“There is no judgment that is pronounced correctly and pursuant to the truth except that its origin, key, cause, and knowledge proceeds from ʿAlī and ourselves. But when contradictions arose and the matter became confusing to them they resorted to using qiyās (analogy) and acting upon raʾy (reasoned opinion). So whenever they apply qiyās they fall into error, and whenever they follow the āthār (reports) attributed to ʿAlī they hit the mark!
Abū Jaʿfar al-Bāqir[1]
Introduction
One of the most controversial and highly contested questions in the history of Islamic jurisprudence is whether a dispute can be decided in favour of a claimant who only has a solitary male witness to back him up if the claimant agrees to buttress his claim by swearing an oath, a practise referred to as qaḍā bil yamīn maʿa al-shāhid.
While the Kufans, both ancient jurists of the town and later Abū Ḥanīfa and the circle around him, became known for their opposition to this practise, deeming it contrary to the Qur’anic requirement of two male witnesses or one male and two female witnesses (Q. 2:282), the Medinans were known to accept it, deeming it to be a Prophetic sunna, with Mālik b. Anas offerring up Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq’s report from his father al-Bāqir as evidence. Then came al-Shāfiʿī who had studied under both Mālik and Abū Ḥanīfa’s students before paving a new way forward.
Studying the early debates on this particular issue can be very illuminating in revealing the foundational methodologies of the different budding schools of law as well as their approach to the revelatory texts. It also reveals that the Imami school, and even though the overwhelming majority of its early transmitters were of a Kufan background, can be authentically traced back to their Imams in Medina.
A Correspondence between Friends
Sometime towards the middle of the second Islamic century,[2] Mālik b. Anas (d. 179) wrote a letter[3] to his friend and colleague, Layth b. Saʿd (d. 175), a scholar in his own right who had become something of an authority in Egypt, cautioning him against issuing fatwa that were contrary to the ʿamal (precedent) in Medina.
Know – may Allah have mercy on you – that it has been conveyed to me that you give certain fatwa that are contrary to what the masses at our place and our town in which we live (i.e. Medina) are upon.
And you – by virtue of your leadership, merit, status among the people of your country (i.e. Egypt), the need of the people in your midst for you, and their dependence on what issues from you – are more obligated to fear for yourself and to follow that which you hope salvation lies in …
For the rest of the people are (to be) followers of the people of Medina. To it was the hijra, in it was the Qur’an revealed, the lawful made lawful, and the unlawful made unlawful. Since the Messenger of Allah was in their midst and they attended to the revelation and what came down. He instructed them and they obeyed.[4] He set sunan for them and they followed. Until Allah took him and chose for him what is with Him, may the salutations of Allah be upon him.
Then, there arose after him the most scrupulous of all people in following him from among his community, those who assumed leadership after him. So whatever (circumstance) they faced about which they possessed knowledge they implemented, and whatever they did not possess knowledge of they inquired about, then they took the strongest they could find in that by their ijtihād, with the closeness of their epoch (from that of the Prophet).
So if an opponent were to go against them, or if a man were to say, “a position other than theirs is stronger and more appropriate”, his (i.e. this man’s) position is abandoned and the opposite of what he proposes is done.
Then the tābiʿīn (successors) who came after them were traversing the same path and following those same sunan.
So when there exists a position that is manifest and acted upon in Medina – then I do not see any validity in going against them, because of what they possess in their hands of that inheritance which no one other than them (i.e. the Medinans) can assume or claim for themselves.
If the people of the rest of the towns were to claim, “this is how it is done in our town”, or, “this is what those who have come before us have always done”, they would not be assured (of being correct) through that, nor would that work for them the way it would work for these (i.e. the Medinans) …
This should be considered Mālik’s manifesto for why all Muslims should follow Medinan ʿamal in cases of khilāf (disagreement): Medina was the only town which could boast a continuous and uninterrupted line of transmission of knowledge, beginning with the Prophet, then the Caliphs who came after, down to its contemporary scholars. Consequently, a practise that was unanimous among them was binding over all Muslims.
Layth, while deferential in the tone of his response,[5] stands his ground as to the substance.
It is true that the early companions had all learnt the religion from the Prophet in Medina he concedes, but they had then dispersed across the Islamic world during the conquests and gone on to teach the people living in the newly-founded garrison towns. Their teachings had been passed down through the generations in those towns and should not now be abandoned for some Medinan ideal, especially because all this happened under the purview of the Caliphs who had done nothing to correct such a state of affairs, indicating their tacit approval.
As Layth says:
For a lot of those first and foremost (companions) came out for jihād in the way of Allah, seeking the pleasure of Allah. So they joined the troops in the garrisons, and the people gathered around them, and they (i.e. the companions) manifested the Book of Allah and the sunna of His Messenger in their midst. They did not conceal from them anything which they knew.
So there was in each garrison a ṭāʿifa (contingent) who were teaching, for the sake of Allah, the Book of Allah[6] and the sunna of His Prophet. Not concealing from the rest anything which they knew. Striving (ar. yajtahidūna) to come up with the raʾy (opinion) in cases where the Qur’an and the sunna had not clarified for them (the answer).
It was Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, and ʿUthmān, those whom the Muslims chose for themselves, who were supervising this. Now these three were not careless about the garrisons of the Muslims[7] or negligent of them. Rather, they would write to them about the smallest of matters so as to establish the religion, and to warn against any opposition to the Book of Allah and the sunna of His Prophet. They did not leave a matter which the Qur’an had clarified, or the Prophet had acted upon, or which they had decided through consultation (amongst themselves) after him,[8] except that they informed them of it.
So if there is a matter which the companions of the Messenger of Allah had acted upon in Egypt, Syria, or Iraq, in the lifetime of Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, and ʿUthmān, and which they never abandoned until they passed away, nor did these (three) instruct them to abandon it, then we do not deem it correct for the garrisons of the Muslims (i.e. in these different towns) to innovate today a matter (contrary to that) which their predecessors from among the companions of the Messenger of Allah and those who succeeded them (were upon).
Especially now, when most of the scholars have departed and those left behind from them are not comparable to those who have gone before.
This is Layth’s contention against Medinan exceptionalism, arguing instead for the equal validity of the local tradition found in the different towns to which the companions had migrated to.
What’s even more significant: There was nothing like the harmonious Medinan ideal which Mālik depicts in his letter in the first place! The companions in Medina had disagreed amongst themselves just as the companions who had moved away. Not to speak of the proliferation of disagreement in the generations that followed!
As Layth says:
Yet the companions of the Messenger differed after him in fatwa over numerous things. If I wasn’t sure that you already knew of them I would have written to you enumerating them.
Then the successors differed over things after the companions of the Messenger of Allah, (the likes of) Saʿīd b. al-Musayyab and his peers, an excessive difference.
Next, Layth turns to the difference of opinion that existed between his and Mālik’s immediate shuyūkh (teachers) in Medina:
Then those who came after them also differed. We met up with them in Medina and elsewhere. Their leaders[9] in giving fatwa at the time were Ibn Shihāb (al-Zuhrī) and Rabīʿa b. Abī ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, may Allah have mercy on them both.
There was from Rabīʿa, may Allah excuse him, opposing stances to some of what was held previously which you are well aware of and which you witnessed personally.[10] I myself heard your (rebuking) statements against him, and also the (rebuking) statements of those worthy of opinion[11] in Medina such as Yaḥyā b. Saʿīd, ʿUbaydallāh b. ʿUmar, Kathīr b. Farqad, and a few others who were elder to him. So much so that what you detested from that compelled you to abandon his majlis (study circle)[12] …
There would also emanate from Ibn Shihāb (al-Zuhrī) a lot of contradictory positions when we would meet up with him and when one of us would be writing down his views. It would happen that he would dictate about a single matter – in spite of the merit of his opinion and knowledge – three different positions which contradict each other, without him even realizing what his former opinion was in that matter.
So this is what leads me to abandon those (practices) whose abandonment you have held against me!
After this, Layth begins to go over each instance where he has diverged from the Medinan ʿamal in Mālik’s estimation, and the second matter he brings up is the case study for this article:
Among these is judging on the basis of the testimony of a solitary witness together with the oath of the claimant.
You have known that this is how disputes have always been judged in Medina, but none of the companions of the Messenger of Allah judged on its basis in Syria, Hims,[13] Egypt or Iraq. Nor did any of the mahdiyyūn (guided) and rāshidūn (guiding) Caliphs: Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, and ʿUthmān – write to them (to impose it on them).
Then ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz came to rule, and he was as you have known: (foremost) in enlivening the sunan, breaking the bidaʿ (innovation), diligent in establishing the religion, reaching correct opinion, and possessing knowledge of what had come before from the affairs of the people.
Ruzayq b. Ḥakīm[14] wrote to him, “You used to judge on the basis of the testimony of a solitary witness together with the oath of the claimant in Medina!’ to which Umar replied, “We used to judge based on that in Medina but have found the residents of Syria upon other than that, so we do not judge except on the basis of the testimony of two male witness or a male and two females’[15]
There is every reason to believe in the antiquity of this letter. Note, for instance, how Layth admits only three ‘guided’ and ‘guiding’ Caliphs, referring to them as ‘those whom the Muslims chose for themselves’, while leaving out ʿAlī, the legitimacy of whose rule was not accepted by many of the Ahl al-Ḥadīth who considered his brief period in power as one of fitna (civil war) before the four-Caliph thesis later gained acceptance among them.[16]
But that is a discussion for another time and place.
What is important here is that we have confirmation that qaḍā bil yamīn maʿa al-shāhid was a practise firmly entrenched in Medina to the exception of all other towns including Kufa (Iraq).
The Ancient Kufan Jurists
Kufan opposition to this practise can be demonstrated by citing the position of multiple leading authorities in that town from a very early period.
Mughīra b. Miqsam (d. 133) transmits that Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī (d. 96) and al-Shaʿbī (d. c. 103) were asked about a man who only has a solitary witness to back up his claim but is ready to swear an oath.
They responded:
Nothing less than the testimony of two male witnesses or a male and two females is permitted[17]
Both Ibrāhīm, who came to preside over the circle of the students of Ibn Masʿūd, and his contemporary al-Shaʿbī, were jurists from the generation of the tābiʿīn who had a very large following in Kufa.[18]
Now al-Shaʿbī was well aware that they were going against the Medinans on this.
He is known to have commented:
The Medinans judge on the basis of an oath together with a solitary witness[19]
The Medinan School
Mālik’s underlying reason for accepting the legality of this practise is that it was something that had always been done in Medina, indicating that it was a sunna that had been passed down.
Having said that, Mālik seeks in his magnum opus, the Muwaṭṭaʾ, to anchor all such Medinan ʿamal by including reports tracing back to the Prophet where possible, companions of the Prophet, or earlier authorities.
Towards this aim, Mālik includes 3 reports in the chapter dedicated to this issue.
The 1st report in the chapter, to which he gave prominence because it attributes this practise to the Prophet himself, is the following report of Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 148) from his father al-Bāqir (d. 114):
قَالَ يَحْيَى: قَالَ مَالِكٌ، عَنْ جَعْفَرِ بْنِ مُحَمَّدٍ، عَنْ أَبِيهِ، أَنَّ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ قَضَى بِالْيَمِينِ مَعَ الشَّاهِدِ
Mālik from Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad from his father that the Messenger of Allah judged on the basis of an oath together with a solitary witness[20]
In the 2nd report, Malik narrates from Abū al-Zinād (d. 130) that the Caliph ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (d. 101) wrote to his governor in Kufa instructing him to judge on its basis.[21]
Finally, in the 3rd report, Mālik states that it has been ‘conveyed’ to him that Abā Salama b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (d. 94) and Sulaymān b. Yasār (d. 107), two of the famous seven jurists of Medina, were asked whether a judge could give a verdict on the basis of a testimony of a sole witness and an oath by the claimant and replied in the affirmative.[22]
This is the sum total of the case Mālik advances in favour of this practise, before noting that it is restricted to cases having to do with amwāl (property) and not extended to ḥudūd (penal law), nikāḥ (marriage), and ṭalāq (divorce), which have their own requirement of evidence,[23] without revealing where he learns of this restriction (more on this later).
Jaʿfar’s Report from al-Bāqir
Mālik was far from being the only one to transmit this report from Jaʿfar from al-Bāqir.
The initial importance of Jaʿfar’s report can be gauged by the fact that at least[24] 20 (!) other narrators are known to have narrated the same report from Jaʿfar in the Sunni corpus.
These narrators from Jaʿfar are mostly united as to the wording of the text of the report but are divided as to the chain into two main groups:
9 narrators[25] (excluding Mālik) narrate it from Jaʿfar from his father quoting the Prophet.
While
11 narrators[26] narrate it from Jaʿfar from his father from the companion Jābir from the Prophet.
This is a common problem in the Sunni Hadith corpus whereby the same report is alternatively transmitted in a mursal (‘disconnected’) fashion having stopped at a tābiʿī, or a mawṣūl (‘connected’) one with the name of the companion given. Nor is this a matter of slight importance since it can make all the difference when it comes to whether a report is accepted as proof or rejected.
Sunni Hadith critics would debate which of the two versions above was correct and come to different conclusions[27] with the most influential critics deeming it to be mursal.
The Circle of Abū Ḥanīfa
Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī (d. 179) had studied under Mālik for a while and became aware of Jaʿfar’s report from him.
Yet, al-Shaybānī had gone on to become the chief student and exponent of Abū Ḥanīfa’s Kufan school, which meant that he followed his master in rejecting the notion of Medinan ʿamal in general, and this practise of judging on the basis of a solitary witness in particular.
This is what al-Shaybānī comments after quoting Jaʿfar’s report in his version of Mālik’s Muwaṭṭaʾ which he personally transmitted:
The opposite of this has been conveyed to us from the Prophet.
