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Kitāb Sulaym ibn Qays revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2015

Tamima Bayhom-Daou
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Abstract

Kitāb Sulaym is possibly the earliest Shīʿī work in existence and analysis of its constituent reports could shed light on aspects of early Shīʿī thought and doctrine. This paper examines one of its reports on the subject of ikhtilāf in Prophetic ḥadīth between the Shīʿa and their opponents, and the related subjects of the status of the Companions of the Prophet and the Prophet's transmission of his knowledge to ʿAlī. It suggests dates and contexts for the composition of the report and the updating it seems to have undergone. It shows that the report reflects moderate Imāmī attitudes and doctrines similar to those attested for other leading pre-ghayba Imāmīs.

Keywords

Shīʿī ḤadīthQuranTafsīrIkhtilāfStatus of the CompanionsKnowledge of the imāmsʿIṣmaPre-ghayba Imāmism
Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 78 , Issue 1 , February 2015 , pp. 105 - 119
Copyright
Copyright © SOAS, University of London 2015 

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Footnotes

For Professor Hawting

References

1 See, for example, Moktar Djebli, “Sulaym b. Ḳays”, in Encyclopedia of Islam (EI), second ed.

2 Modarressi, Hossein, Tradition and Survival: A Bibliographical Survey of Early Shīʿite Literature (Oxford, 2003), IGoogle Scholar, 82–6.

3 Crone, P., “Mawālī and the Prophet's family: an early Shīʿite view”, in Bernards, M. and Nawas, J. (eds), Patronate and Patronage in Early and Classical Islam (Leiden and Boston, 2005), 167–94Google Scholar.

4 This may also be suggested by the fact that the available manuscripts vary in length and the number of traditions they include. For an account of the available manuscripts, the tradition on the transmission of the work and tables of contents following the three-volume edition by M.B. al-Anṣārī (Qumm, 1415/1995), see the article by Amir-Moezzi, M.A., “Note bibliographique sur le Kitāb Sulaym b. Qays, le plus ancien ouvrage shiʿite existant”, in Le shīʿisme imāmite quarante ans après: Hommage à Etan Kohlberg (Turnhout, 2009), 33–48Google Scholar.

5 As far as I know, the earliest references to Sulaym as the author of a book are in Masʿūdī (d. 346/957), K. al-Tanbīh waʾl-Ishrāf (Beirut, 1388/1968), 198Google Scholar; al-Nuʿmānī (d. 360/970), Kitāb al-ghayba (Tehran, 1318/1900), 47Google Scholar; Kashshī (d. 368/978), in Mostafavi, M. (ed.), Ikhtiyār maʿrifat al-rijāl (Mashhad, 1348/1929), 104Google Scholar; Ibn al-Nadīm (d. 380/990) in Tajaddud, Riḍā (ed.), al-Fihrist (Tehran, 1971), 275Google Scholar.

6 I analysed this report in the last chapter of my PhD thesis, “The Imāmī Shīʿī conception of the knowledge of the Imām and the sources of religious doctrine in the formative period: from Hishām b. al-Ḥakam to Kulīnī”, London, School of Oriental and African Studies, 1996, 182–221 (200–9 for the report from Sulaym), where I tried to show that much of Kulīnī’s traditions on Imāmī legal theory and the imām's knowledge preserve earlier conceptions and that some material had undergone updating in order to bring it into line with current Imāmī thought. Here, the analysis will be expanded: it will cover the report's attitude to the Companions of the Prophet and transmitters of his ḥadīth, and suggestions regarding the dates of the report and its constituent parts will be made.

7 Kitāb Sulaym ibn Qays al-Kūfī, ed. al-ʿAlawī al-Ḥasanī al-Najafī (Beirut, 1414/1994), 94–6Google Scholar. This edition, like the first edition published in Najaf in 1361/1942, is based on a manuscript that once belonged to al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī (d. 1104/1693). See also Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb al-Kulīnī, in Alī Akbar Ghaffārī (ed.), al-Kāfī (Beirut, 1401/1980)Google Scholar, fourth ed., 8 vols, I, 62–4.

8 He is Abān ibn Abī ʿAyyāsh (d. c.138/755), said to have been a disciple of three of the imāms: ʿAli ibn al-Ḥusayn, M. al-Bāqir and Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq. On his role as the transmitter to whom Sulaym is said to have entrusted his whole work, see Kitab Sulaym, 58–60. See also, al-Kashshi, Rijāl, 104; Ibn al-Nadim, Fihrist, 275; Modarressi, Tradition and Survival, 85f.

