necessary to
ensure accurate transmission. The first partof the report ends with
a general summary of the hermeneutic categories withinthe speech of
the Prophet, which are (so Imam Al claims) identical with thoseof
Gods speech (i.e. the Quran). The second part of the tenth report
tells ofAls relationship with the Prophet, and how he collected
knowledge fromhim; and also affirms Sulayms probity as a
transmitter. The two parts wereprobably originally separate and
have been brought together within the KitbSulaym. The first part of
the report constitutes for al-Sharf al-Rad in theNahj al-Balgha, a
separate integral unit which can be cited on its own meritsand does
not need the second part found in the Kitb Sulaym version in order
tomake a doctrinal contribution.
The version of this report in the Kitb Sulaym begins:
[Sulaym relates:] I said to Al, O Prince of believers, I have
heard fromSalmn, Miqdd and Ab Dharr about the interpretation of the
Quran andreporting from the Prophet.19 Then I heard from you a
confirmation ofwhat I had heard from them. I saw amongst the people
many things con-cerning the interpretation of the Quran and the
hadths from the Prophetwhich differ from what I have heard from
you. You claim that these arefalse (btil, or invalid).20 Do you
think the people have being fabricating,lying intentionally about
the messenger of God, and have interpreted theQuran according to
their own opinion?
[Al] came over and said to me, You have asked, so understand
theanswer. In the hands of the people there is both valid and
invalid (haqqan
wa-btilan), truthfulness and falsity (sidqan wa-kidhban),
abrogating andabrogated (nsikhan wa-manskhan), general and
particular (mman
wa-khss an), decisive and ambiguous (muhkaman wa-mutashbihan),
preser-vation and whimsy (hifzan wa-wahman).21
It could be argued, at the very outset, that the concern for
understanding theQuran and the transmission of the Prophetic Sunna
must stem from a timewhen these two had been established as the
prime and indubitable pair ofsources for legal deduction. The
dating of this has been much debated, but cen-tral to their
establishment as sources was, of course, Muhammad b. Idrsal-Shfi
(d. 204/820). Without wishing to enter into that particular
debate,
19 F, K, and IB have the inserted phrase I have heard from Salmn
. . . reporting from theProphet different from that which is in the
hands of the people emphasizing the pointthat these three early
Companions, stalwarts of Als cause, are at odds in their tafsr
andriwya from the rest of the Muslim community. H abbreviates this
section considerablyand this element is not present.
20 F, K and IB read all of it (kullahu) is false, once again
emphasizing the clear differencebetween the Sha and the rest of the
communitys interpretations and transmissions ofthe Prophets
message.
21 Sulaym b. Qays, Kitb Sulaym, II, 6201.
88 R O B E R T G L E AV E
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the focus on Quran and Sunna within this report would at least
push a likely con-text for its emergence to the latter half of the
eighth century CE.22
Turning to the reports text in detail, the listings of category
pairs are acommon means of presenting the findings of hermeneutic
reflection. Most ofthe pairings given here were taken up within the
later hermeneutic traditionand given technical definitions:
sidq/kidhb, nsikh/manskh, mm/khss and muhkam/mutashbih.23 They are
well known and regularly found locatedtogether (often with
supplements, such as zhir/btin, haqqa/majz andmutlaq/muqayyad) in
later tafsr and usl works. The muhkam/mutashbihpairing is, of
course Quranic (Q. 3:7);24 the notion of naskh is less
explicitly(or easily) traced within the Quran;25 and while the
other terms exist withinthe Quran, they do not appear as
hermeneutic categories, either individuallyor in pairs. I would
argue that the collocation of the categories here, as a listof
pairings into which revelatory material can be placed, probably
reflects amature hermeneutic science, rather than any rudimentary
exegetical theory ofthe first century AH. This apparent anachronism
hints at the report being consid-erably later than the period of
Sulaym. An examination of whether the terms(either individually or
in pairs) are used in a manner congruent with later con-ceptions of
(say) abrogation and particularization also indicate a point of
formu-lation sometime after the turn of the second century AH (late
eighth century CE).
The claim that the Prophets message, like the understanding of
the Quran, hasbeen misunderstood, warped, or fabricated, is a
common motif in Sh argumen-tation, and (it could be argued) forms
the basis of the Sh position concerning the
22 On the establishment of Quran and Sunna as the two principal
sources of law, and thecontroversy around this establishment, see
(among the many secondary source discus-sions): Z.I. Ansari,
Juristic terminology before Shfi: a semantic analysis with
specialreference to Kfa, Arabica 19, 1972, 255300; G.H.A. Juynboll,
Some new ideas onthe development of sunna as a technical term in
Early Islam, Jerusalem Studiesin Arabic and Islam 10, 1987, 97118;
G. Hawting, The role of Qurn and Hadthin the legal controversy
about the rights of a divorced woman during her waiting
period(Idda), BSOAS 52/2, 1989, 43045; J. Burton, Law and exegesis:
the penalty for adul-tery in Islam, in G.R. Hawting and Abdul-Kader
A. Shareef (eds), Approaches to theQurn (London, 1993), 26984; J.
Lowry, Does Shfi have a theory of four sourcesof law?, in B. Weiss
(ed.), Studies in Islamic Legal Theory (Leiden, 2002), 2350.
23 One could also argue that the haqq/btil pairing was
hermeneutic since it is found regu-larly in the Quran (Q. 2:42;
3:71; 8:8; 17:81; possibly 7:118); they do not, however,appear to
be categories for facilitating textual interpretation as such, but
are rather generalcategories relating to religious truth. The
pairing (or one or the other terms) was, ofcourse, incorporated
into fiqh and other sciences, though not so universally (btil,
forexample, is often paired with sahh for valid/invalid). For more
on pairs and pairingin the Quran, see S. Schmidtke, Pairs and
pairing, in Jane Dammen McAuliffe (ed.),Encyclopaedia of the Qurn
(Leiden, 200106), IV, 19.