It is what Ibn Abī Dhiʾb mentioned on the authority of Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī. He said, “I asked him about an oath together with a solitary witness” so he (i.e. al-Zuhrī) responded, “A bidʿa (innovation). The first one to rule on its basis was Muʿāwiya”[28]
And Ibn Shihāb was more learned than all the rest per the Ahl al-Ḥadīth in Medina.
The same was mentioned by Ibn Jurayj on the authority of ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Rabāḥ. He said, “The former judges would not accept but two witnesses. The first one to rule on the basis of an oath together with a solitary witness was ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān”[29]
Shaybānī’s approach is tailored to refute his Medinan opponents by their own standards: He does not attack Jaʿfar’s report for being mursal, since both his own circle of Abū Ḥanīfa’s students and the Medinans were known to have made use of such reports.
Instead, he cites a dissenting Medinan voice, a scholar of the calibre of al-Zuhrī, whom the Ahl al-Ḥadīth considered to be greater than al-Bāqir, to demonstrate that there was no continuous and unanimous Medinan ʿamal (precedent) that they could hold on to.
Now, al-Zuhrī (d. 124), and the Meccan scholar ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Rabāḥ (d. 114), are quoted as deeming the practise an Umayyad innovation which began either with Muʿāwiya or ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān, but if this is the case then it is certainly strange that the practise became entrenched in Medina as opposed to Syria, the stronghold of the Umayyads, where it was not practised according to Layth’s letter quoting ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz!
Of course, being from the so-called Ahl al-Raʾy (partisans of reasoned opinion) as opposed to what they saw as slavish following of Hadith, the main objection that Abū Ḥanīfa and his circle had towards this practise was their perception that a solitary report was being given priority over the apparent meaning of the Qur’an, as al-Shaybānī would make clear to his younger contemporary, al-Shāfiʿī, in their debate.
A New Arrival
Shāfiʿī also came to study under Mālik some years after his much older contemporary Shaybānī had done so, but unlike the latter, was influenced by Mālik in adopting a negative attitude towards the Ahl al-Raʾy.
A highly intelligent man, Shāfiʿī’s command of Islamic law was soon recognized and he began working for a local governor in the Yemen as a judge. Then negative reports about him abetting an Alid rebellion began reaching the Caliph and he was summoned to Iraq to answer a charge of conspiracy.[30]
It is when he first entered Iraq at this point in his career (around the year 184) that he decided to join the circle of al-Shaybānī where he became fully exposed to their arguments against the Medinan school.
As Shāfiʿī says in an autobiographical note:
They (i.e. his detractors) united and set out for Mecca to work against my position until I was carried away to Iraq. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan (al-Shaybānī) had an esteemed position with the Caliph so I began attending to him and said (to myself), “He is more suitable for me (from among the Caliph’s intimates) because of (our shared interest in) fiqh’ so I attached myself to him, wrote from him (his works), and came to know of their positions. When he stood (to depart) I would debate his associates.
Then he (Shaybānī) said to me once, “I have come to know that you debate, so debate me on ‘a solitary witness and an oath’” but I refused. He kept imploring me until I debated him. This was conveyed to al- Rashīd and he liked it and began favouring me[31]
It is his debate with al-Shaybānī, specifically his defense of the Medinan position on the legality of ruling on the basis of ‘an oath together with the testimony of a solitary witness’, which first won him acclaim, especially among the the Ahl al-Ḥadīth in Iraq, who saw in Shāfiʿī a welcome ally against the detested Ahl al-Raʾy.
Nothing can depict this more vividly than the following anecdote[32] recounted by one of the Ahl al-Ḥadīth called al-Ḥasan b. Muḥammad al-Zaʿfarānī:
We used to attend the majlis of Bishr al-Marīsī but did not possess the ability[33] to debate him. We walked to Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal and said, “Permit us to study the Jāmiʾ al-Ṣaghīr of Abī Ḥanīfa so that we can debate them when they debate”. He said, “Be patient! There’ll soon come to you the descendent of al-Muṭṭalib (i.e. al-Shāfiʿī) whom I saw in Mecca”
Then al-Shāfiʿī came (to Baghdad). So we walked to him and requested him for some of his written works. He handed us the treatise ‘An oath together with a solitary witness’. I studied it in two nights. Then I came to Bishr al-Marīsī in the morning. When he saw me he said, “What has brought you? Aren’t you one of the Hadith-folk (ṣāḥib ḥadīth)?[34]” I said, “Leave that. What is your evidence to negate ‘An oath together with a solitary witness?’”
I proceeded to debate him and won. He said, “This is not from your (pl.) bag![35] These are the words of a man I saw in Mecca whose intelligence equals that of half of all the people in the world combined!”
A Legendary Debate
We possess al-Shāfiʿī’s own record of the long and technical debate with an unnamed opponent, almost certainly al-Shaybānī, in his magnum opus Al-Umm.[36] Nowhere does al-Shāfiʿī bring up the precedent of the Medinans or the living tradition found there as a repository of the Prophetic sunna in his argument.
You see, al-Shāfiʿī had come to realize that justifying something because ‘it was the practise in Medina’, as his former teacher Mālik proposed, was not the trump-card some thought it to be.
Each region had its local practise whose legitimacy could be argued for and which would be hard to dislodge (as Layth had effectively argued). Moreover, it was not like Medina itself had uniform practise across the board, with its authorities divided among themselves (as Layth and Shaybānī had pointed out).
If Islamic law was to become universal not local, debates over it had to be won on the basis of an impartial and irrefutable standard.
What was this standard?
When confronted with numerous attacking points by al-Shaybānī which Shāfiʿī summarizes as follows:[37]
- The Qur’an evidences that less than two male witnesses or a single male and two female witnesses is not permissible.
- The Prophet said, “Swearing an oath is for the defendant” and ʿUmar affirmed the same. This is evidence that swearing an oath is not permissible except for the defendant and the claimant does not swear.
- Ibn Shihāb (al-Zuhrī), ʿAṭāʾ, and ʿUrwa (b. al-Zubayr), who were the unsurpassed men of Mecca and Medina in their times, rejected this practise vehemently.
- Nothing affirming this practise is attributed to Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, or ʿUthmān. Nor, indeed, from ʿAlī in an authentic manner. Nor from any one among the companions of the Messenger of Allah in an authentic manner. Nor from Ibn al-Musayyab or al-Qāsim (b. Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr) or the majority of the tābiʿīn.
- Why is this practise limited to property and not extended to other issues?
Al-Shāfiʿī’ summarizes the central thrust of his response to him as follows:
The attribution of the report to the Messenger of Allah is thābit (established). What is soundly attributed to the Messenger of Allah is not harmed by it not being found attributed to any other. Nor is the Qur’an interpreted without it. Nor is it repudiated because ʿUrwa, Ibn Shihāb, and ʿAṭāʾ rejected it, because there is no ḥujja in their rejection, the ḥujja is in the khabar not their rejection[38]
This, then, is Shāfiʿī’s irrefutable standard which he also defends in his influential treatise Al-Risāla: Local tradition in the different towns is moot however firmly entrenched. What is required is to locate a practise in a Prophetic khabar (report). When there exists a Prophetic report which is deemed ṣaḥīḥ (sound) by critics who are specialists in Hadith then that is the ḥujja which cannot be rejected. The Qur’an is to be interpreted in light of such a report, since the language of the report is more specific than the general language used by the Qur’an, instead of using the apparent meaning of the Qur’an to reject a khabar when reconciliation is possible. The acceptance or rejection of other authorities among the companions and successors has no bearing when a Prophetic report exists.
This was a standard the Ahl al-Ḥadīth could rally around!
A New Paradigm
The key-words are ‘soundly attributed to the Messenger of Allah’ for Shāfiʿī had realized that admitting mursal reports stopping at the tābiʿīn would just widen the range of contradictory material needing resolution. The solution was to limit the pool of potential evidence to a mawṣūl (connected) report going back to the Prophet which was to be universally preferred over a mursal report which was not a ḥujja.
As Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī (d. 275) writes in his letter:
As for mursal reports, scholars like Sufyān al-Thawrī, Mālik b. Anas, and al-Awzāʿī, used to consider it to be evidence in times gone by. Until al-Shāfiʿī came and spoke against this (practise) and Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal followed him (i.e. al-Shāfiʿī) in that[39]
With this one move, al-Shāfiʿī had swept away the majority of al-Bāqir’s and Jaʿfar’s reports, including the one under discussion, from the table.
But what Prophetic report was there on this subject?
When al-Shaybānī, taking him to be a typical Medinan, confronts al-Shāfiʿī with the following charge:
You do not transmit it except in a Hadith that is mursal (disconnected)
Alluding to the main evidence advanced by the Medinan school which was Jaʿfar’s report.
Al-Shāfiʿī who had fortunately come across a “new” piece of evidence, somehow totally unknown to the Medinans, is able to parry:
We do not establish it by a Hadith that is mursal, rather, we have established it by the Hadith of Ibn ʿAbbās, and it is thābit (established) from the Messenger of Allah. The likes of it (i.e. this Hadith) is not repudiated by anyone from among the people of knowledge even were it to be the only (Hadith) on a subject – so what about when it has other (Hadith) supporting it?!”[40]
A mature Shāfiʿī would later come to author a work outlining the points of convergence and divergence between himself and Mālik, marking a formal break with his former teacher.
When he comes to this particular issue, Shāfiʿī first quotes Mālik’s report from Jaʿfar and then addresses his old Medinan fellow-travellers saying:
So we and you both took by this (i.e. accepted this practise), but we took it because we narrated it as a Hadith of the Meccans, muttaṣil (connected), and ṣaḥīḥ[41]
They might have arrived at the same position against the Kufan circle of Abū Ḥanīfa, but they had done so via mutually exclusive routes.
Shāfiʿī had based his acceptance not on Medinan ʿamal, or Jaʿfar’s mursal report from his father, but on what he calls ‘the Hadith of the Meccans’, an allusion to the Hadith of Ibn ʿAbbās, which is fully connected and which he refers to as ‘ṣaḥīḥ’.
But how did he know that it was ṣaḥīḥ?
A Most Favourable Alliance
Shāfiʿī recognized that getting rid of mursal reports on its own was not a full-proof way out of the maze of contradictory reports since even the ‘connected’ Prophetic reports were known to contradict at times.
To know which Prophetic report out of these was ṣaḥīḥ or thābit (the term Shāfiʿī prefers), Shāfiʿī who did not consider himself a Hadith critic who could assess the authenticity of reports independently, would defer to the judgment of outside experts, those he calls ‘ahl al-ʿilm bil ḥadīth’ or ‘people of knowledge in Hadith’.
A few examples should suffice to demonstrate this:
(a) In his discussion on the zakāt liable on livestock, he comments on a report as follows:
This is narrated on the authority of ʿAlī in a manner that the people of knowledge in Hadith do not deem thābit (established), and it is for that reason we have abandoned it[42]
(b) In his discussion on the question of whether the female apostate is to be killed or imprisoned for life, his opponent brings up a report of ʿAlī indicating that she should be imprisoned for life.
Al-Shāfiʿī relates:
And in our presence was a group of those who possess knowledge in Hadith. So we asked them about this Hadith. There was not a single one of them who did not speak out saying, “This (report) is errant, and the one who narrated this (report) is not one of those whose Hadith is deemed thābit (established) by the people of knowledge (in Hadith)”
I said to him, “You have heard what these ones – whose knowledge concerning your Hadith is undoubted – have said”[43]
(c) Elsewhere, when discussing the same question he brings up a report which has Abū Bakr killing female apostates but then notes:
It is not for us to use (this report) as proof since it is weak according to the people of knowledge in Hadith[44]
This, then, was a mutually beneficial relationship between a highly skilled jurist and debater with traditionists who were experts in Hadith: The Ahl al-Ḥadīth gained someone who championed an epistemology which gave ultimate primacy to Prophetic reports while deferring to their expertise in Hadith, while Shāfiʿī gained the ability to assert that his evidence was impartial and irrefutable.
The Hadith Critics
Shāfiʿī’s solution to the problem of sources (which reports, often contradictory in nature, to accept?): Limit oneself to Prophetic reports (as opposed to reports that stop at the level of the tābiʿīn) and only admit those deemed authentic by the experts in Hadith would become very influential.
Consider how the stock of Jaʿfar’s mursal report had fallen by the time of the authors of the Six Books. What for Mālik was the central piece of evidence for this practise came to be rejected by both Bukhārī and Muslim, ultimately appearing in only two of the Six Books: In Ibn Māja, the least regarded of the Six Books, where it is incorrectly given as mawṣūl (i.e. with al-Bāqir narrating it from Jābir from the Prophet),[45] and in Tirmidhī, who gives the mawṣūl version immediately followed by the mursal which he deems to be the correct version.[46]
Instead, it is the “fully-connected” Prophetic reports that were at a premium.
A study of the Six Books shows the following reports validating ‘solitary witness and an oath’: The Hadith of Ibn ʿAbbās, the Hadith of Abū Hurayra,[47] the Hadith of Surraq,[48] and the Hadith of Zubayb[49]
The problem is that many of these fully-connected Prophetic reports were tendentious. Hadith critics could, for instance, point out defects in each of reports listed above (see the footnotes for details), such that Muslim (d. 261) would come to only include Ibn ʿAbbās’s report in his famous collection as the sole authentic report on this subject[50]
This would seem to justify Shāfiʿī’s decision, who was aware of the other reports,[51] to rest his acceptance of ‘an oath together with a solitary witness’ on the back of Ibn ʿAbbās’s report.
But there was no consensus even on Ibn ʿAbbās’s report!
