Review Christopher Melchert

8/10/2019 Review Christopher Melchert

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Encyclopedia of Canonical adth by G. H. A. Juynboll

Review by: Christopher MelchertIslamic Law and Society, Vol. 15, No. 3 (2008), pp. 408-411Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40377972.

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8/10/2019 Review Christopher Melchert

2/5

*

-%h

'

Islamic

Law

',

-%h

im

f

and

'

/.n

s

Society

BRILL

Islamic aw

and

Society

5

2008)

408-423

www.bTill.nl/ils

Book Reviews

Encyclopedia

f

CanonicalHadith.

By

G.H.A.

Juynboll.

eiden/Boston:

rill,

007.

Pp.

xxxiii 804.

ISBN

978 90

04

15674

6.

209;

$289.00.

This

hefty

olume

omprises

irst

n introduction

resenting

he atest ersion

f

Juynboll's

ethod

f hadith

riticism,

econd a

long,

"alphabetical

ist of

persons

withwhom canonical raditions

may

be

associated,"

hen listof

45

traditionists

also

identifieds

abdl,

an

index

to the

alphabetical

ist,

nd

finally

n index

of

Qur'anic

passages

ited.

Juynboll

xpounded

his basic

method,

with

appropriate

credit o

Joseph

chacht,

n

Muslim

Tradition

Cambridge

University

ress,

983).

He collects nd

compares

he asnid to

any

particular

adith

eport

nd

looks for

the Common

Link,

heearliest

erson

n

the

complex

who

evidently

ictated

his

basic textto

multiple

uditors.

n

subsequent

rticles,

e has introduced

many

refinements,otablyhe "Partial ommonLink," teacherwithmultipleuditors

besides the evident

Common

Link

the more

of

these,

he more

plausible

he

identification

f

the Common

Link above

them;

the "dive"

by

which someone

reports

aving

eard he ame hadith

eport

hrough

n otherwise nattested

hain

from he Common Link'sown

reported

ource;

nd the

"spider,"

collection

f

"single

trands,"

ncorroboratedines

of transmission

p

to the

putative

ource.

These are

clearly

nd

succinctly

escribed

n the

introduction

o the

Encyclope-

dia.

Juynboll

ists bout

1

50

traditionists,

o whomhe

assigns

,280

hadith

eports,

with texts

n

translation

necessarily

gnoring

most variant

wordings).

Here is

a

time ine of the nvention f

hadith^

ccording

o his estimates:

Juynboll

redits

bn

'Abbas

with two hadith

reports,

r at least holds that their

content s conceivably rom he time of theProphet;he credits A'ishahmore

confidently

ith ix. The

great ge

of

inventing

adith^

r more

precisely

mutn

as

they

ppear

n

the Six

Books

(i.e.,

not

counting

he

invention f alternative

Koninklijke

rill

V,Leiden,

008

DOI:

10.1163/156851908X366174

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8/10/2019 Review Christopher Melchert

3/5

Book

Reviews Islamic aw and

Society

5

(2008)

408-423

409

asnid),

ppears

o

be

the

ifetime f

al-Shafi'l nd the

half-century

efore,

ontra

Schacht,

who asserted hat t was his lifetime nd the

half-century

fter. he

champions

re

al-Zuhrlwith 86

to his

credit,

l-Acmash ith

153,

Sufyn

b.

cUyayna

ith

175,

Shu'ba with

316,

and Malik

with

373.

Juynboll

xpresses

ome

interesting

referencesmong

ater

ollectors;

.g.,

for bn Abi

Shayba

over

cAbd

al-Razzq,

Ahmad

b.

Hanbal,

and other

major

collectors f the

3rd/9th

entury

and,

among

the Six

Books,

forBukhrl

nd Muslim

over the otherfourwhere

they

nclude hadith

eport

hatBukhrl nd Muslim do

not.

Let

me

review

sample

ntry,

hosen t random:

Malik b.

Mighwal

d.

1

57

or

159/774

or

776)" regrettably,uynboll's

onversion rom

Hijri

to Common

Era

is

usually pproximate,

ithout

plit

dates,

nd sometimes rroneous

"was

an Arab

who lived

n

Kufa."