24 L. Kinberg, Muhkamt and Mutashabiht (Koran 3/7), implication
of a Qurnic pair ofterms in medieval exegesis, Arabica 35, 1988,
14372; S. Syamsuddin, Muhkam andMutashbih: an analytical study of
al-Tabars and al-Zamakhshars interpretations of Q.3:7, Journal of
Quranic Studies, 1/1, 1999, 6379; Jane Dammen McAuliffe,
Quranichermeneutics: the views of al-Tabar and Ibn Kathr, in Andrew
Rippin (ed.),Approaches to the History of the Interpretation of the
Qurn (Oxford, 1988), 4662;Gleave, Islam and Literalism, 689.
25 See J. Burton, The Sources of Islamic Law: Islamic Theories
of Abrogation (Edinburgh,1990), 81121.
E A R L Y S H I I T E H E R M E N E U T I C S A N D T H E D A T
I N G O F K I T B S U L A Y M I B N Q A Y S 89
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deviant direction taken by the early Muslim community. Even the
Prophet himselfknew about his message being changed by some of his
supposed followers:
During the Prophets time, there were lies spread about him, such
thatwhen he rose to give a sermon amongst them and said, O people.
Theuntruth told about me has increased. He who tells an untruth
about me,intentionally, will occupy his own place in the fire. Then
there wasalso untruth told about him after his death.
Here, the way in which one can avoid misrepresenting the
Prophets message isto be found through distinguishing between the
various hermeneutic categorieslisted above.
Al lists four hadth transmitter types: hypocrite, presumptuous,
mistakenand reliable. One could see the whole system of transmitter
categorization as fit-ting in with a developing science of hadth
criticism, something which only real-ly became widespread after
al-Shfi.26 Early lists of transmitter categoriesestablish abstract
qualities of the transmitter combined with an assessment ofwhether
their hadth can ever be trusted. Clearly the categorization scheme
inKitb Sulaym is part of a Sh polemic against their opponents,
foregroundingthe notion of a single true transmitter of the
Prophets Sunna. It becomes, then,another expression of the Sh
election motif and the total rejection of theiropponents positions.
For this polemic to be maximally effective, however, itpresents
itself as a twist on the existing categorization scheme,
indicatingagain a ninth-century CE development.27
When we focus on the exegetical theory which the report assumes,
the obvi-ous qualities of a trustworthy memory are supplemented by
other qualities. Aswill become clear, reliable transmitters should
be able to understand and assessthe significance of the material
they are transmitting. It is in the description ofthese exegetical
skills that the report reveals a hermeneutic science assumedin the
background.
Imam Al begins his description of the various categories with
the statement:
The transmitters (muhaddithn) are four: only four individual
types ofpeople who will bring you reports there is not a
fifth.28
26 Al-Shfi himself lists the qualities of an acceptable
transmitter (Muhammad b. Idrsal-Shfi, al-Risla ed. Ahmad Shkir
(Cairo, 1940), 370, para. 1001, and in relationto comparing the
reliability of transmitter, 4089, para. 12512). J. Lowry,
EarlyIslamic Legal Theory: The Risla of Muhammad ibn Idrs al-Shfi
(Leiden, 2007),1934. Listing the qualities of a reliable
transmitter is one thing, setting up a categoriza-tion schema for
hadth transmitters is, most likely, a later embellishment of the
science.
27 The list in Ibn Ab Htim al-Rzs Taqdima, for example, was
composed up to a centuryafter al-Shfi, and consists of a fivefold
classification scheme. All except one categoryof transmitter have
their hadth accepted (though with varying degrees of reliability)
incontrast to the Kitb Sulaym, where only one category is
acceptable. See E. Dickinson,The Development of Early Sunnite Hadth
Criticism: The Taqdima of Ibn Ab Hatimal-Rz (240/854327/938)
(Leiden, 2001), 934.
28 It is tempting to see the emphatically explicit refusal to
explore the possibility of a fifthcategory as a rejection of the
emerging fivefold categorization (such as that found in IbnAb
Htim). See above n. 27.
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The description of the first category the hypocrite is almost
entirely polemic,and clearly aimed at the opponents of the Sha:
He is a man who is a hypocrite, who is outwardly faithful,
acting out hisIslam. He does not shun evil, nor does he restrain
himself with regard tosinning such that he intentionally lies about
the Prophet. If the Muslimsknew he was a deceitful (kadhdhb)
hypocrite, they would not accept any-thing from him, and would not
affirm him as honest. But, they say, This isa companion of the
Prophet. He saw him, and listened to him and he doesnot lie, and
does not consider it permitted to lie about the Messenger.29God has
informed you about the hypocrites with what he said, and
hedescribed them as he did. God said When you look at them, their
bodiesenthral you, and when they speak, you listen to their words
(Q. 63:4).
After [the Prophet], they are still present and have drawn close
to the lea-ders of error, the ones who summon people to the fire
with falsehood, lies,hypocrisy and slander. They made them officers
and judges over the peo-ples necks, and through them, they have
consumed of the world. Exceptfor those whom God has protected,
people will only support the kings ofthis world. This is the first
of the four types.
The passage tells us little about hermeneutics, but instead
references a host ofestablished Sh themes: the rejection of the
Companions of the Prophet asassumed reliable transmitters, the
connection between these false witnessesand political power after
the Prophets death, and the notion of the ones pro-tected by God
(the Imams and perhaps their Sha also) who are set apartfrom the
people (al-ns perhaps a reference to the non-Sha though thisis not
the only possible interpretation). The target need not necessarily
be theUmayyads, though they would appear the most likely immediate
candidate:the repudiation could, though, be general and apply to
all those who distortthe Prophets message. It is sentiments such as
these which, most probably, per-suade Modarressi to classify the
Kitb Sulaym as an anti-Umayyad polemic.30
The second type of transmitter is described thus:
Another man hears something from the Prophet, but does not
memorize itexactly, and makes a personal presumption about it[s
meaning] (wahamafihi). He does not intend to lie whilst the
[report] is in his hands; he trans-mits it and bases his actions on
it, saying I heard this from the Messengerof God. However, if the
Muslims knew he had made this presumptionconcerning it, they would
not have accepted [it]. If he himself knew hehad made this
presumption about it, he would [also] have discarded it.