Already, a Hadith critic of the stature of Yaḥyā b. Maʿīn (d. 233) is known to have commented:
The report of Ibn ʿAbbās that the Prophet judged on the basis of a solitary witness together with an oath is not preserved[52]
Even more striking, no less an authority than Bukhārī (d. 256) would consider all the reports on this subject, including the report of Ibn ʿAbbās, to be weak, as demonstrated by him not including even a single one of these reports in his Ṣaḥīḥ!
In fact, Bukhārī who is known to have his own independent positions in fiqh without adhering to any particular madhhab, was opposed to this practise.
We know this because of the the title he chose for the relevant chapter in his Ṣaḥīḥ which reads: ‘An oath is sought from the defendant in (disputes concerning) amwāl (property) and ḥudūd (penal law)’ indicating that oath-taking is the preserve of the the defendant and not the claimant[53]
Bukhārī then quotes the Kufan jurist Ibn Shubruma (d. 144) who recalls how the Medinan jurist Abū al-Zinād (d. 130) had attempted to convince him to accept the practise, whereupon Ibn Shubruma recited Q. 2: 282 and responded:
If the testimony of a solitary witness and the oath of a claimant were sufficient there would be no need for one of the two (female witnesses) to remind the other!
What reason would there be for one of the two (females) to remind the other?![54]
Bukhārī is clearly convinced by this argument which holds that the requirement of two female witnesses in Q. 2:282 would be superfluous if the presence of one male witness would have sufficed to win the case[55]
From Ibn ʿAbbās or Al-Bāqir?
What was Bukhārī’s problem with Ibn ʿAbbās’s report which both Shāfiʿī and Muslim considered ṣaḥīḥ?
The common transmitter from Ibn ʿAbbās in both Shāfiʿī’s and Muslim’s chain is ʿAmr b. Dīnār (d. 126) who was a junior tābiʿī[56]
When Tirmidhī (d. 279) asked Bukhārī about this Hadith the latter responded:
ʿAmr b. Dīnār did not hear this Hadith from Ibn ʿAbbās according to me[57]
But if ʿAmr did not hear this report from Ibn ʿAbbās as Bukhārī claims then who did he hear it from?
One possibility is that ʿAmr heard it from a senior student of Ibn ʿAbbās called Ṭāwūs, for this is how a narrator, albeit one who is graded weak and is known to confuse chains, narrates it from him.[58]
But there is another possibility here which has not, to my knowledge, been considered before.
Tabulated side by side are Ibn ʿAbbās’s report (as transmitted by Shāfiʿī) and Jaʿfar’s mursal report from his father (as transmitted by Mālik).
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أَخْبَرَنَا الرَّبِيعُ قَالَ: أَخْبَرَنَا الشَّافِعِيُّ قَالَ: أَخْبَرَنَا عَبْدُ اللَّهِ بْنُ الْحَارِثِ الْمَخْزُومِيُّ عَنْ سَيْفِ بْنِ سُلَيْمَانَ عَنْ قَيْسِ بْنِ سَعْدٍ عَنْ عَمْرِو بْنِ دِينَارٍ عَنْ ابْنِ عَبَّاسٍ رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُمَا أَنَّ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ قَضَى بِالْيَمِينِ مَعَ الشَّاهِدِ قَالَ عَمْرٌو: فِي الْأَمْوَالِ |
قَالَ يَحْيَى: قَالَ مَالِكٌ، عَنْ جَعْفَرِ بْنِ مُحَمَّدٍ، عَنْ أَبِيهِ أَنَّ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ قَضَى بِالْيَمِينِ مَعَ الشَّاهِدِ |
Note how the matn (wording) of the two reports is identical!
Then I found that someone had narrated this same report from ʿAmr b. Dīnār but this time the latter was narrating it from Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Bāqir and not Ibn ʿAbbās!
This particular report (i.e. its chain) is lost to history.
The only evidence that it existed at one point in time is a comment by al-Nasāʾī (d. 303) who states after giving the report of ʿAmr b. Dīnār from Ibn ʿAbbās:
A weak man transmitted it saying: “From ʿAmr b. Dīnār from Muḥammad b. ʿAlī” in a mursal fashion.
But his (i.e. this man’s) Hadith is abandoned, and we do not prioritize the weak over the thiqāt![59]
Alas, al-Nasāʾī does not name the man so that we can ascertain whether the man really deserves to be abandoned or not.
Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr (d. 463) also knows of ʿAmr b. Dīnār having narrated the report from al-Bāqir saying:
Ibn ʿUyayna had narrated it from Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad from his father in a mursal fashion just like Mālik.
It was similarly narrated by al-Ḥakam b. ʿUtayba and ʿAmr b. Dīnār all of them from Muḥammad b. ʿAlī in a mursal fashion[60]
Now ʿAmr b. Dīnār is known to have narrated many reports from his contemporary al-Bāqir and even to have suppressed his name from the chain at least once.
This famous example which Muslim highlights in the introduction[61] to his Ṣaḥīḥ is the report about the prohibition of donkey meat which came down in two versions:
Sufyān b. ʿUyayna and others narrated it from ʿAmr b. Dīnār directly from the companion Jābīr b. ʿAbdallāh,[62] but Ḥammād b. Zayd narrated it from ʿAmr b. Dīnār from Muḥammad b. ʿAlī from Jābīr b. ʿAbdallāh.[63]
حَدَّثَنَا قُتَيْبَةُ، وَنَصْرُ بْنُ عَلِيٍّ، قَالاَ حَدَّثَنَا سُفْيَانُ، عَنْ عَمْرِو بْنِ دِينَارٍ، عَنْ جَابِرٍ، قَالَ أَطْعَمَنَا رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم لُحُومَ الْخَيْلِ وَنَهَانَا عَنْ لُحُومِ الْحُمُرِ
حَدَّثَنَا سُلَيْمَانُ بْنُ حَرْبٍ، حَدَّثَنَا حَمَّادٌ، عَنْ عَمْرٍو، عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ عَلِيٍّ، عَنْ جَابِرِ بْنِ عَبْدِ اللَّهِ، قَالَ نَهَى النَّبِيُّ صلى الله عليه وسلم يَوْمَ خَيْبَرَ عَنْ لُحُومِ الْحُمُرِ، وَرَخَّصَ فِي لُحُومِ الْخَيْلِ
Both Bukhārī and Muslim thought that the second version which has al-Bāqir in the chain is the correct and fully-connected version.
It is this which led some to consider ʿAmr b. Dīnār a mudallis[64] with al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī (d. 405) commenting:
The overwhelming majority of the Hadith of ʿAmr b. Dīnār from the companions are not something he heard directly[65]
Although defenders of ʿAmr b. Dīnār claim that this should not be referred to as tadlīs, which involves deception by suppressing a weak intermediary, since a study of his reports reveals that he has only skipped intermediaries who are thiqa[66]
It is also possible, of course, that ʿAmr b. Dīnār had narrated an identical report from both Ibn ʿAbbās and Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Bāqir, but this is unlikely for a number of reasons.
Ibn ʿAbbās had numerous students in Mecca, many of them senior to ʿAmr b. Dīnār, such as ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Rabāḥ, who can be considered one of the main students of Ibn ʿAbbās. How can it be that no one else heard this report from Ibn ʿAbbās apart from ʿAmr b. Dīnār? If ʿAṭāʾ had heard of this report from Ibn ʿAbbās how could he have gone on to vehemently oppose the practise as Shaybānī informs us?
We also find Bukhārī narrating from Ibn Abi Mulayka from Ibn ʿAbbās a report that directly contradicts the wording of the report of ʿAmr b. Dīnār from Ibn ʿAbbās as follows:
The Prophet judged on the basis of an oath by the defendant[67]
Whence the Restriction?
There is also another piece of supporting evidence that is of relevance here.
Shāfiʿī’s opponent had asked him why he limited the practise as applying only to disputes involving amwāl (material property) and not all disputes in general.
Shāfiʿī responds:
Because of what ʿAmr b. Dīnār said, and he is the one who transmitted it: “The Messenger of Allah judged on the basis of …” “in amwāl” so this (statement) is considered mawṣūl in his report from the Prophet[68]
Shāfiʿī’s whole framework depends on prioritizing the Prophetic report (words of the Prophet) as the only valid ḥujja, but the words which limit this practise to disputes involving amwāl are uttered by ʿAmr b. Dīnār and not the Prophet, so we see him struggle to somehow project this exception back to the Prophet.[69]
The fact that these are the words of a narrator which can be ignored can be observed clearly when we turn to Muslim who gives the report in his Ṣaḥīḥ without bothering to include this statement of ʿAmr.
Note that ʿAmr b. Dīnār does not attribute this restriction to Ibn ʿAbbās, and there is not a single report in the whole Sunni corpus which attributes this restriction to Ibn ʿAbbās!
So where did ʿAmr b. Dīnār learn of this restriction?
Tabulated side by side are Ibn ʿAbbās’s report, including ʿAmr b. Dīnār’s statement (as transmitted by Shāfiʿī) and a report from Jaʿfar from al-Bāqir (as transmitted by Bayhaqī)[70]
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أَخْبَرَنَا الرَّبِيعُ قَالَ: أَخْبَرَنَا الشَّافِعِيُّ قَالَ: أَخْبَرَنَا عَبْدُ اللَّهِ بْنُ الْحَارِثِ الْمَخْزُومِيُّ عَنْ سَيْفِ بْنِ سُلَيْمَانَ عَنْ قَيْسِ بْنِ سَعْدٍ عَنْ عَمْرِو بْنِ دِينَارٍ عَنْ ابْنِ عَبَّاسٍ رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُمَا أَنَّ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ قَضَى بِالْيَمِينِ مَعَ الشَّاهِدِ قَالَ عَمْرٌو: فِي الْأَمْوَالِ |
وَأَخْبَرَنَا أَبُو عَبْدِ اللهِ الْحَافِظُ، أَخْبَرَنِي مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ يَعْقُوبَ، أنبأ مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ الْحَسَنِ اللَّبَّانُ، أَنَّ عَبَّادَ بْنَ يَعْقُوبَ، حَدَّثَهُمْ قَالَ: ثنا إِبْرَاهِيمُ بْنُ أَبِي يَحْيَى، عَنْ جَعْفَرِ بْنِ مُحَمَّدٍ، عَنْ أَبِيهِ، أَنَّ رَسُولَ اللهِ صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ قَضَى بِالْيَمِينِ مَعَ الشَّاهِدِ يَعْنِي: فِي الْأَمْوَالِ |
In some variants, ʿAmr b. Dīnār’s is quoted as using the word ḥuqūq (with amwāl and ḥuqūq being synonyms).
Tabulated side by side are Ibn ʿAbbās’s report, including ʿAmr b. Dīnār’s variant statement (as transmitted by Abū Dāwūd)[71] and a report from Khālid b. Abī Karīma from al-Bāqir (as transmitted by Ibn Abī Shayba)[72]
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حَدَّثَنَا مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ يَحْيَى، وَسَلَمَةُ بْنُ شَبِيبٍ، قَالاَ حَدَّثَنَا عَبْدُ الرَّزَّاقِ، أَخْبَرَنَا مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ مُسْلِمٍ، عَنْ عَمْرِو بْنِ دِينَارٍ، عَنْ ابْنِ عَبَّاسٍ رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُمَا أَنَّ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ قَضَى بِالْيَمِينِ مَعَ الشَّاهِدِ قَالَ سَلَمَةُ فِي حَدِيثِهِ: قَالَ عَمْرٌو: فِي الْحُقُوقِ |
حدثنا أبو بكر قال: حدثنا وكيع، عن خالد بن أبي كريمة، عن أبي جعفر أن النبي صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ قضى بشهادة شاهد ويمين في الحقوق
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So not only is ʿAmr b. Dīnār known to have possibly narrated this report from al-Bāqir, the restriction he gives is also attributed to al-Bāqir! Who happens to be the only other person that this restriction is attributed to in the whole Sunni corpus!
Could it be that ʿAmr b. Dīnār had mistakenly attributed what he heard from al-Bāqir to his usual source Ibn ʿAbbās?[73]
The irony would then be that for all his talk of prioritizing the Prophetic report and avoiding disconnected reports, Shāfiʿī has inadvertently rested his acceptance of this practise on a flawed report that was actually disconnected and likely going back to the tābiʿī al-Bāqir!
An Incredible Convergence
We have seen what has been overwhelmingly attributed to the two Imams, al-Bāqir and al-Ṣādiq, in the Sunni corpus.
It is now time to turn to the Twelver Imami Hadith corpus. A corpus that is characterized by its obsessive drive to collect and organize all the statements of those they saw as their ultimate authorities (i.e. the Imams) to the exclusion of all others.
It is unsurprising to find this more modest ambition – i.e. record material from figures who were alive in the second Islamic century, at a time when written transmission was ubiquitous and the Hadith sciences had matured – resulting in more accurate preservation than attempting to go back a century earlier to the more obscure time of the Prophet with tendentious leaps.
Limiting ourselves to the Four Books, there are 13 independent reports[74] from al-Bāqir and al-Ṣādiq that can be found on this subject, all of which unanimously affirm the practise. In fact, I could not find a single report that goes against it! Hence the ijmāʿ of all Twelver jurists on the validity of this practise.
Even more striking is to find word-for-word convergence with what is attributed to the Imams in the Sunni Hadith corpus.
(A) Tabulated side-by-side are Jaʿfar’s report from his father (as transmitted by Mālik) and the same report (as transmitted by Kulaynī)[75]
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قَالَ يَحْيَى: قَالَ مَالِكٌ، عَنْ جَعْفَرِ بْنِ مُحَمَّدٍ، عَنْ أَبِيهِ
أَنَّ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ قَضَى بِالْيَمِينِ مَعَ الشَّاهِدِ
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عَلِيُّ بْنُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ، عَنْ أَبِيهِ، عَنْ حَمَّادِ بْنِ عِيسى، قَالَ: سَمِعْتُ أَبَا عَبْدِ اللهِ عليه السلام يَقُولُ: حَدَّثَنِي أَبِي أَنَّ رَسُولَ اللهِ صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم قَضى بِشَاهِدٍ وَيَمِينٍ
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Kulaynī’s (d. 329) report is near-identical to the wording of the report found in the Sunni corpus and demonstrates that it was reported in a mursal manner.