After few comments n his

reputation,

uynboll

quotes

the one hadith

eport

hathe will

dentify

alik b.

Mighwal

s

inventing:

Talha

b. Musarrif

sks Abd Allh

b. Abl

Awf,

"Did the

Prophet

eave a

will?'

'No/

he said.

'But/

Talha

went

on,

'why

are the Muslims

enjoined

to

leave

a

testament

t all?' Said (Abd

Allah,

He

charged

s

to follow he Book of God.'"

After

uoting

his

matn,

Juynboll

ollows t with a series f

citations,

eginning

with

the number

f this hadith

eport

n

al-MizzI,

Tuhfa.

uynboll

hen

notes,

"Malik b.

Mighwal

has three

CLs

and

several Ss

in

thisbundlewhich

upports

one version f

a

MC,

so

he

is

n

any

ase the

S)CL" (see

pp.

404-05).

Abbreviated,

here re somecommon erms f

Juynboll's:

artial ommonLink,

Single

Strand,

Matn

Cluster,

nd

Seeming

ommon

Link.

The

persistence

f

parentheses

round

"seeming"

s an

example

f the

provisional,

peculative

ature

f

Juynboll's

valua-

tions,

often

xpresslycknowledged.

Furthermore,

[irmidhi]

s

quoted

...

that

Malik b.

Mighwal

tafarrada

ihi,

which

amounts o

saying

hat he

is

probably

the CL

of this tradition

... What substantiates

alik

b.

Mighwals position

n

this bundle as

(S)CL

is the

fact hat

n

Hilya,

V,

p.

21,

lines

14-18,

a

number

of

people

are enumerated

hat

emphasize

his

key

figure

osition

even more

convincingly."

uynboll

s

fairly

isparaging

f

the Islamic tradition

f hadith

criticism,

sserting,

or

example,

that

althoughnoticing

he

phenomenon

of

CommonLinks,pre-modernritics failto drawplausibleconclusions"xxiii).

Sometimes,

think

he

is

overly

arsh,

s when he

alleges

hat absence

f a

year

of death

s

mostly

sure

sign

that certain

igure

s

a

majhl"

p.

417).

Sixty

percent

f the transmitters

n

the Six

Books have

no

dates t

all attached o them.

Mostly

minor

igures,

erhaps

hey

re

so

many

nknowns.

ut even

majorfigures

are

often ssociated

with

multiple roposed

death

dates,

ike

the

figure

uynboll

has

just

called

a

majhl\ .g.,

al-Awza'I nd

Sufyn

l-Thawri.

would

say

that

uncertainty

bout

a transmitter'seath

dates

s

due

to

biographers'

nferring

ata

from he

asnid

n

which

he

appeared,

which howed

themwho

had

been able

to

meet nd relate

adith rom

im.

Accordingly,

doubtwhether

he

biographical

record s an independentourcewhen tsays hat omeonemet omeone lse,but

I

also doubt

whether

ncertainty

bout death dates must

have come from he

invention f

names

n

asnid.

Nevertheless,

s the

entry

n

Malik b.

Mighwal

illustrates,

uynboll's

ctual

method

epends

heavily

n

pre-modern

cholarship

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8/10/2019 Review Christopher Melchert

4/5

4 1

0

Book

eviews

Islamic

aw

and

Society

5

(2008)

408-423

the

Encyclopedia

s

generously

edicated o cAbd s-Samad

Sharaf

d-Din,

first

editor

of the

Tuhfa

and

seems

rather

more

complementary

o it than

Harald

Motzki

method.

Students f

early

slamic aw will

probably

wish to consult

Juynboll

n all

the

hadith

eports

hey

onsider,

iving

his assessments

ore or less

weight

s

they

consider

is

methodmore

r

essreliable.

or an article

recently

ompleted

bout

judicialprocedure,specially

he

principle

hat

roof

s

incumbent

n the

plaintiff,

an oath on the

defendant,

uccinctly

tated

n

a famoushadith

eport,

wished

that

Juynboll

index

weremore etailed.

find o

entry

or

defendant,"

plaintiff,"

or "law suit."

Under

oath,"

here re 26

page

references

ithout urther

nalysis.