29 F, K, H and IB add here the sentence They took from him,
whilst not knowing his situ-ation/character (akhadh anhu wa-hum l
yarifn hlahu), which I take to be an indi-cation that the people
accept the word of a sahb without enquiring or investigating
hischaracter that is, an insertion of the standard isnd critical
criterion of adla for thetransmitter.
30 Modarressi, Tradition and Survival, 82.
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Here, the transmitter fails to memorize the report exactly (al
wajhihi as itis or perhaps as it should be memorized), but instead
presumes he knowswhat it means and therefore presents his own
version of its meaning (his ownwahm). He does this in an unthinking
manner, unlike the hypocrite; and if hehad realized he was
presenting it inaccurately he would have rejected it, aswould the
Muslims if they had known. The implication here is that there isno
blame attached to him, but his report is to be rejected. There is a
preferencefor precise verbal transmission (rather than transmission
of the assumed meaningof the Prophets statement), but it is
possible that someone who can accuratelyunderstand the meaning of
the report (i.e. without inserting his own wahm intothe
transmission) may be able to transmit it in an acceptable form. It
is possible,from the above description, that a meaning-related
transmission which compro-mises the precise wording of the report
could still be a transmission al waj-hihi. The presentation
prefigures, of course, the pairing of
lafz/manaw(verbal/meaning-based) transmission, though the
terminology is not used. Ireturn to this distinction below.
It is in the discussion of the third transmitter type that
abrogation comes to thefore. This transmitter, it appears, does not
take note of the occurrence of abro-gation (naskh):
The third man hears the Prophet order a thing, and then he
forbids it, andhe [the transmitter] does not know. Or he hears him
forbid a thing and thenorder it, and does not know. He preserves
(hafiza) the manskh but doesnot preserve the nsikh, but if he had
known it was manskh, he wouldhave rejected (rafada) it. If the
Muslims had known it was manskhwhen they heard it, then they would
have rejected it.31
Exactly what the transmitter does not know is not clear, but
from the context, itseems most likely that he does not know of the
Prophets later order (or prohib-ition) and hears only the first. It
is possible that what is meant here is a moreradical
misunderstanding of the process of naskh namely that he hears
bothorder and the prohibition but takes the first because he does
not understandthe procedure of abrogation, preserving the manskh
rather than the nsikh. Ifhe had known it was manskh (i.e. if he had
known how naskh operates), hewould have rejected it. In either
case, there is a clear assumption of a developednotion of
abrogation: a later ruling abrogates an earlier ruling; the earlier
rulingis rejected (rafada). Rejected is, perhaps, stronger than
al-Shfis left/aban-doned (taraka), and may reflect a polemic edge
to the rejected ruling.32There is no indication here that the Sunna
could abrogate the Quran (or viceversa), and perhaps an implicit
rejection of this mode of naskh: the Sunna is por-trayed as only
abrogating the Sunna. This view (that there is no
inter-sourceabrogation), as is well-known, was advocated by
al-Shfi, and was apparently
31 Sulaym b. Qays, Kitb Sulaym, II, 623.32 Al-Shfi, Risala, 122,
para. 361, may not reflect a fully established terminology for
abrogation when he writes man nasakha taraka fardahu. Ibn Ab
Htim, al-Jarhwa-al-tadl (Cairo, 1979), I, 10 uses taraka for the
rejection of the weak transmittershadth.
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viewed as novel when he proposed it.33 There is no explicit
reference to one dis-tinction which became central to later
theories of naskh: that between text andruling. In later writings
of legal theory (usl al-fiqh) the abrogation of the rulingbut not
the text was entertained as a possible mode of naskh. This idea was
notfully exploited by al-Shfi, though there are indications that he
accepted thepossible naskh of the text, but not of the ruling.34 In
Kitb Sulaym the textand ruling appear bound up and, if identified
as manskh, are to be rejectedtogether. For the Muslims who hear the
report, on the other hand, it is not soclear whether it is the
ruling they are rejecting or the report containing it. Thephrase
concerning their possible reaction (If the Muslims had known it
wasmanskh. . .) is ambiguous.35 The distinction does not appear as
a universallyassumed element of naskh in the presentations of
either al-Shfi or KitbSulaym, perhaps indicating they are working
with the same, proto-hermeneuticassumptions. In sum, then, the
discourse of the naskh process described inthis report in the Kitb
Sulaym reflects the debate as it stood at the time ofal-Shfi,
sharing some (though not all) of the emerging technical
terminologyof Muslim hermeneutics.
The last transmitter type, whose reports alone are to be
trusted, is one whomemorizes (or preserves) a saying exactly as it
should be (hafiza m samiaal wajhihi), and does not add to or omit
anything from what he has heard:
33 See John Burton, Those are the high flying cranes, Journal of
Semitic Studies, 15,1970, 250; al-Shfi is understood to hold the
possibly solitary view (Lowry, EarlyIslamic Legal Theory, 90) that
only Quran can abrogate Quran, and Sunna abrogateSunna. Later usls,
including Shfis, were quite accepting of inter-source abrogation.I
would think that prolonging the debate around the dating of
al-Shfis al-Risla (seebelow n. 59, n. 60 and n. 61) would not be
particularly productive without the discoveryof new sources from
the third/ninth century. There are few who defend Calders
moreradical redating now, the last being Christopher Melchert (Ch.