In fact, it is normal for al-Bāqir, or even for that matter, al-Ṣādiq, to report directly in this way from the Messenger of Allah in the Imami corpus, a phenomenon which is even noticeable in their reports in the Sunni corpus (such as the one under discussion).
The Imamis attribute this to their self-perception as ultimate authorities who did not need to attribute their knowledge to random companions.
There is no Sunni report where Jaʿfar is attributing this practise to the Messenger of Allah directly since the gap between him and the Prophet was seen as unbridgeable, but there are numerous reports in the Twelver Imami Hadith corpus where al-Ṣādiq confidently attributes the practise to the Messenger of Allah without needing to bring up his father as the source as this was seen as unnecessary.
For example, Manṣūr b. Ḥāzim reports from Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq that:
أَبُو عَلِيٍّ الْأَشْعَرِيُّ، عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ عَبْدِ الْجَبَّارِ، عَنْ صَفْوَانَ بْنِ يَحْيى، عَنْ مَنْصُورِ بْنِ حَازِمٍ: عَنْ أَبِي عَبْدِ اللهِ عليه السلام قَالَ: كَانَ رَسُولُ اللهِ صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم يَقْضِي بِشَاهِدٍ وَاحِدٍ مَعَ يَمِينِ صَاحِبِ الْحَقِّ
The Messenger of Allah used to judge on the basis of a solitary witness together with the oath of the claimant[76]
Another example, Abī Maryam al-Anṣārī reports from Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq that:
عنه عن فضالة عن ابان عن ابي مريم عن ابي عبد الله عليه السلام قال: أجاز رسول الله صلى الله عليه وآله شهادة شاهد مع يمين طالب الحق إذا حلف انه حق
The Messenger of Allah permitted the testimony of a solitary witness together with the oath of the claimant if the latter swears that it (i.e. his claim) is true[77]
(B) As for this practise being limited to disputes involving amwāl or ḥuqūq, tabulated side-by-side are Khālid b. Abī Karīma’s report from al-Bāqir (as transmitted by Ibn Abī Shayba) and Muḥammad b. Muslim’s report from al-Bāqir (as transmitted by Ṭūsī)[78]
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حدثنا أبو بكر قال: حدثنا وكيع، عن خالد بن أبي كريمة، عن أبي جعفر أن النبي صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ قضى بشهادة شاهد ويمين في الحقوق
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محمد بن أحمد بن يحيى عن عبيدالله بن أحمد عن الحسن بن محبوب عن العلا عن محمد بن مسلم عن ابي جعفر عليه السلام قال: لو كان الامر الينا أجزنا شهادة الرجل الواحد إذا علم منه خير مع يمين الخصم في حقوق الناس فاما ما كان من حقوق الله أو رؤية هلال فلا
If it were down to us we would permit the witness of a solitary man, if there is any good in him, together with the oath of the disputant in the ḥuqūq of the people. As for the huquq of Allah or sighting of the moon then no! |
Notice that when speaking to a leading Imami disciple like Muḥammad b. Muslim, al-Bāqir does not need to attribute this practise to the Messenger of Allah since his personal authority is absolute.
Al-Bāqir also alludes to the fact that this practise has been abandoned because they, the Ahl al-Bayt, were not in power, a sensitive claim which he does not make elsewhere.
Al-Bāqir also provides an important detail that is found nowhere in the Sunni corpus, revealing that the evidentiary bar is lowered in that which has to do with the ḥuqūq of the people as opposed to ḥuqūq of Allah.
(C) Tabulated side-by-side is a report wherein Jaʿfar comments that the practise is limited to dayn or ‘debt’ which would fall under amwāl or ḥuqūq (as transmitted by Shāfiʿī)[79] with the same wording found in the three different reports (transmitted by Kulaynī and Ṭūsī)[80]
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قَالَ الشَّافِعِيُّ: أَخْبَرَنَا مُسْلِمُ بْنُ خَالِدٍ قَالَ: حَدَّثَنِي جَعْفَرُ بْنُ مُحَمَّدٍ قَالَ: سَمِعْت الْحَكَمَ بْنَ عُتَيْبَةَ يَسْأَلُ أَبِي وَقَدْ وَضَعَ يَدَهُ عَلَى جِدَارِ الْقَبْرِ لِيَقُومَ أَقَضَى رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ بِالْيَمِينِ مَعَ الشَّاهِدِ؟ قَالَ: نَعَمْ، وَقَضَى بِهَا عَلَيَّ بَيْنَ أَظْهُرِكُمْ قَالَ مُسْلِمٌ: قَالَ جَعْفَرٌ: فِي الدَّيْنِ
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عنه عن النضر بن سويد عن القاسم بن سليمان قال: سمعت ابا عبد الله عليه السلام يقول: قضى رسول الله صلى الله عليه وآله بشهادة رجل مع يمين الطالب في الدين وحده
مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ يَحْيى، عَنْ أَحْمَدَ بْنِ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ عِيسى، عَنْ عَلِيِّ بْنِ الْحَكَمِ، عَنْ أَبِي أَيُّوبَ الْخَرَّازِ، عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ مُسْلِمٍ عَنْ أَبِي عَبْدِ اللهِ عليه السلام قَالَ: كَانَ رَسُولُ اللهِ صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم يُجِيزُ فِي الدَّيْنِ شهَادَةَ رَجُلٍ وَاحِدٍ وَيَمِينَ صَاحِبِ الدَّينِ، وَلَمْ يَكُنْ يُجِيزُ فِي الْهِلَالِ إِلاَّ شَاهِدَيْ عَدْلٍ عَلِيُّ بْنُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ، عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ عِيسى، عَنْ يُونُسَ، عَنْ زُرْعَةَ، عَنْ سَمَاعَةَ، عَنْ أَبِي بَصِيرٍ، قَالَ: سَأَلْتُ أَبَا عَبْدِ اللهِ عليه السلام عَنِ الرَّجُلِ يَكُونُ لَهُ عِنْدَ الرَّجُلِ الْحَقُّ وَلَهُ شَاهِدٌ وَاحِدٌ؟ قَالَ: فَقَالَ: كَانَ رَسُولُ اللهِ صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم يَقْضِي بِشَاهِدٍ وَاحِدٍ وَيَمِينِ صَاحِبِ الْحَقِّ، وَذلِكَ فِي الدَّيْنِ |
For too long, the easy solution for those who do not want to give any credence to the Imami Hadith corpus because of the disquieting material it attributes to the Imams, has been to attack the authenticity of this corpus by denying any link between the overwhelmingly Kufan narrators of this material and their Imams in Medina.
I ask fair-minded readers to ponder the case-study presented in this paper and sincerely ask himself/herself a few questions:
How can we account for the presence of a minority community in Kufa which subscribed to this practise that was totally alien to their town? Is it not time to take the transmitters of this corpus at face-value (i.e. they had a genuine link to their Imams in Medina) instead of resorting to far-fetched conspiracy theories?!
What justifies dismissing chains that bring down disquieting material if these very same chains can be demonstrated to bring down very accurate material?
ʿAlī’s Judgment in Kufa
In fact, the Imami Hadith corpus can be shown to preserve the reports of their Imams in much greater and richer detail than the same reports found in the Sunni corpus, and this is but natural when we note that Sunni narrators were only interested in what the Imams attributed to the Prophet whereas Imami transmitters were interested in the Imams words for their own sake.
Consider the following anecdote which I dare call qaṭʿī (i.e. historically certain to have occurred) since Shāfiʿī needs only one intermediary – his famous and unimpeachable teacher Muslim b. Khālid al-Zanjī (d. 179) – to get to Jaʿfar who recounts:
قَالَ الشَّافِعِيُّ: أَخْبَرَنَا مُسْلِمُ بْنُ خَالِدٍ قَالَ: حَدَّثَنِي جَعْفَرُ بْنُ مُحَمَّدٍ قَالَ:سَمِعْت الْحَكَمَ بْنَ عُتَيْبَةَ يَسْأَلُ أَبِي وَقَدْ وَضَعَ يَدَهُ عَلَى جِدَارِ الْقَبْرِ لِيَقُومَ أَقَضَى رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ بِالْيَمِينِ مَعَ الشَّاهِدِ؟ قَالَ: نَعَمْ، وَقَضَى بِهَا عَلَيَّ بَيْنَ أَظْهُرِكُمْ
I heard al-Ḥakam b. ʿUtayba asking my father, and he (i.e. my father) had placed his hand on the wall of a grave (for support) to stand up:
“Did the Messenger of Allah judge on the basis of an oath together with a solitary witness?”
He (i.e. my father) said, “Yes, and ʿAlī judged on the basis of the same in your midst (i.e. in Kufa)”[81]
This report reveals that al-Bāqir had affirmed this practise in the context of a conversation he had with his famous contemporary, the Kufan jurist al-Ḥakam b. ʿUtayba (d. c. 114), where he expressly brought up the precedent of his ancestor ʿAlī judging using the same when Caliph in Kufa.
Note that it was the precedent of ʿAlī which was important to al-Bāqir as a proof, nowhere does he hold up the example of any preceding Caliph.
This is also corroborated by a report which Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī (d. 852), who had access to about a half of the now lost Musnad of Isḥāq b. Rahawayh (d. 238), quotes from the aforementioned work.
وَقَالَ إِسْحَاقُ أَخْبَرَنَا عَبْدُ الْعَزِيزِ بْنُ مُحَمَّدٍ عَنْ جَعْفَرِ بْنِ مُحَمَّدٍ عَنْ أَبِيهِ رَضِيَ الله عَنْهُ عَنِ النَّبِيِّ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ أَنَّهُ قَضَى بِالْيَمِينِ مَعَ الشَّاهِدِ قَالَ أَبِي: وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ عَلِيًّا رَضِيَ الله عَنْهُ قَضَى بِهِ بَيْنَ أَظْهُرِكُمْ
قَالَ عَبْدُ الْعَزِيزِ:يَقُولُهُ مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ عَلِيٍّ لِلْحَكَمِ بْنِ عُتَيْبَةَ
Al-Darāwardī (d. 186) reports from Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad from his father that:
He (i.e. the Prophet) judged on the basis of an oath together with a solitary witness.
(Jaʿfar) said: My father said:
I testify that ʿAlī judged on the basis of the same in your midst (i.e. in Kufa)
Al-Darāwardī said:
Muḥammad b. ʿAlī (al-Bāqir) said this to al-Ḥakam b. ʿUtayba[82]
The conversation between al-Bāqir and al-Ḥakam b. ʿUtayba on this subject must surely have been longer than this small snippet, but this is all the Sunni Hadith narrators may have been interested in since it contains the relevant Prophetic report.
It is only when we turn to the Imami Hadith corpus that we find a transcript[83] of the complete dialogue between al-Bāqir and al-Ḥakam b. ʿUtayba as translated below.
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. al-Ḥajjāj[84] reports:
عَلِيُّ بْنُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ، عَنْ أَبِيهِ، عَنِ ابْنِ أَبِي عُمَيْرٍ، عَنْ عَبْدِ الرَّحْمنِ بْنِ الْحَجَّاجِ، قَالَ:دَخَلَ الْحَكَمُ بْنُ عُتَيْبَةَ وَسَلَمَةُ بْنُ كُهَيْلٍ عَلى أَبِي جَعْفَرٍ عليه السلام: فَسَأَلَاهُ عَنْ شَاهِدٍ وَيَمِينٍ؟ فَقَالَ: قَضى بِهِ رَسُولُ اللهِ صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم، وَقَضى بِهِ عَلِيٌّ عليه السلام عِنْدَكُمْ بِالْكُوفَةِ فَقَالَا:هذَا خِلَافُ الْقُرْآنِ فَقَالَ: وَأَيْنَ وَجَدْتُمُوهُ خِلَافَ الْقُرْآنِ؟ …
Al-Ḥakam b. ʿUtayba and Salama b. Kuhayl came to see Abī Jaʿfar. They asked him about ‘a solitary witness and an oath’
He said: The Messenger of Allah judged on its basis, and ʿAlī judged on its basis over at your place in Kufa.
They said: This is against the Qur’an!
He said: Where did you find it being against the Qur’an?
They said: Allah, the Blessed and Exalted, says, “and call to witness two just men among you” (65:2)
Abū Jaʿfar said to them both: So His words, “and call to witness two just men among you” mean that you should not accept the testimony of a solitary witness and an oath?!
Then he (i.e. Abū Jaʿfar) said: ʿAlī was seated in Masjid Kufa when ʿAbdallāh b. Qufl al-Tamīmī walked by with Ṭalḥa’s armour. ʿAlī said to him, “This armour belongs to Ṭalḥa and was taken fraudulently on the day of Basra (i.e. the battle of the Camel)”.
ʿAbdallāh b. Qufl said to him, “Place between me and yourself your judge whom you have appointed for the Muslims (i.e. to decide the case)” so he (i.e. ʿAlī) agreed to place Shurayḥ.
ʿAlī said (to Shurayḥ), “This is Ṭalḥa’s armour that was taken fraudulently on the day of Basra!”
Shurayḥ said to him, “Bring evidence for what you say”
So he (i.e. ʿAlī) brought forth al-Ḥasan who bore witness that it was Ṭalḥa’s armour that was taken fraudulently on the day of Basra.
Shurayḥ said, “This is a solitary witness and I do not judge on the basis of a solitary witness unless there is with him another!”
