Who Moved My Sanad ? - Another History of Isnād in the Transmission and Conveyance of Ḥadīth and Sunnah

This paper investigates the beginning of a phenomenon observed amongst later ḥadīth compilers that is the omission of sanads from some of their works dedicated to conveying the ḥadīths of Prophet Muḥammad. Some of them produced another specific work to present the ḥadīths with sanads and others may resort to compiling only sanads in their thabat or records of ijāzāt and samāʿāt (audition certificates). This phenomenon speaks volumes about the authority of sanad and isnād in later Muslim intellectual tradition. Since many modern studies have mostly accorded its attention to the dating and function of isnād methodology, and expectedly of the formative periods of Islam, the study of sanad omission from a ḥadīth treatise has been completely neglected although it should have been examined carefully, in particular on the reception of and responses to the phenomenon amongst the scholars of ḥadīth. This paper argues that the Egyptian judge, Muḥammad ibn Salāmah al-Quḍāʿī (454AH) shall be recognised as the first ḥadīth scholar to produce a ḥadīth treatise whose ḥadīths are not accompanied by sanad. He dedicated another work to preserve its sanads and by so doing, introduced the mujarrad-musnad method into ḥadīth literature. His mujarrad collection titled Shihāb al-Akhbār gained incredible praise and became one of the most memorised works of ḥadīth. The method of mujarrad has also been emulated by other eminent ḥadīth scholars such as al-Daylamī and al-Nawawī and contributed to the successful dissemination of ḥadīths in later Muslim communities.


Introduction
Sanad, as a chain of narration consisting of mostly nominal references to the transmitters involved in receiving and conveying the ḥadīth of Prophet Muḥammad, has been given abundant attention in modern studies. With the revival of ḥadīth re-verification activities in modern times, the concentration on sanad has increased dramatically and academic studies surrounding sanad literature have gained more acceptance in higher learning institutions. 1 The surge of online classes during the Covid-19 pandemic has also contributed to the revitalisation of ijāzāh tradition where sanads can be granted virtually and promptly to the attendees across the globe. With the rise of sanad culture, there seems to be a significant concern with the adequacy of attention afforded to the study of its counterpart that is the matn (the text) of the ḥadīths. It is true that in the medieval era, participants in ḥadīth learning and praxis have been generally divided into two groups: those who were heavily inclined towards the rigour of sanad compilation and scrutinization, and those who propagated the primacy of meaning i.e., the content of the ḥadīth texts. The usual Arabic reference to this dichotomy is the riwāyah versus dirāyah tension. A number of treatises germane to principles of ḥadīth criticism have alluded to this concern in the past. 2 Moreover, this methodological bifurcation has impinged upon ḥadīth evaluation and utilisation until today. Issues such as the prevalence of sanad criticism over matn criticism, the function of sanad for non-legal subjects, and the origin of sanad culture are amongst those of interest to modern critical assessment. Although early modern criticism of ḥadīth, attended mainly by the orientalists, bolstered scepticism towards sanad authenticity and tradition, the study of sanad continues to thrive and to a certain extent has been adopted even outside the field of ḥadīth studies. Nevertheless, studies on the history of sanad in general and how particular sanad may inform our understanding of its history still require more efforts and dedication. It is our aim from this paper to contribute to this endeavour by studying a phenomenon in the history of sanad that is the omission of sanad from works dedicated to the transmission or conveyance of ḥadīth and Sunnah.