Melchert, Qurnic abro-gation across the ninth century: Shfi, Ab
Ubayd, Muhsib and Ibn Qutaybah, inBernard G. Weiss (ed.), Studies
in Islamic Legal Theory (Leiden, 2002), 7598). Theabridgement of
the Risla by his pupil al-Buwayt in which sections of the Risla
arecited or referred to with no significant difference in
terminology and theoretical structureseem to make the redating to
later in the third/ninth century extremely unlikely. SeeAhmed
El-Shamsy and Aron Zysow, Al-Buwayts abridgment of al-Shfis
Risla:edition and translation, Islamic Law and Society 19/4, 2012,
32755.
34 See Burton, Sources, 1568 regarding the number of sucklings
required to establish amarriage bar. Burton, it could be argued, is
trying to map (perhaps too forcefully) thestructure of later naskh
theories (here naskh al-tilwa dn al-hukm) onto al-Shfis the-ory.
The notion does not, I would argue, play a significant role in
al-Shfis Risla. Seebelow n. 45.
35 It could, of course, be argued that the discussion of texts
being abrogated rather than rul-ings (bound up with naskh al-hukm
bidn al-tilwa the abrogation of the rulings butnot recitation) is
only relevant for Quranic passages and not, as is the focus
here,Prophetic reports. It is not clear from the version in Kitb
Sulaym whether the reportof the abrogated Prophetic ruling or the
ruling contained within the report is rejected(rafada) the text
could be read in either way: hafiza al-manskh wa-lam
yahfazal-nsikh, fa-law alima annahu manskh la-rafadahu wa-law alima
al-muslimnaannahu manskh idh samihu l rafadhu. For the transmitter
himself, it would seemthe earlier ruling is rejected; for the
Muslims, it might be argued they reject both thereport and the
ruling contained within it.
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The fourth man does not lie about God, nor does he lie about the
Prophet,hating lying out of fear for God and in order to exalt Gods
messenger; heis not mistaken.36 Rather, he preserves what he hears
as it should be (alwajhihi); he brings it just as he heard it; he
does not add anything, nor doeshe take anything away. He
preserves37 the abrogating from the abrogated,and acts on the
abrogating, and discards the abrogated.38
The lafz/manaw distinction is, once again, the most obvious
reference here,though the terminology is not used. It is possible
that al wajhihi (as it is,as it should be) does not mean precise
verbatim transmission, but in a waythat perfectly preserves the
meaning or some such locution. However, therest of the description,
including the phrase he brings it just as he heard it;he does not
add anything, nor does he take anything away, would indicate,as in
the description of the second type, a preference for lafz
transmission.As already mentioned, the requirement to transmit
verbatim rather than by mean-ing seems to have been a minority
position at the time of al-Shfi. Al-Shfihas some concerns about it,
but he does not dwell on it at length. Indeed, thedebate expressed
throughout his al-Risala around the ability of reports of
limitedtransmission (ahd) to act as proof is not so much around the
wording/meaningdebate (there is an implicit acceptance of wording
variants being non-fatal to theepistemological chances of a
report). Rather it concerns an acceptance thatreports of limited
transmission may fail to reach one type of certainty, buthave
sufficient probative force to be used as legal sources.39 That
absolute cer-tainty as to precise wording was not a requirement for
utility in the later hadthsciences is well known40 and the
lafz/manaw distinction appears to have beenfully discussed (and
occasionally problematized) only later in the developmentof that
science.41 The lafz/manaw discussion is not entirely absent
fromal-Shfis discussion, however, though the discussion is
naturally rather
36 lam yawham. K reads he does not forget it; IB has he is not
inattentive, though theseappear as orthographic variants (lam
yansahu; lam yashu). The Nahj al-Balgha readshe is not mistaken
(lam yaham). H has he is not deluded (yatawahham) nor doeshe
forget, combining the two variants.
37 K and IB record known (alima) here rather than preserves
(hafiza) indicating heknows the difference between the abrogating
and the abrogated. In the Nahjal-Balgh, the process of adjustment
to the established theory of naskh is complete:He preserved the
abrogating and acts on it, and preserves the abrogated, but avoids
it( janabahu) (Al-Sharf al-Rad, Nahj al-Balgha, II, 190).
38 Sulaym b. Qays, Kitb Sulaym, II, 623.39 See Jonathan Brown.
Did the Prophet say it or not? The literal, historical and
effective
truth of Hadiths in Sunni Islam, Journal of the American
Oriental Society, 139, 2009,25985.
40 Wael Hallaq, The authenticity of prophetic Hadith: a
pseudo-problem, Studia Islamica,90, 1999, 7590.
41 Juynboll writes that the mutawtir lafz and mutawtir manaw
distinction was onlyfully exploited in the hadth sciences from the
time of Ibn al-Salh al-Shahrazr (d.643/1245) when it was defined
precisely what the term [mutawtir] actually stoodfor. . .. The
introduction of the terminology may be late, of course, but this
does notmean that the lafz/manaw distinction was not known (and
expressed implicitly oreven explicitly) at some earlier date. G.
Juynboll, (Re)appraisal of some terms inHadth science, Islamic Law
and Society, 8, 2003, 327.
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rudimentary compared to the sophistication of the later
tradition. For example,al-Shfi expresses some concern that a
transmitter summarizing a reportmight change meaning:
[The hadth transmitter] should know what might change the
meaning ofthe report from the wording, and that he should be
someone who transmitthe report according to the words just as he
heard [them] (yuaddal-hadth bi-hurfihi ka-m samia).42
The categories of lafz and man, though, are not fully worked out
in hisal-Risla, and in other places al-Shfi indicates that
transmission which retainscontext, even if it is non-verbatim, is
preferable to accurate verbal transmissionwhich ignores context and
thereby distorts meaning.43
The insistence on lafz transmission in the Kitb Sulaym appears,
then, as animplicit criticism of (and reaction to) the opinion of
the majority who allowmanaw transmission. However, the report does
not contain the technical ter-minology which later became standard,
and this may indicate the report predatesthe wholesale
incorporation of the terminology (and perhaps also the concepts)of
lafz and man into the analysis of juristic thought. Once again, a
late eighthor early ninth century CE context is the most natural
one for explaining thehermeneutic assumptions within the
report.