After

working hrough

hem, did find heone I wanted,which

happened

o be

the thirteenth.

uynboll

ttributes

he hadith

eports reface

about

the need

to

restrain uman

cupidity)

nd second

half

about

the

defendant)

o Ibn

Jurayj

p.

220).

But,

because

he omits o

consider

most iterature

part

from

he

Six

Books,

he does not

mention

dvocacy

f the

principle

y

the Hanafi

school

where

he

earliest ources ttributehe

saying

o

Followers,

ot to the

Prophet),

o

which

would characterizebn

Jurayj

s hadith

eport

s a

response.

Another est:

n an

article

bout women

n

mosques,

began

with

a treat-

mentof the hadith

eport,

Forbid

not God's handmaidens

o enter he

mosque"

("Whether

o

Keep

Women out of

the

Mosque:

A

Survey

f

Medieval

slamic

Law,"Proceedingsfthe22nd CongressfL'UnionEuropenneesArabisantst

Islamisants)

Fortunately,

n

Juynboll's

ndex,

women"

s not

one

entry.

ather,

the

ndex

has

one reference

or

women

n the

mosque,"

which

ed

me to

Sufyn

b.

cUyayna

d.

198/814),

whom

Juynboll

reditswith

he

version,

When

a man's

wife

sks

to

go

to the

mosque,

he should

not

stop

her."Another

ntry,

women

forbidden

o

go

to

mosque,"

ed me

to

this,

which

Juynboll

scribes o

the Kufan

al-A'mash

d.

148/765-6?):

Ibn

cUmar elated

he

Prophet's

ords:Do

not

prevent

your

women from

going

out

in

the

night

o the

mosque.'

Then a son of

Ibn

cUmar's aid: We

will

not let them

go

out

to defile he

place.'

Whereupon

bn

cUmar

colded

him

and said:

I

said

that he

Messenger

f

God said

this,

nd

you

say:We won't et them? '" havesupposedthatthecontroversyas older than

al-A'mash,

but this

particular

wording

need not be older. "Forbid

not

God's

handmaidens o enter he

mosque"

s not in the

Encyclopedia

ecause,

vidently,

it is

supported

nly

by

single

trands,

bout

which

Juynboll

ill

draw

no conclu-

sions.

observed

hat

hese

ermissive

adith

eports

ere

Medinese

n

their

pper

reaches

Companion

nd Follower

evels),

whereas ufan ources

eported

egative

positions

f

bn

Mas'ud and Ibrahim

l-Nakha%

romwhich inferred

hatKufa

was

the home of

opposition

o women's

going

to the

mosque, opposition

hat

survived

n

the

relatively

estrictive

osition

ftheHanafi chool.

Juynbollanalysis

would

uggest othing

f

the

ort,

lthough

armonizations

possible:

f l-Acmash

was indeed the authorof thisform f the report, henhe givesus a dissident

Kufan

view,

lso a clear terminusnte

quern

or

the

principle

hat the

Prophet's

dicta

have

priority

ver

Followers'.What conclude s first hat ne darenot

end

This content downloaded from 87.109.95.198 on Sat, 24 May 2014 15:04:20 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

8/10/2019 Review Christopher Melchert

5/5

Book eviewsIslamic aw and

Society

5

(2008)

408-423

4 1 1

an

investigation

f

some

early

egal

controversy

t

Juynboll's

erdict,

ut

second

that one

may expect

uch an

investigation

o

be

enriched

y

consulting

uyn-

boll.

I

think

his s

enough

to

justify

dding

the

Encyclopedia

o ones

library.

he

introduction

ecomes hefirst

lace

to send student

or

n

exposition

f

Juynboll's

method,

s

I

think

would

send

the ame tudent irst o Harald

Motzki,

Dating

Muslim

Traditions,"

rbica,

ii

(2005),

204-53,

for n

exposition

f

his method

and to Eerik

Dickinson,

The

Developmentf arly

unnite adith riticism

Leiden:

Brill,

001),

chapter

,

for

n

exposition

f

9th

and

10th-century

unni

methods

(as

distinct

rom he ist

f

technical erms hathas

usually

erved

or

description

of

pre-modern

adith

riticism,

suspect

y

incautious eliance

n

the iterature

of usl

l-fiqh).

Christopher

elchert

University

f Oxford

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