Dating the Early History of Sanad and Isnād
In general, modern academic scholarship particularly in the West, consists of two nominal camps, whom Herbert Berg in his study generally named sceptical and sanguine, in relation to their attitudes to Islamic literary sources and by extension the ḥadīths preserved within them. 3 The sceptics are identified with certain key ideas such as the back-projection of ḥadīth by the Muslims of early centuries, the historicity of the genesis of Islam, and the possible manipulation and fabrication in the corpus of Islamic history. The sanguine scholars, on the other hand, are deemed more confident with the Islamic sources and materials including ḥadīth. At stake is the value of sanad, its authority and chronological history. With the adoption of the modern Historical Critical Method, 4 the genesis and legitimacy of sanad have been revisited and mostly contested for the historical accounts consulted by Muslim scholars to establish its history were predominantly constructed by the sanad literature itself, and hence regarded close to self-proving fallacy or petition principii.
One famous account often brought up in such a debate is the statement of the successor of the companion of Prophet Muḥammad, known as Ibn Sīrīn (110AH). It was reported that he said: "They never used to ask about isnād; however, when the fitnah (discord) dominated, they would say: "Name your informants."" 5 Two general attitudes towards this statement have been observed in contemporary scholarship. The first takes the view that the statement was concocted to back-project an early development of isnād since the fitnah will be interpreted as referring to the earliest instance of civil war amongst the Muslims. 6 The second group trusts the substance of this narration, but they differ on identifying the fitnah referred to by Ibn Sīrīn. To briefly sum up the views of the second group, the fitnah was associated with one of the following events: (1) the assassination of the third Rāshidūn caliph, ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān (35AH), (2) the civil war between the supporters of ʿAlī and the supporters of  -Naysābūrī Muslim, al-Musnad al-Ṣaḥīḥ al-Mukhtaṣar Min al-Sunan Bi Naql al-ʿadl ʿan al-ʿAdl Ilā Rasul Allah, ed. Naẓar Muḥammad al-Fāriyābī (Riyadh: Dār Ṭaybah, 2006)  Abī ʿUbayd al-Thaqafī (67AH) against the Umayyad caliphate, (5) the armed fight between the camp of ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr and the Umayyad governor al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf al-Thaqafī that took place around the year 72AH, and (6) the assassination of the Umayyad caliph al-Walīd ibn Yazīd in 126AH. The first five views located the introduction of systematic isnād between the first half and the second half of the first Hijrī century, whilst the last view dated it to the second Hijrī century.
Regardless of the various views on the intended fitnah by the statement, there are numerous other accounts that reflect the notion of sanad or isnād during the same range of time. 7 In this paper, I will only present a personal conclusion derived from those accounts.
First of all, it should be noted that although some scholars took sanad and isnād as synonyms, there are others who differentiated between the two. 8 For them, sanad refers to the chain of narrators in the act of transmission, whilst isnād is the act of mentioning the sanad or the ascription of a certain ḥadīth text to the one who transmitted it from his informant. 9 Sanad, thus, is the object and isnād is the action. Considering this, sanad can be said to have been around even though the conscious systematic method of isnād has not yet been widespread.
Nevertheless, the general phases of sanad can be chronologically ordered as follows: a) Conversational sanad, occasionally instructional sanad At this phase, sanad was occasionally part of natural conversation and appears organically as often observed from the oral culture of ancient and medieval societies. The terms musnid, musnad and isnād have not been used technically. It was natural to find a person to sometimes mention the name of his teacher or informant to his audience. Historical reports on the first Hijri century generally reflect this phase.

b) Confessional sanad
As explicit in its name, the phase of confessional sanad reflects the conflict and dispute between factions, parties or sects. It does not necessarily involve systematic critical assessment of statement, report or narration in terms of its logical coherence, its linguistic aspect or its conformity to established principles or conventions. The main observation of sanad during this phase was the conformity of its narrators or content to the position of the faction or group. In general, the second phase of the first Hijrī century fits this vision. The term isnād may have been used to qualify a successful fulfilment of the criteria of confessional sanad. The statement of Ibn Sīrīn above can be said to refer to this phase although it is interesting to note that his statement does not necessarily pin down the beginning of the fitnah. The Arabic falammā waqaʿat al-fitnah could also indicate "as the fitnah reached its peak," in which case, it can be located in the next century.

c) Critical sanad
The beginning of the critical evaluation of sanad has been the point of contention in modern debates regarding the credibility of classical ḥadīth criticism. 10 The main indication stipulated for the dating of this phase is the consistent attachment of sanad to a ḥadīth. It is perhaps befitting here to suggest that the phase of adopting critical sanad begins with the conscious distinction between musnad and mursal. Musnad indicates that the sanad is cited completely whilst in mursal, the transmission is fast-forwarded that it effectuates the omission of some narrators from the chain of transmission, usually two intermediaries between a successor and the Prophet. In other words, the emphasis now is accorded more to the continuity of transmission and the quality of unbroken chain compared to the confessional dimension of the narrator or his integrity in the previous phase. I have elaborated on the transition from the terms musnad vs mursal to the terms muttaṣil vs munqaṭiʿ within the ḥadīth circle in another paper. 11 In short, this phase was the longest in the history of isnād and it seems not interrupted until the omission of sanad from ḥadīth works took place. This will be discussed in the coming section.

d) Customary sanad
The main feature of this phase is that the action of isnād is no longer associated with the critical assessment of its narrators and the text with which it is attached. for maintaining the tradition or blessings. 12 Ḥadīth masters may also provide a sanad for the whole book or compendium rather than presenting a specific sanad for each particular ḥadīth.
Although scholars are still verifying certain sanads, the essential sanads are said to have been completely reported in the written works of the muḥaddithūn. Oral transmission is no longer, then, regarded as the focal point for verification.