This fourth reliable transmitter type also has other
characteristics: he knowsthe abrogating and the abrogated, and acts
on the former, discarding the latter.This is the characteristic
which is lacking in the second transmitter type (referredto and
discussed above). When analysing the ideal type of transmitter
being con-structed here, the individual is portrayed as knowing not
only that a later rulingabrogates an earlier ruling (i.e. he is
familiar with the theory of naskh); he alsoknows how to identify
which reports abrogate and which are abrogated, and hepreserves
only the nsikh. This skill is not simply a matter of knowing the
rela-tive dates of the reports; it requires the transmitter to
recognize that the tworeports cannot possibly be reconciled and are
in direct contradiction. Fornaskh to be operative, the two orders
under examination need to address precise-ly the same legal subject
such that accepting one means the rejection of theother. To carry
out this identification process requires a certain level of
hermen-eutic skill, and it was a lack of this skill (rather than a
faulty memory or anymendacity) which made the second transmitter
type unacceptable. It is, then,presented as a decisive criterion
for the acceptability of a transmitter, and estab-lishes that his
transmissions are acceptable in contrast to the second and
thirdtypes.
Furthermore, the phrase He preserves the abrogating from [or
instead of, orout of] the abrogated, (hafiza al-nsikh min
al-manskh) implies that the
42 Al-Shfi, Risla, 370, para 1001. The rest of this paragraph
combines a stipulation forverbatim transmission with a full
understanding of meaning both being prerequisites forsound
transmission. This is, effectively, the same position as that
argued for in the KitbSulaym report.
43 See Lowry, Early Islamic Legal Theory, 127.
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nsikh is preserved and the manskh is not.44 The final phrase of
this descriptionmaintains that the manskh is to be
rejected/discarded (wa-rafada al-manskh).The idea that there is no
need to preserve the abrogated Sunna is not tackled inlater usl
with quite the same precision as that relating to the abrogated
Quran.The abrogated elements of the Quran, of course, have ritual
importance as ele-ments of Gods revelation, but have no legal
relevance. With regard to theSunna, the discussion was probably not
as pressing since very little of theSunna was (in later
terminology) qat al-wurd (of certain provenance).45The transmitter
here does not even bother to remember the abrogated, becausethe
purpose of the transmitter is not to record everything the Prophet
said, butonly to record that which is legally relevant. The
transmitter, with his knowledgeof naskh, becomes the gatekeeper to
the Sunna in that he knows what to preserveand what to reject. He
has the qualities, then, of a jurist rather than a
simpletransmitter. As with the lafz/manaw distinction, the report
rejects a mainstreamposition in this case, it was the division
between jurists and hadth transmitterswhich was becoming more
widely recognized in the late eighth century.46 Thereport is
clearly participating in a debate which emerged much later then
theseventh century CE.
In the closing paragraph of this first section of the report,
three scriptural cat-egory pairings are said, by Al, to apply to
both elements of revelation, theQuran and the Sunna: nsikh/manskh,
mm/khss and muhkam/mutashbih.There is no engagement with the thorny
issue of whether the Quran can abrogatethe Sunna referenced above
or the equally widely discussed idea that the twosources can
particularize each other (which al-Shfi discussed in detail
inal-Risla). Nevertheless, the pairings and an established theory
(though notfully expressed) underlying them are implied here.
Overall, there is a recognitionthat these categories need to be
employed in order to understand what Godand the Prophet mean in
their statements. The mm/khss distinction receivesparticular
treatment:
The orders of the Prophet and his prohibitions are like the
Quran withabrogating and abrogated, general and particular,
decisive and ambiguous.The speech which comes from the Prophet is
of two types. There is the
44 It could mean that they are kept separate from one another,
or that the manskh is notdiscarded as such, but is no longer
considered relevant (but why then contrast it withthe preservation
of the abrogated?); hafaza min is perhaps an unusual construction;
thevariant in K and IB of alima min is certainly more natural, and
would indicate to dis-tinguish one thing from another.
45 The naskh process was always a matter of juristic opinion,
and was hardly demonstratedwith such a level of certainty that the
proposed abrogated hadth could be discarded andforgotten. It is,
after all, rulings which are abrogated and not texts, and there was
rarelygoing to be consensus that a report from the Prophet need not
even be remembered: seeW. Hallaq, A History of Islamic Legal
Theories: An Introduction to Sunn usl al-fiqh(Cambridge, 1997),
69.
46 I.e. that the two parties of ashb al-ray and the ashb
al-hadth were nascent in themid-eighth century, and fully developed
by the mid-ninth century as separate parties(with al-Shfi
attempting to steer a middle course between them). C.
Melchert,Traditionist-jurisprudents and the framing of Islamic law,
Islamic Law andSociety, 8, 2001, 383406.