9 On Kulīnī and the problem of ikhtilāf al-ḥadīth, see my “Imāmī Shīʿī conception”, 200–9.

10 Kulīnī, al-Kāfī, I, 173.

11 Al-Ḥasan ibn Mūsā al-Nawbakhtī, in Ritter, Hellmut (ed.), Firaq al-Shīʿa (Istanbul, 1931), 16Google Scholar; Kitāb Sulaym, 72f.

12 EI 2, s.vv. “Abū Dharr”, “Salmān al-Fārisī”, “al-Miḳdād b. ʿAmr”.

13 I see this as the main role of the three Companions in this report. In his excellent article on the report's conception of the hermeneutics of Prophetic ḥadīth, also in this volume, Robert Gleave sees in it evidence for pre-ghayba attempts to establish scholarly authority as an alternative to that of the imāms. His main argument is that (the first part of) the report does not contain a straightforward statement to the effect that only those ḥadīths transmitted through ʿAlī were valid. However, for Sulaym the ḥadīths of the three Companions (and presumably of any other transmitters) require confirmation by ḥadīths from ʿAlī to acquire validity; see the next note. Moreover, the second part of the report (which Gleave does not tackle) is unambiguous in that the ability to transmit perfectly is exclusively held by ʿAli and the imāms due to their comprehensive knowledge being derived from personal instruction by the Prophet and to being granted immunity against forgetfulness, distortion of meaning, etc.

14 For example, 58ff. (on the status of the ahl al-bayt and their Shīʿa), 61 (on the doctrine of rajʿa), 84f. (on the Prophet describing ʿAlī as the most excellent of men), 164 (on the Prophet honouring ʿAlī and defending him against ʿĀʾisha's criticism).

15 Abū’l-Ḥusayn al-Khayyāṭ, in Nyberg, H. (ed.), Kitāb al-intiṣār waʾl-radd ʿalā Ibn al-Rāwandī al-mulḥid (Baghdad, 2010), 68Google Scholar, 104; Abū ʾl-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, in Ritter, Hellmut (ed.), Maqālāt al-Islāmiyyīn, second ed. (Wiesbaden, 1963), 16Google Scholar, 57; see also note 22 below.

16 Kohlberg, Etan, “Some Imāmī Shīʿī views on the ṣaḥāba”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 5, 1984, 143–75Google Scholar, esp. 144.

17 Kohlberg, Etan, “Some Zaydī views on the companions of the Prophet”, BSOAS, 39, 1976, 91–8Google Scholar, esp. 92.

18 Nawbakhtī, Firaq al-Shīʿa, 48–50.

19 On the believing sinner as a munāfiq who occupies a middle position between a believer and an unbeliever, see J. van Ess, “al-Manzila bayn al-manzilatayn”, in EI 2.

20 Exonerating non-Shīʿī Muslims who transmitted false or erroneous ḥadīth from the Companions on the grounds of not knowing that it was fabricated, a misinterpretation, or abrogated appears in connection with three of the four categories of transmitters described in section C and is expressed by statements such as “if Muslims had known it was a misinterpretation they would not have accepted it”.

21 Madelung, W., “Imāmism and Muʿtazilite theology” in Fahd, T. (ed.), Le Shîʿisme imâmite (Paris, 1979), 14Google Scholar, n. 2.

22 Khayyāṭ, al-Intiṣār, 104.

23 ʿAbd al-Jabbār, in ʿAbd al-KarīmʿUthmān (ed.), Tathbīt dalāʾil al-nubuwwa (Beirut, 1966), I, 223–5Google Scholar, II, 447–8.

24 On the work of Hishām as the basis of the first part of Nawbakhtīʾs work, see Madelung, Wilferd, “Bemerkungen zur imamitischen Firaq-Literatur”, Der Islam, 43, 1967, 37–52Google Scholar; English translation: “Some remarks on the Imāmī firaq literature”, in Kohlberg, E. (ed.), Shīʿism (Aldershot, 2003), 153–67Google Scholar. See also the author's “Hishām b. al-Ḥakam (d. 179/795) and his doctrine of the imām's knowledge”, Journal of Semitic Studies, 48/1, 2003, 71–108Google Scholar.

25 Nawbakhtī, Firaq al-Shīʿa, 19.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid., 21.

28 Ibid., 16. Later on in that passage (17, lines 8–9) the Imāmiyya are said to charge with kufr (unbelief), ḍalāl (misguidance) and shirk (polytheism) all those who oppose ʿAlī’s successors and take other imāms. I would suggest that this is probably a later interpolation (possibly by Nawbakhtī himself) as it does not fit in with the view, which we find in other sections, of how and by whom the Shīʿī takfīr of opponents came about. It does not make sense that in presenting the Imāmī position Hishām would be reluctant to charge with kufr those who refused to recognize ʿAlī and would ascribe takfīr to other non-Imāmī followers of ʿAlī, but then go on to charge with kufr the opponents of all the other Imāmī imāms. On other evidence of Nawbakhtī’s updating of Hishām, see Bayhom-Daou, “Hishām b. al-Ḥakam”.