So he (i.e. ʿAlī) called Qanbar who bore witness that it was it was Ṭalḥa’s armour that was taken fraudulently on the day of Basra.
Shurayḥ said, “This one is a slave and I do not judge based on the testimony of a slave!”
Thereupon ʿAlī grew angry and said, “Take it! For this one (i.e. Shurayḥ) has judged illegally three times!”
Shurayḥ moved out (of his seat) and said, “I will not judge between any two (disputants) ever unless you inform me how have I judged illegally three times?
He (i.e. ʿAlī) said to him, “Woe be upon you! When I informed you that it is Ṭalḥa’s armour taken fraudulently on the day of Basra – you said, ‘Bring evidence for what you say’ when the Messenger of Allah had said, ‘Wherever a stolen booty (i.e. spoils of battle) is found it is recovered without evidence’ so I said (to myself): A man who has not heard the ḥadīth. So this is the first instance.
Then I brought forth al-Ḥasan and he testified, but you said, ‘This is a solitary (witness) and I do judge on the basis of a solitary witness unless there is with him another!’ when the Messenger of Allah had judged on the basis of a solitary witness and an oath. So this is the second instance.
Then I brought forth Qanbar and he testified that it is Ṭalḥa’s armour taken fraudulently on the day of Basra – you said, ‘This one is a slave and I do not judge based on the testimony of slave’ when there is no problem in the testimony of a slave if he is trustworthy”
Then he (i.e. ʿAlī) said, “Woe be upon you! The Imam of the Muslims is entrusted of their affairs those which are much greater than this![85]
Maybe this is what caused Shurayḥ, the famous judge of Kufa first appointed by ʿUmar and kept in his post by the succeeding Caliphs, to change his mind about accepting this practise for he is known to be one of the few Kufans who supposedly accepted it.[86]
Comparing with the Book of Allah
In Shāfiʿī’s debate with Shaybānī, the latter rejects all reports validating the practise of ‘an oath with a solitary witness’ by stating:
فَإِنَّهُ بَلَغَنِي أَنَّ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ قَالَ: مَا جَاءَكُمْ عَنِّي فَاعْرِضُوهُ عَلَى الْقُرْآنِ فَإِنْ وَافَقَهُ، فَأَنَا قُلْته وَإِنْ خَالَفَهُ فَلَمْ أَقُلْهُ
It has been conveyed to me that the Messenger of Allah said, “What comes to you on my authority then compare it to the Qur’an, so if it (i.e. the report) agrees with it (i.e. the Qur’an) then I said it, but if it opposes it then I did not say it”
Shāfiʿī responds to this by saying:
We do not recognize this (report) to be from the Messenger of Allah.
What we recognize to be from the Messenger of Allah is contrary to this (report).
It cannot be known what it (i.e. the Qur’an) intends in terms of khāṣṣ (specific) and ʿāmm (general), farḍ (obligation) and adab (recommendation), nāsikh (abrogator) and mansūkh (abrogated), except by his (i.e. the Prophet’s) sunna as per what Allah, mighty and majestic, instructed him. So the Qur’an legislates and the sunna clarifies (i.e. provides detail)[87]
It is no surprise that Shāfiʿī and his fellows among the Ahl al-Ḥadīth did not ‘recognize this report’. Accepting such a report would be tantamount to overturning their shared epistemology which placed hadith at the top of the totem pole.
After all, the attitude of the Ahl al-Ḥadīth can be best summed up by the dictum attributed to Yaḥyā b. Abī Kathīr (d. c. 130) which states:
السُّنَّةُ قَاضِيَةٌ عَلَى الْكِتَابِ وَلَيْسَ الْكِتَابُ بِقَاضٍ عَلَى السُّنَّةِ
The sunna rules over the Book but the Book does not rule over the sunna[88]
A similar dictum alternatively attributed to Awzāʿī (d. 157) or Ḥammād b. Zayd (d. 179) states:
الْكِتَابُ أَحْوَجُ إِلَى السُّنَّةِ مِنَ السُّنَّةِ إِلَى الْكِتَابِ
The Book is more needful of the sunna than the sunna is of the Book[89]
This being the case, Shāfiʿī and the Ahl al-Ḥadīth in general, were known to have vehemently rejected all those reports[90] which required hadith to be compared to the yardstick of the Qur’an, seeing it as an excuse by their opponents to reject solitary reports.
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Mahdī (d. 198) is even known to have said, “The Zanādiqa (heretics) and the Khawārij are the ones who fabricated that report”[91]
Is this where Shaybānī had gotten this report? It is unfortunate that he does not give us his source but we have the next best thing.
You see, Abū Yūsuf (d. 182), who was Shaybānī’s colleague and fellow student of Abū Ḥanīfa, quotes a similar report whilst giving a chain for it:
فَعَلَيْكَ مِنَ الْحَدِيثِ بِمَا تَعْرِفُ الْعَامَّةُ وَإِيَّاكَ وَالشَّاذَّ مِنْهُ فَإِنَّهُ حَدَّثَنَا ابنُ أَبِي كَرِيمَة عَنْ أَبِي جَعْفَرٍ عَنْ رَسُولِ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ أَنَّهُ دَعَا الْيَهُودَ فَسَأَلَهُمْ فَحَدَّثُوهُ حَتَّى كَذَبُوا عَلَى عِيسَى عَلَيْهِ الصَّلَاةُ وَالسَّلَامُ فَصَعِدَ النَّبِيُّ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ الْمِنْبَرَ فَخَطَبَ النَّاس فَقَالَ إِن الحَدِيث سيشفو عَنِّي فَمَا أَتَاكُمْ عَنِّي يُوَافِقُ الْقُرْآنَ فَهُوَ عَنِّي وَمَا أَتَاكُمْ عَنِّي يُخَالِفُ الْقُرْآنَ فَلَيْسَ عَنِّي
So upon you is (to follow) among the Hadith that which the masses recognize, and beware of the shādh among it.
For Ibn Abī Karīma narrated to us from Abī Jaʿfar from the Messenger of Allah that he (i.e. the Messenger) called the Jews and inquired from them so they began recounting for him until they began to lie about ʿĪsā, whereupon the Prophet climbed the pulpit and addressed the people saying, “A lot of Hadith will be spread about me, so whatever comes to you on my authority which agrees with the Qur’an then it is from me, and whatever comes to you on my authority that opposes the Qur’an then it is not from me!”[92]
This clearly demonstrates that this report did not originate from any zindīq or khārijī but rather al-Bāqir!
The influence of al-Baqir and al-Sadiq on Abū Ḥanīfa’s circle is a much understudied subject and a lacuna which needs to be filled.
Then I found that Shāfiʿī makes allusion to this very report of al-Bāqir in his Risāla.
When his opponent asks him:
Do you see any ḥujja (proof) against the one who narrates that the Prophet said, “Whatever comes you on my authority then compare it with the Book of Allah, so whatever agrees with it then I said it, and whatever opposes it then I did not say it”?
Shāfiʿī responds:
I said to him: This was not narrated by one whose Hadith is deemed thābit be it (i.e. the Hadith) in a small matter or a big one, such that it can be said to us, “You have deemed thābit the hadith of the one who narrated this” in anything.
Moreover, this is a disconnected report from an unknown man, and we do not accept such a report in anything[93]
Shāfiʿī is clearly referring to the report of Khālid b. Abī Karīma from Abū Jaʿfar[94]
Now Shāfiʿī claims that Khālid is a narrator whose Hadith cannot be considered thābit, however, we find that he was considered thiqa by most of the major critics such as Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, Yaḥyā b. Maʿīn, ʿAlī b. al-Madīnī, and Abū Dāwūd,[95] so this claim does not stand!
As for Shāfiʿī’s favourite attack-line about disconnection in the chain, or not knowing who al-Bāqir has taken from, then the Imamis uphold that all their Imams were transmitting what they received as part of a family tradition going back to ʿAlī and the Prophet. I hope to share my attempt to substantiate this at a later date.
Now, and as we have come to expect, when we turn to the Imami Hadith corpus we find that this same report is reliably transmitted from Jaʿfar:
مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ إِسْمَاعِيلَ، عَنِ الْفَضْلِ بْنِ شَاذَانَ، عَنِ ابْنِ أَبِي عُمَيْرٍ، عَنْ هِشَامِ بْنِ الْحَكَمِ وَغَيْرِهِ، عَنْ أَبِي عَبْدِ اللهِ عليه السلام، قَالَ:خَطَبَ النَّبِيُّ صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم بِمِنى، فَقَالَ: أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ، مَا جَاءَكُمْ عَنِّي يُوَافِقُ كِتَابَ اللهِ فَأَنَا قُلْتُهُ، وَمَا جَاءَكُمْ يُخَالِفُ كِتَابَ اللهِ فَلَمْ أَقُلْهُ
The Prophet gave a speech at Mina saying, “O people, whatever comes to you on my authority agreeing with the Book of Allah then I said it, and whatever comes to you opposing the Book of Allah then I did not say it[96]
This is yet another example, if more was needed, that the Imami Hadith corpus preserves the statements of Jaʿfar and his father.
What Contradiction?
The fact that al-Bāqir can support the notion of comparing reports to the Qur’an while at the same time accept the testimony of a solitary witness together with an oath should hopefully be enough to awaken readers to the fact that using the Qur’an in this way is not as simple and straightforward as modern Qur’anists make it seem.
As scholars from the three Sunni madhāhib (apart from the Hanafis) and the Imamis have argued, this practise does not contradict the Qur’an because while the verse in question (Q. 2:282) discusses how debts should be recorded so as to preserve the claim of the creditor it does not address the judge or tie his hands as to pronouncing verdicts on this basis alone.
Non-Hanafi scholars note that the Hanafis themselves allow judges to pronounce verdicts using other avenues not mentioned in the Qur’an, such as self-confession of one of the parties, accepting the testimony of a solitary female witness (i.e. the midwife) in cases of establishing child-birth or child-death (which is of relevance in inheritance disputes), using physical factors such as which side the knots of the boundary rope are tied, which side of the farm has more trees, and how the bricks on the fence-wall are distributed to decide land disputes etc.
Moreover, there is nothing in the language used in the verse (Q. 2:282) to indicate an absolute restriction of testimony to only two male witnesses or two male and one female witnesses. Instead, the language of the verse is fluid: “this is more equitable”, “more sure for testimony”, and “the best way to avoid doubt” which leaves the room open for non-ideal scenarios.
Lastly, this should not be seen as a case of the non-mutawātir sunna abrogating the Qur’an which the Hanafis reject in principle, rather, it is a case of the Prophet legislating through his sunna that which is in addition to the Qur’an (ziyāda ʿalā al-naṣṣ) which is dissimilar to abrogation, with famous cases being the Prophet prohibiting certain additional foods (such as the flesh of predatory animals) when Q. 6:145 seems absolute, or prohibiting a man from marrying both his aunt and niece at the same time when Q. 4:24 seems absolute etc. which even the Hanafis abide by.
I shall end this brief summary of the case against the Hanafis here, otherwise, the one who wants to delve deeper into the arguments of both sides should refer to the books on comparative fiqh written by the scholars[97]
Conclusion
Different trends and schools within early Islam may have all sought to reach the true position in the law but resorted to different approaches when faced with the very real problem of contradiction. While the Medinans saw the living tradition of their town as the best indicator for the Prophetic sunna, the Kufans preferred ‘reasoned opinion’ and ‘analogy’ over the acceptance of isolated solitary reports, and the Ahl al-Ḥadīth (as championed by Shāfiʿī) rejected the validity of local tradition, minimized the role of ‘analogy’, and deemed the ‘authentic’ ‘fully-connected’ Prophetic report to be the sole irrefutable proof.
The Imamis, for their part, could care less what the local tradition in Medina was (when the authorities there were themselves divided), totally rejected applying analogy in the religion (it would give fallible humans the power to legislate), and did not consider all Prophetic reports to be equally valid (since the companions were not all all morally upright, let alone equally knowledgeable). They also mistrusted the Hadith criticism of the Ahl al-Ḥadīth (which was not objective with critics themselves divided over what was authentic or not).
For Imamis, all that mattered was accessing the position of a single man in their time, the Imam from the ʿitra (desendants of the Prophet), whose knowledge was inherited from ʿAlī and whose authority was non-negotiable. Thus, they expended immense effort in recording thousands of statements from their Imams covering all the abwāb (chapters) of fiqh such that we have inherited a complete library containing answers to even the most obscure questions.
Crucially, the difference they perceived between their approach and the approach of the rest is that it was only their approach which was mandated by the Prophet himself (refer to Ḥadīth al-Thaqalayn).
As Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq is reported to have said to his companions:
There is no one more beloved to me than you. Verily the people traversed diverse paths, among them is one who took by his hawā (whim), and among them is one who took by his raʾy (reasoned opinion), but you took by that which has basis.
And in a variant of the same report:
A group took by their ahwāʾ (whims), a group professed their ārāʾ (reasoned opinions), and a group professed riwāya (transmission of reports), but Allah guided you to loving Him and loving those whose love will benefit you with Him[98]
And the Imamis themselves acknowledged this openly.
A companion addresses Jaʿfar saying:
We loved you because of your close relation to the Messenger of Allah and because of what Allah, mighty and majestic, obligated of your rights. We did not love you for material possessions of the world that we might acquire from you, only for the sake of Allah and the abode of the hereafter, and so that a man from among us can set aright his religion[99]
Footnotes
[1] Baṣāʾir al-Darajāt, p. 539, n. 3 (https://lib.eshia.ir/15136/1/539).
[2] Mālik concludes his letter with the words ‘It (i.e. the letter) was written on Sunday, 7th Ṣafar’ without specifying the year. This is typical of someone writing a personal missive to a contemporary (who does not need to be told what year it is) without sparing a thought for those of us who will come to read the letter many hundreds of years later.