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particular speech and general speech, like the Quran.47 One who
does notcomprehend48 what God means by it, or what the Messenger of
Godmeans by it, [simply] hears [the speech].49
From this rather scant description, identifying whether a
statement of the Prophetor God is general or particular is central
to recognizing the intended meaning. Ifone is unable to recognize
this (and simply hears the speech), then the mean-ing drawn from
the statement will not be the same as the intended meaning.50
The hermeneutic apparatus to make sense of this statement is
relatively devel-oped: there is a meaning which a text has in and
of itself (its literal meaning,for want of a better term), and this
literal meaning may be different from theintended meaning; to gain
access to the former (literal meaning), one needsa knowledge of the
language (this is what those who simply hear understandby the
statement); to gain access to the latter one needs an
interpretative skill:the ability to distinguish the mm from the
khss. The passage ends with adig at some of the companions (a
recurrent Sh theme) who did not alwaysunderstand what the Prophet
was saying:
Not all the Companions of the Messenger used to ask him
questions, andunderstand. There were amongst them some who asked
but did not seek tounderstand so much so that they used to love it
when a stranger or a bed-ouin used to come and ask the Prophet [a
question] so that they might hear[the answer] from him.51
The first part of the statement is a simple rejection of the
innate ability of thecompanions to understand the Prophets message,
and represents a clear elementof Sh polemic in the text. The second
part, referencing the visit of the Bedouinor stranger, is possibly
a continuation of this polemic tone, as the Companionscould not
understand the Prophets words, and perhaps were too embarrassed
toask for clarification. Consequently, they were pleased when
someone else asked,and they avoided revealing their ignorance. It
could be interpreted as exhibitingthe belief amongst the early
grammarians that the language of scripture (hadthincluded) was to
be understood as an instantiation of the perfect Arabic lan-guage,
and hence ambiguities and difficulties can be solved through
referenceto this linguistic corpus. The companions liked it when a
bedouin came toask the Prophet questions, as they would be able to
hear him converse withthe Prophet and perhaps later ask him what
the Prophet meant. The bedouin
47 F, IB and K all insert a Quranic quote here, saying, God says
in his book, What themessenger brings you, take it, and what he
prohibits you, prohibit it. (Q. 59:7). Fora full discussion of the
early development of the mm/khss distinction, up to andincluding
al-Shfi, see H. Tillschneider, Die Entstehung der
juristischenHermeneutik (usl al-fiqh) im fruhen Islam (Wurzburg,
2006).
48 lam yarif F, K and IB have an addition and does not know (lam
yadri); H has insteadthe insertion and does not know (lam
yalam).
49 Sulaym b. Qays, Kitb Sulaym, II, 623.50 m an bihi Allh wa-m
an bihi rusl Allh H makes this explicit: he preserves/
remembers [the report] but he does not understand [it] (lam
yafham).51 Sulaym b. Qays, Kitb Sulaym, II, 624.
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and the Prophet shared the same linguistic code. The rather
dim-witted compa-nions were not blessed with total competence in
this ability. An alternative inter-pretation might be that the
bedouin lacked the timidity of the companions whenfaced with a
prophetic statement they did not understand. Under either
interpret-ation, however, the portrayal of the companions is
generally negative. Whilethese assumptions became standard
grammatical doctrine in later years, the lin-guistic self-awareness
required to carry out such an analysis was really onlydeveloping
very late in the Umayyad period, and reached the level of
maturitydisplayed in this passage from Kitb Sulaym only in the
early Abbsid period.52
It is of course possible that the description here is a veiled
polemic. Perhaps,only the Imam fulfils the criteria of this fourth
transmitter type, and the Imam(according to some Sh doctrines) has
complete knowledge of the Sunna.The Imam, then, can discard
elements of the Sunna without the fear that hisjudgement as to them
being abrogated is potentially incorrect. I would considersuch a
reading as possible, but unlikely to have been part of the original
formu-lation, as the text appears to be exhorting Sulaym to be
choosy about whosereports he selects. If this meant only those
transmitted through Al, onewould have expected a more
straightforward way of expressing this notion.Furthermore, the
emergence of the Imam as the ultimate arbiter of the
correctinterpretation of the Prophets Sunna took some time to
develop in Sh (par-ticularly Imm) thought, and really only became
established as mainstream inthe late ninth century.
If the basic message of the report is that only the Imams can
transmit theProphets Sunna since only they have knowledge of these
categories, thenAl is, effectively, putting himself precisely in
this role of a companion whoalways understood what the Prophet
meant. Al could distinguish the generalfrom the particular and the
abrogating from the abrogated, and perhaps the impli-cation here is
that the other companions could not. It would seem that Al (andby
implication perhaps the Imams after him) are to be viewed as the
archetypalperfect transmitters of the Prophets Sunna. But even if
this is so, there is noindication in the report that the ability to
transmit perfectly is exclusively heldby the Imams. Indeed reliable
transmission seems to consist of (first) a technical(and hence
learnable) skill (to remember words as they are spoken), and
(sec-ond) an intellectual ability (knowledge of the Arabic language
and being ableto distinguish the general from the specific). The
strictly behavioural criterion(i.e. moral probity or adla), which
became a central element in ilm al-rijl,is only hinted at here
(viz. the transmitter acts on the basis of the abrogatingand not
the abrogated, and hence he acts in conformity with the law).
Thereis no indication in the report that some sort of divine
knowledge, exclusivelyavailable to the chosen Imams, is necessary
to transmit the Sunna reliably. AsI have argued elsewhere, the need
to present the Imams hermeneutical toolsas available for the
general community of Sh exegetes is a relatively latedevelopment,
perhaps coinciding with the period of lesser occultation.53
52 Gleave, Islam and Literalism, 6393.53 See R. Gleave, Early Sh
hermeneutics: the exegetical techniques attributed to the
Sh Imams, in K. Bauer (ed.), Aims, Methods and Contexts of
Quranic Exegesis(2nd/8th9th/15th c.) (London, 2013), 14172.
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In sum, then, the reliable transmitter in this report is more
than simply some-one who can memorize the words he hears
faultlessly: he has exegetical skills,such as his ability to
recognize the processes of abrogation and
particularizationoccurring. Indeed, this ability is what
distinguishes him from the other transmit-ter types, who either
mendaciously warp the Prophets words, or simply fail tounderstand
them. In the report, the ideal transmitter is also an accomplished
exe-gete. The establishment of an intellectual justification for
community membersother than the Imams being authoritative exegetes
is traditionally viewed as aghayba development (i.e. late ninth,
early tenth century). If, as I have argued,this element of the
report is best dated as emerging in the late eighth/earlyninth
century (based on its level of hermeneutic sophistication), then
the reportbecomes indirect evidence for the attempted establishment
of an alternativereligious authority source (what might be called
the proto-ulam amongstthe Sha) in the period immediately following
the Ismaili schism.54 From theperspective represented by this
report, the Imams certainly have these exegeticalskills, but they
do not necessarily have exclusive claim over them; and ifothers can
acquire them, then they cannot just transmit the Sunna but mustalso
offer its correct interpretation. The tension between scholarly
authorityand that of the Imam, which became a prevalent theme in
later Sh jurispru-dence and theology, is nascent (perhaps latent)
here in the report in the KitbSulaym b. Qays.