29 Pseudo-Nāshiʾ, “Uṣūl al-niḥal” in van Ess, Josef (ed.), Frühe muʿtazilitische Häresiographie. Zwei Werke des Nāšiʾ al-akbar (Beirut, 1971), 42–4Google Scholar.

30 Ibid., 22, 24, 25.

31 Crone, Patricia, Medieval Islamic Political Thought (Edinburgh, 2004), 73–5Google Scholar.

32 On the Zaydiyya, see van Ess, Josef, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert der Hidschra: eine Geschichte des religiösen Denkens im frühen Islam, 6 vols (Berlin and New York, 1991–5), I, 239–72Google Scholar. Although specific ideas about the knowledge of Āl Muḥammad are sometimes attributed to Abū l-Jārūd (d.c.150/767), the eponymous founder of the Jārūdī Zaydiyya, it is more likely that those ideas were formulated by his Jārūdī successors and against the Imāmī thesis that the Prophet's knowledge was handed down within a hereditary line of imāms; see W. Madelung, “Abuʾl-Jārūd Hamdānī” in Encyclopaedia Iranica; ps.-Nāshiʾ, “Uṣūl al-niḥal”, 43; cf. Nawbakhtī (from Hishām), Firaq al-Shīʿa, 48–50, where those ideas are attributed to the Sarḥūbiyya (namely Jārūdiyya) and not to a particular figure among them.

For a perceptive interpretation and the argument that the formation of Imāmism did not take place until the time of Mūsā al-Kāẓim (d. 183/799), see Crone, Political Thought, 110–18. Hishām ibn al-Ḥakam was active during al-Kāẓim's time and, as evidence suggests, he was responsible for formulating much of the early Imāmī doctrine of the imāmate: Bayhom-Daou, “Hishām b. al-Ḥakam”.

33 It used to be widely accepted that these hermeneutic categories were known since the time of Shāfīʿī. However, Norman Calder has argued in favour of redating Shāfiʿī’s work to c. 300 a.h. on the basis that later Sunnī discussions of uṣūl were not familiar with much of Shāfiʿī’s arguments, including his ʿāmm/khāṣṣ principle; see his Studies in Early Muslim Jurisprudence (Oxford, 1993)Google Scholar. The debate is ongoing with Melchert in favour of redating, and Lowry in favour of the traditional dating of Shāfiʿī’s work; Ch. Melchert, “Qurʾānic abrogation across the ninth century: Shāfiʿī, Abū ʿUbayd, Muḥāsibī and Ibn Qutaybah”, in Weiss, Bernard G. (ed.), Studies in Islamic Legal Theory (Leiden, 2002), 75–98Google Scholar; Lowry, Joseph, “The legal hermeneutics of al-Shāfiʿī and Ibn Qutayba: a reconsideration”, Islamic Law and Society, 11/1, 2004, 1–41Google Scholar.

34 For example, “Ayyāshī Muḥammad ibn Masʿūd ibn ʿAyyāsh al-Sulamī al-Samarqandī”, in Hāshim al-Rasūlī al-Maḥallātī (ed.), Tafsīr (Beirut, 1411/1991)Google Scholar, reprint of Qumm 1380 a.h. I, 22–3.

35 Daou, “Imāmī Shīʿī conception”, 182–221. See also Bayhom-Daou, “The imam's knowledge and the Quran according to al-Faḍl ibn Shādhān al-Nīsābūrī (d. 260 A.H./874 A.D.)”, BSOAS, 64/2, 2001,188–207Google Scholar.

36 Bayhom-Daou, “al-Faḍl b. Shādhān”, 194f.

37 Bayhom-Daou, “al-Faḍl b. Shādhān”, 194–8.

38 Ibid.

39 Kulīnī, al-Kāfī, I, 64.

40 Bayhom-Daou, “Hishām b. al-Ḥakam”; Bayhom-Daou, “al-Faḍl b. Shādhān”; Daou, “Imāmī Shīʿī conception”, ch. 3, for the views of Yūnus ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (d. 208/823).

41 Daou, “Imāmī Shīʿī conception”, ch. 3, 113–36.

42 Acceptance of inspiration would have made the emphasis on transmission appear less important if not altogether redundant, as an imām could then be said to acquire all the knowledge he needs directly from divine sources. Two of the disputing groups in the child-imām controversy are said to have held such a view of the function of inspiration and proposed it as a solution to the problem of child-imāms, whereas others proposed the idea of written transmission; Nawbakhtī, Firaq al-Shīʿa, 74–6.