Which Muḥaddith Removed the Sanad?
It is a known fact that not all genres of Islamic literature incorporated sanads in presenting its traditions. Although some early tafsīr and sīrah works, for instance, adopted the method of sanad, it is not strange to find works of early scholars especially from outside the Sunnī tradition ignoring the practice of isnād. For this reason, our investigation of the history of sanad omission will be confined to works dedicated to transmitting or conveying ḥadīths composed or compiled by a prominent figure well-versed in ḥadīth tradition. We believe that this will better reflect the development of ḥadīth tradition within the circle of ḥadīth itself.
Perhaps the first to point out this subject, even casually, was a Yemenite Tarim luminary Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAlawī Kharid BāʿAlawī al-Ḥusaynī (960AH). In his Ghurar al-Bahāʾ al-Ḍawī, he ascribed ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Jadīd (620AH) as "the first to omit sanads from ḥadīths, as he merely writes "from the Messenger of Allah PBUH." Later authors followed suit and approved this act of his." 13 Moreover, Kharid BāʿAlawī praised this "invention" and wrote again in the same book: "This legal scholar ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad was the first individual to omit all sanads of ḥadīths and attributed the texts immediately to the one who transmitted them directly from the Prophet PBUH (i.e., the Companions). This is a noble virtue which earns him high praise from the giants amongst the scholars and the muḥaddithūn." 14 The fact that he mentioned that even the muḥaddithūn praised this new method is quite unsettling as it is not a common perception of the scholars of the field. Indeed, Kharid BāʿAlawī"s appraisal of this act as praiseworthy was questioned by Muḥammad BāDhīb citing the famous aphorism "the isnād is part of the dīn." 15 A removal of sanad should not then be considered as laudable. BāDhīb also added another fact that Ibn Jadīd was not the first to omit sanads from ḥadīths, rather the method was already adopted by the teacher of Ibn Jadīd"s teachers -Muḥammad ibn Saʿīd ibn Maʿan al-Qurayẓī (757AH). He removed all sanads in his work al-Mustaṣfā in which he combined the content of the six canonical compendia with that of al-Muwaṭṭāʾ. 16 We can verify this claim by examining the published version of al-Mustaṣfā. It is indeed observed that the book is devoid of sanads and the author himself emphasised ikhtiṣār complete original did not survive, however the abridged which is al-Najm presented its ḥadīths without any sanad. 21 It is highly possible that the original too was without any sanad since al-Uqlīshī did not mention any other differences between the two except for the length of ḥadīth texts presented in them. In al-Najm, al-Uqlīshī stated: "Since I have compiled al-Ghurar min Kalām Sayyid al-Bashar, and placed within it ḥadīths with lengthy texts, and it has therefore posed great challenges for many to memorise them, I decided to excerpt ḥadīths with simple wordings (in this separate work) so it will be more accessible for the lessons and easier to be memorised, and I name it al-Najm." 22 In short, al-Qurayẓī was definitely preceded by al-Uqlīshī in applying this method of removing sanads. The statement of Kharid BāʿAlawī then, can only be understood in the sense that Ibn Jadīd was perhaps the first amongst the ʿAlawiyyīn or his circle to adopt this method.
We are left with the question of whether al-Uqlīshī can be regarded as the first to omit sanads from ḥadīths. We must also recall that our aim is to find the first to do so amongst those who are active in riwāyah and dirāyah, i.e., transmission and understanding of ḥadīth, since the omission of sanads by other groups such as the exegetes, legal scholars and chroniclers has been definitely practised since an early time. provided the sanad for all ḥadīths presented in Shihāb al-Akhbār. Thus, we can conclude safely that the omission of sanads from the ḥadīth work was not due to unavailability or any potential defects from al-Quḍāʿī"s view, rather the method was introduced by him for a specific reason, which he mentioned in the work, "so that it will be more accessible for everyone and easier for memorisation." To further clarify the method of al-Quḍāʿī, let us consider the following example. For  according to what he has intended. So, whoever emigrated for the sake of Allah This conduct of al-Quḍāʿī has left several impacts on the classical studies of ḥadīth.
First of all, al-Quḍāʿī pioneered the method of composing two separate works for the same set of ḥadīth. One would be known by its original title and the other"s title will begin with the term Musnad. This adds a new connotation for this term as it indicates that a musnad is a work composed for a set of ḥadīth relayed in another work without their sanads. Secondly, we also learn the opposite term for musnad -as a ḥadīth supported with sanad. al-Quḍāʿī wrote: "This is a compendium in which I provided the sanads for all those I recounted in the book Shihāb, namely the aphorisms, counsels and directions for refined behaviour.
Whosoever wishes to read only the texts of the sayings masrūdatan mujarradatan (enumerated and devoid of sanad) shall consult that work. And whosoever wishes to know the sanad shall look up this compendium." 27 al-Quḍāʿī uses here the term mujarrad. It indicates a treatise where the sanad is removed from a text of ḥadīth which was previously attached to it. The act should be called tajrīd and understood as the opposite of the act of isnād. It is, therefore, convenient to substantively say that a ḥadīth is either musnad (attached with a sanad) or mujarrad (devoid of it). The musnad, then, is either muttaṣil (with unbroken chain) or munqaṭiʿ (with discontinuity). Moreover, the term has also been approved by later ḥadīth scholars such as al-Dhahabī. In his account of al-Quḍāʿī, al-Dhahabī stated: "He was a judge in the court of Egypt … he was the author of Shihāb in both its forms; mujarrad and musnad." 28 Amongst the contemporary scholars, the Saudi renowned figure Bakr Abū Zayd included the collection of mujarrad ḥadīth texts as a form of takhrīj or ḥadīth retracement practised by early compilers of ḥadīth. 29 However, Abū Zayd opined that the renowned student of al-Nasāʾī, known by the name Abū Bakr Ibn al-Sunnī (364AH) was the first to compile the mutūn (texts) in mujarrad form. This is due to a statement by al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Rajab al-Ḥanbalī that reads: Nevertheless, there has been no clear evidence on the composition of text-only ḥadīth work amongst those before al-Quḍāʿī. In addition to this, it was also the method of al-Quḍāʿī that has been acknowledged as a model by those who adopted the same or similar method after him. This will be demonstrated in the discussion below. It is highly important to note here that al-Quḍāʿī"s composition in both mujarrad and musnad styles has contributed to a significant discussion on the concept of preservation of ḥadīth and Sunnah. The aim of mujarrad was to facilitate the preservation and practice of ḥadīth and Sunnah through memorisation. To achieve this aim, al-Quḍāʿī was ready even to remove the sanads which have been the core business of ḥadīth scholars for centuries. Nevertheless, the value of the sanads epistemically and pedagogically has never been compromised to the extent that he the form of literary works. He gave due credit to both the sanad and the meaning of the ḥadīths, and invited both the common and the scholars to engage in ḥadīth learning and practice.