The content of the first section of the tenth report appears,
then, as a ratheraudacious attempt to attribute to Al knowledge and
mastery of exegetical tech-niques and a level of hermeneutic
sophistication which came into existence inthe late eighth/early
ninth century. Having said that, there are points in thetext where
the fit between the use of technical terminology and concepts
withinlater Muslim hermeneutic understanding and those found in the
report is not per-fect. This perhaps indicates that the appropriate
context in which to view thereport is the early formative period of
hermeneutic thinking in the Muslim reli-gious sciences (namely the
late eighth and early ninth century CE), rather than thefully
flourished theoretical awareness one finds in tenth-century works
of tafsrand usl al-fiqh.
The reports isndIsnd analysis is an exacting, and at times a
rather inconclusive exercise.Nonetheless, it is worth examining
whether anything relevant to the dating ofthe report can be learned
from the isnds available for this report. If one usesevery
available isnd from every available source, then one has a total of
four-teen isnds attached to segments of variants of report 10 in
the Kitb Sulaym b.Qays. The various isnds of the report are shown
in Figure 1.55
54 For example of the rijl portrayed as differing from the
Imams, and attempting to estab-lish for themselves a separate
scholarly authority, see L. Takim, The Heirs of theProphet:
Charisma and Religious Authority in Shiite Islam (Albany, 2006),
959.
55 These are conveniently gathered by Ansr. Kitb Sulaym, III,
97074.
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Figure 1. The isnds of the report in the Kitb Sulaym b. Qays
100ROBERT
GLEAVE
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Following the methodology of Juynboll (itself a disputed
approach to isndanalysis),56 it would appear that Ibn Udhayna
(death date not known, but a com-panion of either or both Imams
al-Sdiq (d. 148/765) and Kzim (d. 182/798)) isthe common link,
which would fit with the account of his reception and
thendistribution of the Kitb Sulaym from Abn (d. c. 138/7556)
outlined in theintroduction. If we are to credit Ibn Udhayna with
the reports circulation, thiswould be some forty to fifty years
earlier than the dating, arrived at in theabove analysis, based on
the reports matn. The two isnds which branch offfrom Abn (found in
collections by al-Karjik (d. 449/1057) and al-Haskaf(d.
551/115657)) should probably be seen as dives (pace Juynboll),
sinceIbn Udhayna is considered weak.57 Hammd b. s (d. 209/8245 or
208/8234) possibly acts as a secondary common link: he provided
al-Fadl b.Shdhn, al-Kulayn (d. 329/941) and Ibn Bbawayh (d.
381/991) with theembellishments noted in the footnotes above. The
problem with such an analysisis that al-Fadl does not count Ibn
Udhayna as one of his transmitters, preferringto go with the less
popular, but rival third link of Ibrhm b. Umar al-Yamn(who,
according to many Sh isnds relates Imams al-Sdiq (d. 148/765) andKz
im (d. 182/798), as well as from Sulaym directly). Hammd b. s
couldbe the actual common link, and Ibn Udhayna is an apparent
common link, inthat he provides us with the earliest three versions
of the report (al-Fadl b.Shdhn, al-Kulayn and Ibn Bbawayh) and it
is only later that Ibn Udhaynais made to spawn the versions of
al-Haskaf, al-Numn (d. 360/971) andal-Kashsh (d. c. 340/951). A
further complication is al-Saffrs (d. 290/903)isnd found in Basir
al-Darajt, a work which predates both al-Kulaynand Ibn Bbawayh.
Though here, it could be argued that his citation is ofonly a few
lines from the middle section of the report and not the report as
awhole: the citation is partial and does not relate to the
hermeneutic first sectiondiscussed above, and so can be disregarded
in isnd analysis. The real difficultyis the version found in the
Nahj al-Balgha which, as already mentioned, with-out an isnd, bears
a resemblance to the other versions examined here, butshows
extensive rewording and textual adjustment in order to ensure it
conformsmore obviously with later notions of mm/khss and
nsikh/manskh.
In the end, though, I am not sure the isnd analysis facilitates
even anapproximate dating. It could, perhaps, provide some
indication of the originalcirculation of the report by Hammd b. s,
who was abandoned by a later gen-eration of hadth specialists in
favour of Umar ibn Udhayna as the primarysource of the report. If
Hammd is responsible, then his dates (i.e. d. 209/8245 or 208/8234)
would fit with the matn analysis carried out above. Butthe result
does seem, to me at least, rather speculative.
56 G.H.A. Juynbolls extensive study of isnds often makes for a
challenging read. For anoverview of his method, see his General
overview in his Encyclopaedia of CanonicalHadith (Leiden, 2007),
xviixxxii.
57 A dive is an attempt to circumvent a weak transmitter in an
isnd by leap-frogging himand providing an entirely new chain from
someone nearer to the supposed source. SeeJuynboll, Encyclopaedia
of Canonical Hadith, xxiixxiii.
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Conclusions
From the above, a tentative history of the report in question is
proposed, frominitial circulation in the early ninth century (or at
the earliest, the late eighth cen-tury), attributed to Sulaym, and
subsequently inserted into al-Fadl b. ShdhnsMukhtasar ithbt
al-raja. This would make the reports origins slightly laterthan
report 23 (in Ansrs edition), if Crones dating is accepted.