[3] For Mālik’s letter to Layth, see Yaḥyā b. Maʿīn’s Taʾrīkh (Riwāyat al-Dūrī), v. 4, pp. 498-501 (https://shamela.ws/book/3508/1046) and Fasawī’s Al-Maʿrifa wa-l Taʾrīkh, v. 1, pp. 695-697 (https://shamela.ws/book/12403/689).
[4] Reading فَيُطِيعُونَهُ from Fasawī as opposed to فيتبعونه found in Yaḥyā.
[5] For Layth’s letter to Mālik, see Yaḥyā b. Maʿīn’s Taʾrīkh (Riwāyat al-Dūrī), v. 4, pp. 487-497 (https://shamela.ws/book/3508/1035) and Fasawī’s Al-Maʿrifa wa-l Taʾrīkh, v. 1, pp. 687-695 (https://shamela.ws/book/12403/681).
[6] Reading يُعَلِّمُونَ للَّه كِتَابَ اللَّهِ from Fasawī as opposed to يعْملُونَ بِكِتَاب الله found in Yaḥyā.
[7] Reading لِأَجْنَادِ الْمُسْلِمِينَ from Fasawī as opposed to لأجنادهم found in Yaḥyā.
[8] Adding بَعْدَهُ from Fasawī.
[9] Reading رأسهم from Ibn Qayyim instead of رَايَتُهُمْ found in both Fasawī and Yaḥyā. See Iʿlām al-Muwwaqiʿīn, v. 4, p. 479 (https://shamela.ws/book/17798/1847). Note that Ibn Qayyim is dependent on Fasawī but helps us correct the corrupted word at this point in the printed edition of Fasawī.
[10] Reading مَا عَرَفْتَ وَحَضَرْتَ from Fasawī as opposed to وَحَضَرت found in Yaḥyā.
[11] Reading ذَوي الرَّأْيِ from Fasawī as opposed to ذَوي السن found in Yaḥyā.
[12] Rabīʿa’s Medinan contemporaries held against him the issuing of fatāwa that were contrary to what was traditionally practiced in Medina. This was because of his greater openness to raʾy (legal reasoning), hence the moniker they gave him: Rabīʿa al-Raʾy. Mālik includes in his Muwaṭṭaʾ a fascinating report from Rabīʿa himself typifying this tendency of his. Rabīʿa narrates that he had asked Saʿīd b. al-Musayyab what the compensation for severing a finger of a woman is. Saʿīd responds that it is 10 camels for 1 finger, 20 camels for 2 fingers, 30 camels for 3 fingers. When Rabīʿa asks what the compensation for 4 fingers is, Saʿīd responds that it is 20 camels (!). An astonished Rabīʿa remarks, “When her injury is greater and her suffering more excessive – her compensation decreases?!” to which Saʿīd interjects, “Are you an Iraqi?” indicating that such a question could only issue from one of the Ahl al-Raʾy predominantly based in Iraq. Rabīʿa states, “I am either a scholar looking for assurance or an ignorant one seeking to know” whereupon Saʿīd states, “This is a sunna O nephew!” with the implication that it is impervious to reason. See Al-Muwaṭṭaʾ, n. 1574 (https://sunnah.com/urn/515780). It is fascinating to encounter that Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq had a similar conversation with his Kufan student Abān b. Taghlib as preserved in the Imami Hadith corpus. When Abān b. Taghlib similarly exclaimed, “He severes 3 fingers and has to pay 30 camels but when he severes 4 fingers he has to pay 20 camels?! This (ruling) used to be conveyed to us in Kufa so we would disassociate from the one who espouses it and would say, ‘The one who has come with it is a devil!’” Jaʿfar says to him, “Just a moment O Abān! This is how the Messenger of Allah had ruled. A female’s compensation is equivalent to the male up to a third of the blood-money, so when it reaches a third she resumes to getting a half (of the male). O Abān, you argued with me on the basis of qiyās (analogy), but when qiyās is applied to the sunna – religion is destroyed” See Al-Kāfī, v. 14, p. 352, n. 14206 (https://lib.eshia.ir/27311/14/352). I say: The Imam has revealed the underlying principle of this sunna as follows: Both male and female get equal compensation for 3 fingers out of ten (i.e. a third of all fingers a human possesses). Beginning with 4 fingers, the male gets 40 camels and the female goes down to a half of his share (i.e. 20 camels), this continues in this manner such that he will get 100 camels for all 10 fingers while she gets 50 camels.
[13] Adding حمص from Fasawī.
[14] Ruzayq was the governor of Ayla (present day Aqaba, Jordan) in the Caliphate of ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz.
[15] Note that Shāfiʿī narrates from ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. al-Mājishūn (d. 164) who quotes Ruzayq b. Ḥakīm as stating, “I wrote to ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz informing him that I do not find ‘an oath with a solitary witness’ except in Medina”. The Caliph wrote back to him, “Judge on its basis for it is a sunna”. See Sunan al-Kubrā (Bayhaqī), v. 10, p. 292, n. 20680 (https://shamela.ws/book/7861/23494). This would seem to contradict Layth’s account of the correspondence between Caliph and governor.
[16] It is true that Fasawī adds ʿAlī here, but I consider Yaḥyā to be superior at this point, since it tallies with what had come before where Layth (in both the recensions of Fasawī and Yaḥyā) spoke of only three Caliphs being the one who supervised the religion practised in the garrison towns.
[17] Al-Muṣannaf (Ibn Abī Shayba), v. 13, p. 30, n. 24707 (https://shamela.ws/book/333/28241).
[18] As al-Dhahabī states in Ibrāhīm’s entry, “He was the muftī of the people of Kufa, him and al-Shaʿbī, in their time”. See Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ, v. 4, p. 521 (https://shamela.ws/book/10906/3674).
[19] Al-Umm, v. 6, p. 274 (https://shamela.ws/book/1655/1756). See also Al-Muṣannaf (Ibn Abī Shayba), v. 13, p. 30, n. 24708 (https://shamela.ws/book/333/28242).
[20] Al-Muwaṭṭaʾ, n. 1409 (https://sunnah.com/urn/514080).
[21] Al-Muwaṭṭaʾ, n. 1410 (https://sunnah.com/urn/514090). The governor in question was ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Zayd b. al-Khaṭṭāb. Some Kufans opposed him judging on this basis so he wrote to the Caliph ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz and received permission to do so. See Al-Musannaf (Ibn Abī Shayba), v. 12, p. 521, n. 24501 (https://shamela.ws/book/333/27943). Note, however, that imposing this practise in Kufa or Ayla (see footnote 16) would seem to contradict what Layth mentions in his letter, whereby Ruzayq, the governor of Ayla, had written to ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz inquiring why he had abandoned this practise which he used to implement whilst governor of Medina now that he was Caliph located at Syria. ʿUmar had written in response that he was abiding by local custom in Syria. This implies that ʿUmar was in favour of abiding by the local custom in each town.
[22] Al-Muwaṭṭaʾ, n. 1411 (https://sunnah.com/urn/514100).
[23] The rest of the chapter is taken up by a technical discussion of why manumission of slaves does not fall under amwāl or property. What is at stake is that a slave could bring a solitary witness in addition to swearing an oath that he had been freed by his master to secure his freedom.
[24] I only count the narrators whose chains have been recorded in the books available to us, otherwise there exist allusions to other narrators also narrating this report without the chain being given.
[25] They are:
1) Sufyān al-Thawrī. See Al-Muṣannaf (Ibn Abī Shayba), v. 12, p. 520, n. 24497 (https://shamela.ws/book/333/27939); Sharḥ Maʿānī al-Āthār, v. 4, p. 145, n. 6107 (https://shamela.ws/book/21108/4324).
2) Ibn Jurayj. See Al-Ḍuʿafāʾ al-Kabīr, v. 4, p. 216 (https://shamela.ws/book/13041/3872); Sunan al-Kubrā (Bayhaqī), v. 10, p. 285, n. 20652 (https://shamela.ws/book/7861/23469).
3) ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Muḥammad al-Darāwardī. See Al-Maṭālib al-ʿĀliya bi-Zawāʾid al-Masānīd al-Thamāniya, v. 10, p. 210, n. 2191 (https://shamela.ws/book/22804/2957).
4) Yaḥyā b. Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān. See Al-Maṭālib al-ʿĀliya bi-Zawāʾid al-Masānīd al-Thamāniya, v. 10, p. 210, n. 2191 (https://shamela.ws/book/22804/2957).
5) Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad b. Abī Yaḥyā al-Aslamī. See Sunan al-Kubrā (Bayhaqī), v. 10, p. 292, n. 20676 (https://shamela.ws/book/7861/23492).
6) Muslim b. Khālid al-Zanjī. See Al-Umm, v. 6, p. 274 (https://shamela.ws/book/1655/1756); Musnad al-Shāfiʿī, v. 4, p. 21, n. 1716 (https://shamela.ws/book/9615/846).
7) Yaḥyā b. Ayyūb. See Mustakhraj Abī ʿAwāna, v. 13, pp. 118-119, n. 6458 (https://shamela.ws/book/18144/7818); Sharḥ Maʿānī al-Āthār, v. 4, p. 145, n. 6109 (https://shamela.ws/book/21108/4324). Note that the chain in the online edition has missing words when compared to the print and should read: ḥaddathanā baḥr. qāla: ḥaddathanā ʿabdallāh bin wahb. qāla: ḥaddathanī ʿumar [bin muḥammad wa mālik bin anas wa yaḥyā bin ayyūb ʿan jaʿfar] bin muḥammad ʿan abīhi ʿan rasūli-llāh (s). See also Sunan al-Kubrā (Bayhaqī), v. 10, p. 285, n. 20652 (https://shamela.ws/book/7861/23469).
8) ʿUmar b. Muḥammad b. Zayd b. ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb. See Sharḥ Maʿānī al-Āthār, v. 4, p. 145, n. 6109 (https://shamela.ws/book/21108/4324). Refer to the comment in the the footnote above. See also Sunan al-Kubrā (Bayhaqī), v. 10, p. 285, n. 20652 (https://shamela.ws/book/7861/23469).
9) Ismāʿīl b. Jaʿfar b. Abī Kathīr. See Sunan al-Tirmidhī, n. 1345 (https://sunnah.com/tirmidhi:1345); Ḥadīth ʿAlī bin Ḥajr ʿan Ismāʿīl bin Jaʿfar, p. 396, n. 340 (https://shamela.ws/book/21544/350).
[26] They are:
1) Ibrāhīm b. Abī Ḥayya. See Muʿjam al-Awsaṭ, v. 1, p. 243, n. 796 (https://shamela.ws/book/28171/806); Mustakhraj Abī ʿAwāna, v. 13, p. 117-118, n. 6457 (https://shamela.ws/book/18144/7817).
2) ʿAbd al-Wahhāb b. ʿAbd al-Majīd al-Thaqafī. See Musnad Aḥmad, v. 22, p. 181, n. 14278 (https://shamela.ws/book/25794/10832); Sunan Ibn Māja, n. 2369 (https://sunnah.com/ibnmajah:2369); Sunan al-Tirmidhī, n. 1344 (https://sunnah.com/tirmidhi:1344).
3) Mūsā b. Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad. See Ṭabaqāt al-Muḥaddithīn bi-Iṣbahān, v. 4, p. 112 (https://shamela.ws/book/4182/1749).
4) Sarrī b. ʿAbdallāh b. Yaʿqūb. See Al-Kāmil fī Ḍuʿafāʾ al-Rijāl`, v. 4, p. 539 (https://shamela.ws/book/12579/2115).
5) ʿUbaydallāh b. ʿUmar. See Muʿjam al-Awsaṭ, v. 7, p. 229, n. 7349 (https://shamela.ws/book/28171/7681). Note that the narrator in the chain is given as ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar but referred to as ʿUbaydallāh b. ʿUmar in Ṭabarānī’s comment. The two were brothers. My choice of going with ʿUbaydallāh here is based on the corroboration from Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr. See Al-Tamhīd, v. 2, p. 140 (https://shamela.ws/book/236/843).
6) ʿAbdallāh b. Yaḥyā b. Abī Kathīr. See Amālī (Ibn Samʿūn), p. 297, n. 341 (https://shamela.ws/book/21476/212).
7) Hishām b. Saʿd. See Ṭabaqāt al-Muḥaddithīn bi-Iṣbahān, v. 4, p. 112 (https://shamela.ws/book/4182/1748).
8) Sābiq b. Nājiya. See Taʾrīkh Iṣbahān, v. 2, p. 28 (https://shamela.ws/book/1714/2724).
9) Muḥammad b. Jaʿfar b. Abī Kathīr. See Mūḍiḥ Awhām al-Jamʿ wa-l-Tafrīq, v. 2, p. 142 (https://shamela.ws/book/6025/679).
10) Yaḥyā b. Sulaym. See Al-Tamhīd, v. 2, p. 141 (https://shamela.ws/book/236/844).
11) Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Raddād. See Al-Tamhīd, v. 2, p. 142 (https://shamela.ws/book/236/845).
