þ7§óx¦î:î:ð:ð:ð:ð:ð:ð:ð:ð:¾ðøññDóXóXóX óxóxóxóx Chapter 7 The ProphetÕs Sunna as Preserved in the H.adõøthMuhammad and Scripture The shahaødaÕs first clause is ÒThere is no god but God,Ó and the QurÕan contains GodÕs message of warning and success for those who listen and obey. But there is a second clause that must also be uttered before one is a true Muslim: ÒMuhammad is the Messenger of God.Ó It does not imply worship of that human beingÑto do so would be idolatryÑbut it does imply a special character and destiny that Muslims discern in their Prophet. It is as difficult to imagine Islam without Muhammad as Christianity without Jesus, even though the two play very different roles in the religions that they founded and have different places in doctrine and practice. Both, however, were so close to the source of their inspiration and so thoroughly dominated by it that in their words and gestures people have discerned clues and demonstrations of divine activity in the historical process. For Christians, Jesus shows how God behaves among his creatures. MuhammadÕs life is exemplary in showing people how they should behave in the presence of God. The Muslims move heavenward through Muhammad, whereas the Christians receive their Lord in his earthward condescension, which later moves toward an ascension. Sunna and H.adõøth MuhammadÕs own voice had peculiar authority during his lifetime. While he was Prophet in Mecca and later Medina, the qurÕaøns that Muhammad received gained in prestige and power, but so did his own words and acts. MuhammadÕs extraordinary qualities as leader and friend seemed to be of fundamental importance in ensuring the QurÕanÕs acceptance, but his growing influence in turn was largely brought about by the Ògracious QurÕan.Ó The twoÑprophet and bookÑare inextricably bound up in each other in a manner perhaps unduplicated by any other scripture. Because of this, the Muslims came to recall and collect all that could be retrieved of MuhammadÕs life after he had died. The word sunna (pl. sunan) was used to name the ProphetÕs Òcustom,Ó his words, deeds, and habitual practices. This word was well known in Arabic and denoted a pattern of behavior that people follow. It is then, originally, a general term. But when applied to Muhammad, it became a special term that denoted the category of exemplary words, deeds, and gestures that were destined to be authoritative in the life of the umma. The Sunna is an idea as well as a memory, and even more it is an ideal for Muslim behavior. As such it is engrained in the lives of pious Muslims and handed down by example and personal teaching. The Sunna is also remembered and transmitted by means of a literary form called h.adõøth. The word h.adõøth has root meanings of Òbeing newÓ and Òoccurring, taking place, coming to pass,Ó and extends to talking about or reporting what has happened. Thus a h.adõøth came to be a ÒreportÓ of something that had taken place. When such a narrative referred to Muhammad and his companions, it became a ÒtraditionÓ in that it was passed down from generation to generation. The Sunna (in the collective sense of all that Muhammad left by way of teaching and example) of the Prophet, then, is preserved and communicated in a major way by means of h.adõøths. They were remembered and transmitted by many different people in a wide variety of contexts and regions. Eventually, scholars developed methods of sifting through and evaluating them, weeding out questionable or spurious ones and preserving authentic ones in systematically arranged collections. This process took over two centuries. But when it was completed, the Muslims had a solid second source of authoritative teaching to assist them in all aspects of their individual and corporate religious, social, civil, and legal life. The QurÕan continued to be the most authoritative source for Islamic doctrine and practice, but in many cases the h.adõøths confirmed, extended, elaborated, explained, and supplemented the revelation as a scriptural complement to the QurÕan. Muhammad was obviously considered the best interpreter of the message, and beyond his explanations of QurÕanic passages, all of his words and acts gradually came to be regarded as exemplary and worthy of imitation. This attitude led to the development of an ideal and perfect view of the Prophet. In Christianity one can distinguish between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith, in that the former is the human being who walked the streets and byways of Galilee and ended up on a cross in Jerusalem as a criminal, and the latter is the perfect, eternal, risen savior who continues to intercede for and inspire those who love him and believe in him as the Lord of all life. Although IslamÕs doctrine of prophethood, and especially its understanding of MuhammadÕs nature, is