Hadith

Muhammad's Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World

Jonathan A.C. Brown

• Publisher: Oneworld Publications
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781786073082
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Islamic Theology

Contrary to popular opinion, the bulk of Islamic law does not come from the Quran but from hadith, first-hand reports of the Prophet Muhammad's words and deeds, passed from generation to generation. However, with varying accounts often only committed to paper a century after the death of Muhammad, Islamic scholars, past and present, have been faced with complex questions of historical authenticity. In this wide-ranging introduction, Jonathan A. C. Brown explores the collection and criticism of hadith, and the controversy surrounding its role in modern Islam. This edition, revised and updated with additional case studies and attention to the very latest scholarship, also features a new chapter on how hadiths have been used politically, both historically and in the Arab Spring and its aftermath. Informative and accessible, it is perfectly suited to students, scholars and general readers interested in this critical element of Islam.

1

THE PROPHET’S WORDS THEN AND NOW: HADITH AND ITS TERMINOLOGY

‘We have a question,’ the man said, his rural accent betraying the long trip he must have made from his provincial hamlet to the metropolis of Cairo. ‘We have built a school for boys and girls,’ the man continued, sitting cross-legged on the carpet with his eyes angled reverently upward at the scholar seated in the sturdy wooden chair before him. ‘But some members of our community say that we cannot allow the girls to attend because they will mix with the boys in the hallways. Are we allowed to open the school?’ The man waited anxiously, as did the students seated deferentially around the scholar, I among them. The fall of 2003 was unusually hot, and the hesitant breezes that penetrated the wooden lattice walls were welcomed by all.

The scholar, a middle-aged man who would soon be elevated to one of the most influential religious positions in the Sunni Muslim world, the chief jurisconsult (muftī) of Egypt, leaned down towards the tape recorder that the man had dragged with him on his long journey. ‘Do you have the Nile down where you are?’ the scholar asked. ‘Yes,’ the man replied. ‘Listen, then, whoever you are who objects to opening this school to girls,’ the scholar said into the recorder, ‘go throw yourself in the Nile! For did the Messenger of God, may the peace and blessings of God be upon him, not say “Do not prevent the female servants of God from the mosques of God”?’1

For over a thousand years Muslim peasants, merchants, and princes have flocked to the vaulted rooms that line the great courtyard of Cairo’s al-Azhar Mosque to seek the counsel of the ulema, those scholars who define Islamic faith and religious law. Seated in this courtyard on a fall day in 2003, the future ‘Grand Mufti of the Egyptian Lands’ could look back on over fourteen hundred years of the Islamic religious tradition, that corpus of scholarship that elucidated the message brought by Muhammad and is one of the world’s most elaborate and rich intellectual edifices. In responding to the question of this simple man, the mufti could draw from the capacious tradition of Islamic legal discourse: the bodies of law of the four major Sunni legal schools, the obscure opinions of medieval scholars long eclipsed by time, or the general principles that governed Islamic law and its derivation.

Although his mind was no doubt scanning this abundant legal heritage as he pondered the man’s question, the scholar did not reply with any high legal language or dry legal ruling. Instead, he answered the man with the words of a figure whom Muslims are taught from childhood to love and venerate as a moral exemplar and object of devotion, a person ‘dearer to them than their own child or parents.’i The scholar reached back through the centuries to the words of the Prophet Muhammad, words that he knew would resonate in this simple man’s heart as clearly as the day they were first spoken and would lay all the concerns of his rural community to rest. Even amid the confusion of the modern world, today as before, ‘the Prophet of God is most worthy of being followed.’2

Muhammad’s precedent has been invoked in places and times far distant from the Nile Valley. His words speak with compelling power throughout the Muslim world, among Sunnis and Shiites alike. A year after I had heard the future ‘Grand Mufti of the Egyptian Lands’ issue his opinion, I sat in the lush courtyard of the Khan Madrasa in the ancient Persian city of Shiraz, discussing issues of Islamic thought with an Imami Shiite cleric. As the morning sun shone on the intricate floral tiles of the mosque’s vaulted enclosure, we were debating whether or not ‘Alī, the Prophet’s son-in-law and well-spring of the Shiite tradition, possessed revealed knowledge of future events. ‘The Commander of the Faithful, ‘Alī, may God’s blessings be upon him, knew that oil would be found in these lands and that “steel birds would fly”,’ the Shiite cleric expounded energetically. ‘This knowledge he got from the Messenger of God, his teacher, for did the Messenger not say, “I am the city of knowledge and ‘Alī is its gate. So whoever seeks knowledge let him approach it by its gate”?’3

Among Western readership, the question ‘What does Islam say about’ some issue is usually followed by reference to the Quran. A Western journalist writing about the dress habits of Egyptian women informs us that wearing the headscarf is not an injunction from the Quran,4 while pundits discussing jihad note that the Quran says ‘slay the unbelievers wherever you find them’ (Quran 9:5). Certainly, to Muslims the Quran is the literal word of God. It is a text revered to such an extent that many Muslims memorize it in its entirety as children, and many Muslims believe that a state of ritual purity is required to touch its pages.

Yet the Quran is not the source to which a curious reader should refer in order to answer the question ‘What does Islam say about’ a particular issue. The Q...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise for the book
• Series page
• Title
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface to the Revised Edition
• Preface
• Conventions, Abbreviations, and Transliteration
• 1. The Prophet’s Words Then and Now: Hadith and Its Terminology
• 2. The Transmission and Collection of Prophetic Traditions
• 3. The Methods and History of Hadith Criticism
• 4. Prophetic Traditions in Shiite Islam
• 5. The Function of Prophetic Traditions in Islamic Law and Legal Theory
• 6. The Function of Prophetic Traditions in Theology
• 7. The Function of Prophetic Traditions in Sufism
• 8. The Function of Prophetic Traditions in Politics
• 9. The Authenticity Question: Western Debates over the Historical Reliability of Prophetic Traditions
• 10. Debates over Prophetic Traditions in the Modern Muslim World
• 11. Conclusion
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Acknowledgments
• Illustrations
• Copyright