[27] Hadith critics would typically proceed by looking at which chain of the two alternatives is corroborated, and if it happens that both sets are corroborated then which set is transmitted by superior narrators. As far as our report is concerned, the fact that authorities like Mālik b. Anas, Sufyān al-Thawrī, and Yaḥyā b. Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān, transmitted Jaʿfar’s report in a mursal fashion would have been hard to overlook. Indeed, when Tirmidhī (d. 279) asks Bukhārī (d. 256) which version of the chain is correct the latter responds, “The most correct (version) is the Hadith of Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad from his father from the Prophet mursalan (i.e. in a disconnected fashion)”. See Al-ʿIlal al-Kabīr, p. 202, n. 359 (https://shamela.ws/book/13131/450). This was also the position of the duo, Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī (d. 277) and Abū Zurʿa al-Rāzī (d. 289), who say, “ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (i.e. no. 2 in the list above) made a mistake in this Hadith. It is Jaʿfar from his father from Prophet in a mursal fashion. See Al-ʿIlal, v. 4, pp. 253-254, n. 1402 (https://shamela.ws/book/1350/2210). Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal’s son reports that his father shared the same negative view towards the report at first, marking it as weak and stating “No one corroborates al-Thaqafī (i.e. no. 2 in the list above) in making it from Jābir!”, but Aḥmad read out this report to his son not long thereafter and wrote next to it “Ṣaḥīḥ”. See Musnad Aḥmad, v. 22, p. 181, n. 14278 (https://shamela.ws/book/25794/10832). Perhaps Aḥmad had come across the other narrators corroborating al-Thaqafī as found in the list. The last great Hadith critic of the early generations, al-Dāraqutnī (d. 385), had a more creative explanation for the discrepancy asserting, “Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad would sometimes narrate it in mursal fashion, and sometimes in mawṣūl fashion from Jābir. This is because a group of the thiqāt preserved it from him from his father from Jābir. The principle dictates that their version be taken, because they have added (something to the Hadith) whilst being thiqāt, and ziyādat al-thiqa (the addition of a thiqa narrator) is accepted” See Al-ʿIlal al-Wārida fī al-Aḥādīth al-Nabawiyya, v. 3, p. 97 (https://shamela.ws/book/9082/646). Accepting ziyādat al-thiqa is a controversial matter which early critics did not approve of.
[28] This statement of al-Zuhrī is also attributed to him fully chained in Al-Muṣannaf (Ibn Abī Shayba), v. 13, p. 30, n. 24709 (https://shamela.ws/book/333/28243).
[29] Al-Muwaṭṭaʾ (Riwāyat al-Shaybānī), p. 301, n. 846 (https://shamela.ws/book/16050/1123).
[30] Shāfiʿī recounts that all the Alids with whom he was arrested were put to death, as for him, when he was taken in to Hārūn al-Rashīd, the Caliph addressed him saying, “O brother descending from Shāfiʿī – you broke the staff (i.e. a metaphor for causing dissension) and revolted with these Alids against us?!” A pleading Shāfiʿī responds, “O Commander of the Faithful – would I abandon the cousin (i.e. Hārūn) who calls me his cousin and seek out a group who call me their slave?” This is how Shāfiʿī saved his life, by claiming that the high-handed Alids considered him, a fellow descendant of ʿAbd al-Manāf albeit from a lowly branch compared to them, merely a slave to their aspirations, whereas he had higher expectations of his Abbasid cousin who would treat him better. These flattering words worked a treat and Shāfiʿī was pardoned and even gifted 80,000 silver coins. Shāfiʿī would never work against the Abbasids ever again. See Manāqib al-Shāfiʿī (Bayhaqī), v. 2, p. 226 (https://shamela.ws/book/22797/817).
[31] Tawālī al-Taʾnīs bi-Maʿālī Ibn Idrīs (ed. Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya), p. 128. Note that the last part is missing in Ādāb al-Shāfiʿī wa Manāqibuh (Ibn Abī Ḥātim), p. 26 (https://shamela.ws/book/1485/10) from which Ibn Ḥajar is putatively quoting.
[32] Manāqib al-Shāfiʿī (Bayhaqī), v. 1, p. 201 (https://shamela.ws/book/22797/243); Muʿjam al-ʿUdabāʾ (Yāqūt), v. 6, p. 405 (https://shamela.ws/book/9788/2402).
[33] Reading فكنا لا نقدر from Yāqūt as opposed to وهناك نقدر found in the published edition of Bayhaqī.
[34] Reading لست صاحب حديث from Yāqūt as opposed toلسنا بأصحاب حديث found in the published edition of Bayhaqī.
[35] Reading كيسكم from Yāqūt as opposed to كلامكم found in the published edition of Bayhaqī.
[36] The record of the debate begins at Al-Umm, v. 7, p. 7 (https://shamela.ws/book/1655/1766) and ends at v. 7, p. 35 (https://shamela.ws/book/1655/1794).
[37] Al-Umm, v. 7, p. 207 (https://shamela.ws/book/1655/1966).
[38] ibid
[39] Risāla Abī Dāwūd ilā Ahl Makka, p. 24 (https://shamela.ws/book/6013/4).
[40] Al-Umm, v. 7, p. 8 (https://shamela.ws/book/1655/1766).
[41] Al-Umm, v. 7, p. 207 (https://shamela.ws/book/1655/1966).
[42] Al-Umm, v. 2, p. 210 (https://shamela.ws/book/1655/523).
[43] Al-Umm, v. 6, p. 181 (https://shamela.ws/book/1655/1663).
[44] Al-Umm, v. 1, p. 298 (https://shamela.ws/book/1655/283).
[45] Sunan Ibn Māja, n. 2369 (https://sunnah.com/ibnmajah:2369).
[46] Sunan al-Tirmidhī, n. 1345 (https://sunnah.com/tirmidhi:1345). Tirmidhi comments, “This (i.e. the mursal version) is more correct. It is how Sufyān al-Thawrī narrated it from Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad from his father from the Prophet in a mursal fashion”.
[47] Al-Darāwardī narrated it from Rabīʿa al-Raʾy from Suhayl b. Abī Sāliḥ from his father from Abū Hurayra. Then Darāwardī skipped his source Rabīʿa and asked Suhayl directly about this Hadith. Suhayl responded, “Rabīʿa informed me, and he is thiqa in my estimation, that I had narrated it to him, but I do not remember doing so” Suhayl had forgotten narrating this Hadith to Rabīʿa! Al-Darāwardī explains, “Suhayl was inflicted by a disease which caused a part of his memory to be lost and he forgot some of his Hadith”. See Sunan Abī Dāwūd, n. 3610 (https://sunnah.com/abudawud:3610). Sulaymān b. Bilāl also narrated it from Rabīʿa al-Raʾy from Suhayl b. Abī Sāliḥ from his father from Abū Hurayra. Sulaymān also skipped his source Rabīʿa and asked Suhayl directly about this Hadith. Suhayl responded, “I do not recognize it!” Sulaymān exclaimed, “Rabīʿa reported it to me from you!” Suhayl said, “If Rabīʿa reported it to you from me then narrate it from Rabīʿa on my authority” See Sunan Abī Dāwūd, n. 3611 (https://sunnah.com/abudawud:3611). No wonder Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī was skeptical of this Hadith. When someone asked him whether it was ṣaḥīḥ, he paused for a bit, and then said, “Don’t you see what Darāwardī says?” referring to Suhayl’s non-recognition of it. Abū Ḥātim’s son attempts a defense of it remarking, “Suhayl’s forgetfulness does not take away from what Rabīʿa had narrated (before), Rabīʿa is thiqa, and a man narrates a Hadith and then forgets”. His father says, “Yes, that is how it is. But we do not find anyone corroborating him (i.e. Rabīʿa) in narrating it even though a very large number narrate (Hadith) from Suhayl, not a single one of them has this Hadith!” Abū Ḥātim’s son exclaims, “But you accept khabar al-wāḥid!” Reminding his father that a single narrator narrating it should make no difference provided he is thiqa. Abū Ḥātim responds, “Indeed. But I do not know for this Hadith an aṣl (independent chain) to Abī Hurayra which I can use for comparison (aʿtabiru bihi). So this is an aṣl from among the uṣul in which Rabīʿa is not corroborated” See Al-ʿIlal, v. 4, pp. 238-240, n. 1392a (https://shamela.ws/book/1350/2194). Tirmidhī graded this report ‘ḥasan gharīb’. See Sunan al-Tirmidhī, n. 1343 (https://sunnah.com/tirmidhi:1343). Now Tirmidhī was the first to use the compound term ‘ḥasan gharīb’ and what he meant by it exactly is debated, but it is clear to me that he uses this term when there is some sort of ʿilla or flaw in the chain of the report which causes it to drop a degree. This is the view of Dr. Bashshār ʿAwwād Maʿrūf. How wide a gulf there is, in light of this, between the early Hadith critics and a modern scholar like Albānī who grades the report ṣaḥīḥ merely because all the narrators are thiqa on paper! There is also an independent chain preserved by Ibn ʿAdī which has Abū al-Zinād narrating from al-Aʿraj from Abū Hurayra. See Al-Sunan al-Kubrā (al-Nasāʾī), v. 5, p. 436, n. 5969 (https://shamela.ws/book/8361/8326). Ibn ʿAdī transmits from an unknown narrator a quotation from Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal saying, “There is not in this bāb (chapter): judging on the basis of an oath together with a solitary witness – a Hadith which is more authentic than this one”. See Al-Kāmil fī Ḍuʿafāʾ al-Rijāl, v. 8, p. 78 (https://shamela.ws/book/12579/3856). But if this the case then it is very surprising to note that Aḥmad did not include this Hadith in his Musnad. Moreover, if Abū al-Zinād had this report going all the way back to a companion like Abū Hurayra then it is more surprising to note that Mālik, a student of Abū al-Zinād, did not know of it, including instead Abū al-Zinād’s report from the Caliph ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz in his Muwaṭṭāʾ. Then I saw al-Dhahabī noting, “The Hadith of ‘an oath with a solitary witness’ was transmitted by Ibn ʿAjlān and other than him from Abū al-Zinād from Ibn Abī Ṣafiyya from Shurayḥ as his (i.e. Shurayḥ’s) statement” which indicates that he did not see the former as a Prophetic report. See Mīzān al-Iʿtidāl, v. 4, p. 164 (https://shamela.ws/book/1692/2194).
[48] An unknown man from Egypt (the name is not given) narrates it from Surraq. Surraq himself is a little-known companion who only has 2 reports to his name. See Sunan Ibn Māja, n. 2371 (https://sunnah.com/ibnmajah:2371).
[49] A family chain where someone called ʿAmmār b. Shuʿayth b. ʿAbdallāh b. al-Zubayb (whose status is unknown) narrates from his father Shuʿayth, who reached the ripe old age of 117 years we are told, from his grandfather Zubayb. Zubayb himself is a little-known companion who only has this 1 lengthy report to his name. See Sunan Abī Dāwūd, n. 3612 (https://sunnah.com/abudawud:3612).
[50] Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, n. 1712 (https://sunnah.com/muslim:1712).
[51] Shāfiʿī personally transmits the Hadith of Abū Hurayra and Jaʿfar’s mursal report. See Al-Umm, v. 6, pp. 273-274 (https://shamela.ws/book/1655/1755); Musnad al-Shāfiʿī, v. 4, pp. 18-21 (https://shamela.ws/book/9615/843). It is not clear whether he knew of the Hadith of Surraq and Zubayb.
[52] Taʾrīkh Ibn Maʿīn (Riwāyat al-Dūrī), v. 3, p. 229, n. 1076 (https://shamela.ws/book/3508/222).
[53] The defendant swears an oath that the property belongs to him, after the claimant fails to meet the standard of evidence (either two male witnesses or a male and two female witnesses), causing the case to be decided in his favour.
[54] Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī (ed. Dār al-Taʾṣīl), v. 3, p. 520 (https://shamela.ws/book/1284/1692).
[55] One can potentially respond to this by positing a hierarchy of evidence, where the Qur’anic ideal is two male witnesses, and failing that, one male witness and two female witnesses. It is only when this bar of evidence cannot be cleared that we turn to what the sunna permits: a single male witness and an oath by the claimant.
[56] ʿAmr b. Dīnār should be ranked in the generation after the generation of the main students of Ibn ʿAbbās. As the critic ʿAlī b. al-Madīnī (d. 234) states, “The companions of Ibn ʿAbbās who followed his madhhab and trod on his path were: ʿAṭaʾ, Ṭāwūs, Mujāhid, Jābir b. Zayd, ʿIkrima and Saʿīd b. Jubayr. The most knowledgeable of these and the most accurate (in transmitting) from him (i.e. Ibn ʿAbbās) was Saʿīd b. Jubayr. The most knowledgeable of people (taking) from these ones was ʿAmr b. Dīnār. He used to love Ibn ʿAbbās and love his (i.e. Ibn ʿAbbās’s) companions” See Al-ʿIlal li Ibn al-Madīni, p. 44 (https://shamela.ws/book/6038/10). Al-Dhahabī also places ʿAmr in the ṭabaqa below ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Rabāḥ. See Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ, v. 5, p. 301 (https://shamela.ws/book/10906/4073). Thus, we find that the overwhelming majority of ʿAmr’s transmissions are from the students of Ibn ʿAbbās and only a handful are directly from Ibn ʿAbbās himself.
[57] Al-ʿIlal al-Kabīr, p. 204, n. 361 (https://shamela.ws/book/13131/451).
[58] Sunan al-Dāraquṭnī, v. 5, p. 383, n. 4494 (https://shamela.ws/book/9771/4212). The narrator who narrates it from ʿAmr b. Dīnār is ʿAbdallāh b. Muḥammad b. Rabīʿa. Ibn Ḥibbān (d. 354) says about this ʿAbdallāh, “The cause of his ruin was his son. It is not permitted to mention him (i.e. include him) in the books (of Hadith) except for the purpose of iʿtibār (i.e. comparing chains to discover flaws). He (i.e. the son) may have interchanged for him (aqlaba lahu) more than 150 reports from Mālik all of which he narrated as they were (i.e. without discovering the issue)”. See Al-Majrūḥīn, v. 2, p. 39 (https://shamela.ws/book/5834/323). Ibn ʿAdī says, “He is weak in what has become apparent to me from his reports and the iḍṭirāb (mistakes) he makes in them”. Among the mistakes he makes is narrating in mawṣūl fashion what superior narrators narrated in a mursal fashion. For example, he makes a report (la waṣiyya li-wārith) which others narrate from the son of Ṭāwūs from his father to be from the son of Ṭāwūs from Ṭāwūs from Ibn ʿAbbās. See Al-Kāmil fī Ḍuʿafāʾ al-Rijāl, v. 5, pp. 421-424, n. 1092 (https://shamela.ws/book/12579/2537).