Initialcirculation was followed by minor adjustments before
inclusion in al-Kulayns al-Kf and Ibn Bbawayhs al-Khisl. The
variants tend to show agreater level of agreement amongst al-Fadl
b. Shdhn, al-Kulayn and IbnBbawayh and in most cases, these
versions show signs of updating to fitin with doctrinal
developments (in, for example, the theories of naskh, mm/khss and
the evaluation of the transmitters skills). This would indicate
thatthe Kitb Sulaym predates these versions.
Isnd analysis could indicate that some of this activity (perhaps
the initialcirculation, more likely the pre-Kulayn textual
adjustment) was associatedwith Hammd b. s. After the occultation,
the text is subjected to extensiverewording as the Sh doctrine
(particular legal hermeneutics) stabilizes, withits eventual format
being included in al-Sharf al-Rads Nahj al-Balgha.
The primary evidence within this historical sketch is, then,
that the hermen-eutic awareness found within the report indicates
its formulation at, or perhapsjust before the revolutionary work of
al-Shfi. This can be gauged by numerouselements. First, there is
the assumption that Quran and Sunna are the onlysources of law a
position which is intimately associated with al-Shfi,
not-withstanding the attempt to backdate it to earlier jurists.
Second, there is the phe-nomenon of category pairings being listed
together, as a sort of summary of thestate of the revelatory
corpus. Listing the available exegetical tools in this man-ner
reveals a degree of hermeneutic awareness which one finds in
embryonicform in the writings attributed to al-Shfi and, in
particular, in his the Kitbal-Umm.58 This might push the reports
initial circulation further into theninth century, but this would,
perhaps, be too speculative. It should be notedthat I am not, here,
arguing that mm and khss as technical terms, and as apair, were
only evident from al-Shfi onward. I concur with Lowry that theywere
probably paired sometime in the late eighth century, and entered
the juristicvocabulary then.59 Rather, my argument is that the
listing of these hermeneuticcategories together, as a sort of tool
box for the exegete, shows a level of inter-pretative
self-awareness that is most likely to have emerged contemporary
with(and arguably after the impact of) the work of al-Shafi. If
these texts ofal-Shafi can be securely dated to his lifetime
(contra Calders suspicions of
58 Al-Shafi in his Kitb al-Umm produces short lists of
hermeneutic categories (see, forexample, Muhammad b. Idrs al-Shfi,
Kitb al-Umm (Beirut, 1403), VII, 16, 92,289 and 360). Though there
is no list in the Risla, the collocation of sections examiningthe
pairings (not just mm/khss but nass/jumla also) would seem to imply
a bracketingof these techniques. The listing receives more thorough
coverage (and integration into anoverall legal theory) in the tenth
century see for example Ab Bakr al-Jasss, al-Fuslfi usl al-ahkm
(Istanbul, 1994), I, 129, and his Ahkm al-Qurn (Beirut, 1995), I,
71.
59 J. Lowry, The legal hermeneutics of al-Shfi and Ibn Qutayba:
a reconsideration,Islamic Law and Society, 11, 2004, 78.
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organic growth),60 then this report shows a similar (and perhaps
even higher)level of hermeneutic sophistication. Hence the most
appropriate context againstwhich to understand the report is the
late eighth/early ninth century CE, contem-poraneous with (or
perhaps a little later than) the challenge posed by al-Shfisnew
hermeneutics.61 Second, there is the understanding demonstrated
within thereport of the hermeneutic mechanisms associated with
these terms. Here, thereare similarities with the interpretative
currency of the tenth century, but alsomore than a little
disjuncture. For example, the earlier versions of the report(Kitb
Sulaym, al-Fadl, al-Kulayn, Ibn Bbawayh) indicate an
understandingof naskh in which the manskh is viewed as useless and
hence not preservedby the transmitter. This position contrasts with
later theory which consistentlyholds (across the various schools)
that the manskh is preserved but cannotform the basis for action.
This would indicate that in this early form, the reportat least
pre-dates the flourishing of legal theory in the tenth century.
This andother phrasings which might indicate deviation from
standard hermeneutic prac-tice are cleaned up in the version
present in the Nahj al-Balgha.
If this version of the historical development of the report is
accepted (evenwith minor adjustments), then there is an interesting
corollary. The reportseems to indicate that the activity of
accurately preserving the ProphetsSunna requires not just technical
skills of memorization, but also the ability torecognize the legal
significance of the material being preserved. This is whythe fourth
reliable transmitter type not only remembers verbatim what wassaid,
but also is able to distinguish the nsikh from the manskh and themm
from the khss. Whilst the Imam may be the only true transmitter
ofthe material implied here, it is not obvious and the mastery of
the hermeneuticmechanisms described seems generally available to
those who correctly applythemselves to the task. Al-Shfi himself
recognizes that the transmitter doesnot merely transmit the
material he should be fully cognizant of what he trans-mits (qilan
lim yuhaddithu bihi); he should know what changes the meaningof the
report from its wording. That is, he should both transmit it word
for word,and he should know what it means. This view, unusual as it
seems for the time,is congruent with the transmitter described in
the report. The report, then, showssigns of an embryonic authority
theory for a scholarly elite separate from (andperhaps in
competition with) the Imams themselves. This doctrinal
develop-ment, normally associated with the ghayba period might, on
the evidence ofthis report, have been initiated in the period
immediately following the deathof Imam Jafar al-Sdiq in the early
Abbsid period.62
60 See Norman Calder, Studies in Early Muslim Jurisprudence
(Oxford, 1993), 7685 and23344.
61 In saying this, I am arguing that I am not entirely convinced
by Hallaqs relegation ofal-Shafis immediate importance in his
article Was al-Shfi the master architect ofIslamic jurisprudence?,
International Journal of Middle East Studies, 25, 1993,587605.
62 This confirms, to an extent, some of the conclusions of Etan
Kohlberg (in his Imam andcommunity in the pre-Ghayba period, in
S.A. Arjomand (ed.), Authority and PoliticalCulture in Shiism
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988),
particularlypp.358; Takim, The Heirs of the Prophet, 78109.
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