early shiite hermeneutics and the dating of kitāb

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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

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0041977X15000038

How to cite this article:Robert Gleave (2015). Early Shiite hermeneutics and the dating of Kitb Sulaym ibnQays. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 78, pp 83-103doi:10.1017/S0041977X15000038

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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

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

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.


(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).


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


Figure 1. The isnds of the report in the Kitb Sulaym b. Qays

100ROBERT

GLEAVE

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.


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.


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.


early shiite hermeneutics and the dating of kitāb

Documents

dating of kitbsulaym

dating of kitb sulaym

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dating betweenlate

legal hermeneutics

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