far different from the incarnationalism of Christianity, there nevertheless is a sense that Muhammad continues to inspire and lead through his Sunna. There is, thus, a Muhammad of history and a Prophet of faith. In some sectarian views, Muhammad even takes on some of the attributes of other holy personages, such as preexistence before the creation of Adam, preeminence above all created things, and perfect wisdom. All Muslims regard Muhammad, along with all the preceding prophets, as having been sinless. There is a great range of views concerning Muhammad, from a regard for him as a hero and founder, whose example lives on in the memory of his umma, all the way to elaborate ideas of his perfection and continuing influence. The Form of the h.adIøth Before considering specific details of the Sunna of Muhammad and related matters such as hagiography, it will be helpful to examine the form of the h.adõøth and how it came to be preserved and employed by the Muslims. (When the word is capitalized, it refers to the whole corpus of traditions.) The diffusion of MuhammadÕs teaching began with his own initiatives in advising and counseling his companions, commanding them always to remember his words and acts. From those times onward, Muslims took pains to remember everything they could about Muhammad and to disseminate this information to others. But this does not seem to have been done systematically, and so the science of h.adõøth did not achieve maturity until long after the ProphetÕs time. The teaching of Muhammad, as distinguished from the recitation of the QurÕanic revelations, although the one took place alongside the other, was often prompted by questions and practical issues that arose in the normal course of daily life. Like Moses before him, Muhammad ÒjudgedÓ the people and, in the absence of a higher authority, took upon himself the responsibility of breaking new ground in many of his pronouncements and decisions. But as we pointed out earlier, Muhammad also was able to draw on custom and tribal precedent in many situations in which they did not contradict or subvert the Islamic way. The companions passed on their memories of MuhammadÕs teaching and behavior in the form of h.adõøths, which sometimes were preserved within family lines of transmission or spread by other channels. The companions memorized, wrote down (though ÔUmar opposed this), and followed the h.adõøth, all three being means of transmission and conservation. The last seems to have been an especially powerful means by which MuhammadÕs memory was grafted onto the umma and ingrained into the MuslimsÕ attitudes and behavior patterns. Parts and Arrangements of H.adõøths The following is a typical h.adõøth, whose parts and arrangements will be explained: Yah.yaø ibn Yah.yaø related to us: ÒAbu Haythama reported to us, from Abõø Ish.aøq, from al-BaraøÕ [who] said: ÔA man was reciting Sura al-Kahf and nearby him was a horse tied with two ropes, and a cloud came over him, and as it came nearer his horse began to shy from it. He went and mentioned that to the ProphetÑupon whom be blessing and peaceÑand he replied: ÒThat was the Sakõøna which descended because of the QurÕan recitation.ÕÓ1 Isnaød.ÊÊThis h.adõøth has two main parts. The first is the opening citation of the persons who transmitted it, called the isnaød, a documentation process meaning Òprop, support, backing.Ó It is the chain of ascriptions by which a report is authenticated. Each link is a person who has been involved in its transmission. The second and main part of the h.adõøth is called the matn, the Òmain text.Ó In this case it is the story of the horse that was startled by the sacred energy that descended in the Sakõøna when the QurÕan was recited. (This is a parallel to the Jewish shechina, which is the Òpresence of God in the world.Ó) The Muslims developed an intricate science of h.adõøth evaluation based on, among other things, close scrutiny of the isnaød. It is possible to fabricate a plausible-sounding h.adõøth, and so the isnaød came to be regarded as a crucial index of authenticity. This is powerful testimony, again, to the importance of the believers in carrying on true Islamic doctrine and observance from generation to generation. A special subdiscipline known as Òthe science of menÓ (Ôilm al-rijaøl) developed, whichÊcollected all available information pertaining to every person mentioned in the isnaøds of the growing h.adõøth. Such characteristics as quality of memory, reputation for telling the truth, piety, and general intelligence were considered to be important factors in evaluating the chains of authorities. Other relevant items of biographical and historical information were the contacts, travels, habits, and periods of people listed in the isnaøds. For example, a th...
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