[59] Sunan al-Kubrā (Nasāʾī), v. 5, p. 435 (https://shamela.ws/book/8361/8324).
[60] Al-Tamhīd, v. 2, p. 140 (https://shamela.ws/book/236/843).
[61] Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, v. 1, p. 31 (https://shamela.ws/book/1727/54).
[62] Sunan al-Tirmidhī, n. 1793 (https://sunnah.com/tirmidhi:1793).
[63] Ṣaḥīḥ Bukhārī, n. 5524 (https://sunnah.com/bukhari:5524); Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, n. 1941 (https://sunnah.com/muslim:1941a).
[64] Ibn Ḥajar includes ʿAmr b. Dīnār’s name in the first generation of those who practise tadlīs based on al-Ḥākim’s statement. See Ṭabaqāt al-Mudallisīn, p. 22, n. 20 (https://shamela.ws/book/1186/18). There are other examples that can be brought to support this. Once when ʿAmr b. Dīnār narrated to Shuʿba a report on the authority of Jābir, Shuʿba asked ʿAmr, “Did you personally hear this from Jābir?” and Amr responded, “No”. See Musnad Aḥmad, v. 23, p. 216, n. 14957 (https://shamela.ws/book/25794/11333). Similarly, when ʿAmr b. Dīnār attributed a fatwa to Ibn ʿAbbās one time, Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī asked him, “From whom is it?” ʿAmr replied, “I heard Ṭāwūs narrating it from Ibn ʿAbbās” Ayyūb pushed “From Ibn ʿAbbās?” ʿAmr replied, “I heard Ṭāwūs” leaving out Ibn ʿAbbās. See Al-ʿIlal wa Maʿrifat al-Rijal li Aḥmad (Riwāyat ʿAbdallāh), v. 2, p. 181, n. 1934 (https://shamela.ws/book/2331/732). Indeed, ʿAmr was careful not to use the phrase “I heard Ibn ʿAbbās” but would say “from Ibn ʿAbbās”. See Masāʾil al-Imām Aḥmad (Riwāyat Abī Dāwūd al-Sijistānī), p. 448, n. 2041 (https://shamela.ws/book/21487/444). Aḥmad counts only six instances wherein ʿAmr b. Dīnār explicitly asserted to have heard a report from Ibn ʿAbbās or witnessed something from him. See Al-ʿIlal wa Maʿrifat al-Rijal li Aḥmad (Riwāyat ʿAbdallāh), v. 2, p. 186, n. 1949 (https://shamela.ws/book/2331/737).
[65] Maʿrifat ʿUlūm al-Ḥadīth, p. 111 (https://shamela.ws/book/13179/277).
[66] This is what al-Muʿallimī argues in his rebuttal to al-Kawtharī. See Al-Tankīl bi-mā fī Taʾnīb al-Kawtharī min al-Abāṭīl, v. 2, pp. 914-918 (https://shamela.ws/book/12767/894). My counter to this would be to point out that we cannot conduct a full review of all of ʿAmr’s transmissions since we do not have access to alternative chains for every transmission. Consequently, this generalization from a small sample size is not warranted. In any case, the presence of muʿanʿan chains with ʿAmr narrating directly from various companions in the two canonized works of Ṣaḥīḥ Bukhārī and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim means that this charge of tadlīs would never stick.
[67] Ṣaḥīḥ Bukhārī, n. 2668 (https://sunnah.com/bukhari:2668).
[68] Al-Umm, v. 7, p. 8 (https://shamela.ws/book/1655/1767).
[69] It is on this basis, i.e. the Prophetic statement being general with the restriction only being the words of a successor, that Ibn Ḥazm (d. 456) deemed the the testimony of a solitary witness with the oath of the claimant to be valid for everything, including marriage, divorce, qiṣās (retaliation) etc, excluding ḥudūd (penal law) as the only exception. See Al-Muḥalla, v. 8, pp. 490-491 (https://shamela.ws/book/767/3699). This view is also favoured by Ibn Qayyim. See See Iʿlām al-Muwwaqiʿīn, v. 2, pp. 183-184 (https://shamela.ws/book/17798/490).
[70] Sunan al-Kubrā (Bayhaqī), v. 10, p. 292, n. 20676 (https://shamela.ws/book/7861/23492).
[71] Sunan Abī Dāwūd, n. 3609 (https://sunnah.com/abudawud:3609). See also the same variant word transmitted by al-Ḥumaydī in Mustakhraj Abī ʿAwāna, v. 13, p. 108, n. 6445 (https://shamela.ws/book/18144/7805).
[72] Al-Muṣannaf (Ibn Abī Shayba), v.12, p. 521, n. 24499 (https://shamela.ws/book/333/27941).
[73] ʿAmr b. Dīnar is known to have prided himself for never writing down Hadith and only narrating from memory which led him to ‘narrate by meaning’ instead of verbatim. See Taʾrīkh Ibn Abī Khaythama, p. 325, n. 297, 299 (https://shamela.ws/book/5876/229).
[74] Kulaynī includes 8 reports in the relevant chapter. See Al-Kāfī, v. 14, pp. 576-582, nn. 14502-14509 (https://lib.eshia.ir/27311/14/576). Ṭūsī includes all these 8 reports (some with different chains) and adds 4 new ones. See Tahdhīb al-Aḥkām, v. 6, pp. 272-275, nn. 738-749 (https://lib.eshia.ir/10083/6/272). Ṣadūq repeats 3 of these reports and add 1 new one. See Man lā yaḥḍuruhu al-Faqīh, v. 3, pp. 54-55, nn. 3318-3321 (https://lib.eshia.ir/11021/3/54).
[75] Al-Kāfī, v. 14, p. 577, n. 14503 (https://lib.eshia.ir/27311/14/577). Ṭūsī narrates the same report directly from the book of al-Ḥusayn b. Saʿīd. See Tahdhīb al-Aḥkām, v. 6, p. 275, n. 748 (https://lib.eshia.ir/10083/6/275).
[76] Al-Kāfī, v. 14, pp. 577-578, n. 14505 (https://lib.eshia.ir/27311/14/577). An identical matn was also narrated by another companion called ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Abī ʿAbdillāh. See Tahdhīb al-Aḥkām, v. 6, p. 273, n. 743 (https://lib.eshia.ir/10083/6/273).
[77] Tahdhīb al-Aḥkām, v. 6, p. 273, n. 744 (https://lib.eshia.ir/10083/6/273).
[78] Tahdhīb al-Aḥkām, v. 6, p. 273, n. 746 (https://lib.eshia.ir/10083/6/273).
[79] Al-Umm, v. 6, p. 274 (https://shamela.ws/book/1655/1756).
[80] Tahdhīb al-Aḥkām, v. 6, p. 273, n. 745 (https://lib.eshia.ir/10083/6/273); Al-Kāfī, v. 14, p. 582, n. 14509 (https://lib.eshia.ir/27311/14/582); Al-Kāfī, v. 14, p. 577, n. 14504 (https://lib.eshia.ir/27311/14/577).
[81] Al-Umm, v. 6, p. 274 (https://shamela.ws/book/1655/1756).
[82] Al-Maṭālib al-ʿĀliya bi-Zawāʾid al-Masānīd al-Thamāniya, v. 10, p. 210, n. 2191 (https://shamela.ws/book/22804/2957). The next report which Ibn Ḥajar includes from the now lost Musnad of Musaddad (d. 228) has Yaḥyā b. Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān narrating from Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad, “I heard my father say to al-Ḥakam b. ʿUtayba …” with the same brief matn.
[83] Al-Kāfī, v. 14, pp. 578-580, n. 14506 (https://lib.eshia.ir/27311/14/578).
[84] Najāshī calls ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. al-Ḥajjāj ‘thiqatun thiqa thabt’ which is the strongest grading there is. See Rijāl al-Najāshī, pp. 237-238, n. 630 (https://lib.eshia.ir/14028/1/237). However, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān was a companion of al-Ṣādiq and al-Kāẓim who lived up to the time of al-Riḍā, thus, he is not an eyewitness of this debate and likely heard it from al-Ṣādiq or another companion from among our fellows (see footnote 85 below).
[85] The same report beginning, “ʿAlī was seated in Masjid Kufa …” i.e. without the preface which places it in the context of Abu Jaʿfar’s conversation with al-Ḥakam b. ʿUtayba is preserved by Ṣadūq who is quoting directly from the early work of Muḥammad b. Qays al-Bajalī, a companion of al-Bāqir and al-Ṣadiq, entitled Qaḍāyā Amīr al-Muʿminīn (The Book of the Judgments of the Commander of the Faithful). The report ends with al-Bāqir commenting, “The first one to reject the testimony of slaves was RA-M-ʿU”. This last word is an anagram that should be read in reverse. See Man lā Yaḥḍuruhu al-Faqīh, v. 3, pp. 109-110, n. 3428 (https://lib.eshia.ir/11021/3/109). Ṣadūq’s chain to Muḥammad b. Qays is reliable. See Man lā Yaḥḍuruhu al-Faqīh, v. 4, pp. 526-527 (https://lib.eshia.ir/11021/4/526).
[86] Abū al-Zinād reports from Ibn Abī Ṣafiyya al-Kūfī who claims to have witness Shurayḥ in the Masjid of Kufa judging on the basis of an oath together with a solitary witness. See Sunan al-Kubrā (Nasāʾī), v. 5, p. 436, n. 5970 (https://shamela.ws/book/8361/8327). Abū al-Zinād also reports that some Kufans opposed their governor ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Zayd b. al-Khaṭṭāb for adopting this practise whereupon, “an elderly man from among their seniors stood up and said: I witnessed Shurayḥ judging on the basis of an oath together with a solitary witness in this same Masjid” See Al-Maṭālib al-ʿĀliya bi-Zawāʾid al-Masānīd al-Thamāniya, v. 10, p. 228, n. 2192 (https://shamela.ws/book/22804/2958).
[87] Al-Umm, v. 7, p. 16 (https://shamela.ws/book/1655/1775).
[88] Kitāb al-Sunna (Marwazī), p. 33, n. 103 (https://shamela.ws/book/13032/89); Sharḥ Madhāhib Ahl al-Sunna (Ibn Shāhīn), p. 46, n. 48 (https://shamela.ws/book/13124/49); Al-Ibāna al-Kubrā (Ibn Baṭṭa), v. 1, p. 253, n. 88 (https://shamela.ws/book/8206/103).
[89] Al-Faqīh wa-l Mutafaqqih (Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī), v. 1, p. 231 (https://shamela.ws/book/13048/274); Jāmiʿ Bayān al-ʿIlm wa Faḍluh (Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr), v. 2, p. 1193, n. 2351 (https://shamela.ws/book/22367/1532).
[90] A useful collection of such reports is provided by Ibn Mulaqqin (d. 804). See Tadhkirat al-Muḥtāj ilā Aḥādīth al-Minhāj, pp. 27-31 (https://shamela.ws/book/9569/20).
[91] Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr attributes it to Ibn Mahdī without giving a chain. See Jāmiʿ Bayān al-ʿIlm wa Faḍluh (Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr), v. 2, p. 1189, n. 2347 (https://shamela.ws/book/22367/1530).
[92] Al-Radd ʿalā Siyar al-Awzāʿī, pp. 24-25 (https://shamela.ws/book/7225/25).
[93] Al-Risāla, pp. 224-225, nn. 617-618 (https://shamela.ws/book/8180/314).
[94] This is what Bayhaqī, a follower of Shāfiʿī, understood. He states, “It is as if he (i.e. Shāfiʿī) is referring to (the report) … Abū Yūsuf said: Khālid b. Abī Karīma narrated to us from Abī Jaʿfar from the Messenger of Allah that he (i.e. the Messenger) called the Jews …” See Al-Madkhal ilā Al-Sunan al-Kubrā (Bayhaqī), v. 1, p. 131 (https://shamela.ws/book/39268/221).
[95] Tahdhīb al-Kamāl, v. 8, pp. 156-157, n. 1647 (https://shamela.ws/book/3722/3868). Refer to footnote 1 on p. 157 which corrects the misconception that Yaḥyā b. Maʿīn had weakened him. In fact, Yaḥyā referred to him as thiqa and thabt. See Taʾrīkh Baghdād, v. 9, pp. 226-227 (https://shamela.ws/book/736/5127). Khālid was not an Imami, however, the fact that he had reports from al-Bāqir meant that he came to the attention of our scholars. Najāshī gives a chain to a nuskha of ḥadīth that Khālid narrated from al-Bāqir. Note that the Wakīʿ in the chain is Wakīʿ b. al-Jarrāḥ. See Rijāl al-Najāshī, p. 151, n. 396 (https://lib.eshia.ir/14028/1/151).
[96] Al-Kāfī, v. 1, pp. 173-174, n. 207 (https://lib.eshia.ir/27311/1/174).
[97] I consulted for those who support the practise: Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr’s Al-Tamhīd, v. 2, pp. 159-161 (https://shamela.ws/book/236/862) and Ibn Qayyim’s Al-Ṭuruq al-Ḥukmiyya fī al-Siyāsa al-Sharʿiyya, v. 1, pp. 359-361 (https://shamela.ws/book/18159/456). For those who oppose the practise: Al-Jaṣṣāṣ’s Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, v. 2, pp. 247-254 (https://shamela.ws/book/23579/645).
[98] Al-Maḥāsin, v. 1, p. 156, n. 87 (https://lib.eshia.ir/15101/1/156).
[99] Al-Kāfī, v. 15, pp. 260-261, n. 14895 (https://lib.eshia.ir/27311/15/261).
Shiitic Studies 