1 - Between Philology and Hadith Criticism: The Genre of Sharḥ Gharīb al-Ḥadīth

Summary

Introduction

Some time at the beginning of the third/ninth century in the eastern Iranian province of Khurāsān, the future caliph al-Maʾmūn argued with one of the earliest authors of a gharīb al-ḥadīth book, Naḍr b. Shumayl (d. c. 204/820), about the vocalisation of a word in a hadith (ḥadīth, pl. aḥādīth). In the version of the hadith as it was transmitted by Hushaym b. Bashīr b. al-Qāsim (d. 183/799), the word was vocalised with a fatḥa (a); in another version, this one transmitted by ʿAwf al-Aʿrābī (d. 146/763–764), it was read with a kasra (i). Naḍr considered the version with a kasra (i) to be the correct version and gave Hushaym's dialect as the reason for his different vocalisation: wa-hādha laḥn Hushaym.

In the early Islamic empire, understanding differences in vocalisation and the meaning of unfamiliar or unusual words was an essential requirement for the proper reading of the Islamic sources, Qur’an and hadith alike. Again and again in later centuries, it was stressed that a proper knowledge of the Arabic language should precede any examination of the content of a text. Majd al-Dīn b. al-Athīr (d. 606/1210), author of the famous and widely disseminated al-Nihāya fī gharīb al-ḥadīth wa-l-athar, stated that in order to understand hadith properly, one must first comprehend its language (lit., alfāẓ), and second, its meanings (maʿānī). ‘And without a doubt, the knowledge of its words comes first.’ In his sixth chapter of the Muqaddima, on knowledge and teaching (al-ʿilm wa-l-taʿlīm), Ibn Khaldūn (d. 808/ 1406) points out that ‘the study (naẓar) of the Qur’ān and Ḥadīth necessarily has to be preceded by the sciences of language (ʿulūm al-lisāniyya) because it [i.e. naẓar] is based on them’.

Issues of vocalisation and the proper understanding of words and expressions, as well as the complexity of grammatical structures, were of key importance in the early period of the Islamic empire (and beyond). With the Qur’anic revelation and the emergence of an Islamic state in the first/seventh to second/eighth centuries, the Arabic language became the underpinning of religion, politics and administration, and an integrative element in future multi-ethnic and multi-lingual Islamic culture.