The Legacy of Mujarrad-Musnad Method
Keeping the above concern of exploring the development within the circle of ḥadīth, we will continue to probe into the emulation of al-Quḍāʿī"s method, particularly the tajrīd,   Shihāb. Apart from explicitly mentioning his exploit of al-Shihāb in the title, Abū Shujāʿ also omitted all sanads from his work, exactly in the same style of tajrīd applied by al-Quḍāʿī. 41 Then, it was the former"s son, Abū Manṣūr Shahrdār, who arduously provided all the sanads in a subsequent work which has been famously known as Musnad al-Firdaws. 42 This is definitely a clear example of the adoption of the mujarrad-musnad method.
Finally, the aforementioned works of al-Uqlīshī constituted another legacy of the tajrīd method. al-Uqlīshī first composed his book al-Ghurar. Then he extracted ḥadīths that fulfil two conditions: the wordings should be short and they were not already recounted by al-Quḍāʿī in al-Shihāb. He named the abridged version al-Najm and made it approximately similar to the size of al-Shihāb. 43 Some have also considered this work an addendum for Shihāb al-Akhbār. 44 Ultimately, he produced al-Kawkab al-Durrī whose ḥadīths were not present in al-Najm but contributed to his vision of offering an outstanding work with similar aims and styles to al-Najm, and of course, al-Shihāb.

Conclusion
The history of sanad and isnād lies at the heart of the construct of Islamic intellectual tradition, especially for the Sunnis, since sanad forms the foundational blocks for the legitimacy of traditions received from the past. However, dating the systematisation of sanad has been a subject of debate in modern scholarship following the development of certain philosophies and methodologies in historical research. The present author proposes a general timeline for the history of sanad consisting of four phases: 1) conversational sanad, 2) confessional sanad, 3) critical sanad, and 4) customary sanad. To address the main question of this paper which is "who first omitted sanads from a ḥadīth work amongst the muḥaddithūn?", the author highlights the mujarrad-musnad method introduced by the fifth Hijrī century Egyptian judge, Muḥammad ibn Salāmah al-Quḍāʿī. The scholar has been an inspiration for later ḥadīth scholars in the exercise of tajrīd, and since his work Shihāb al-Akhbār receives wide acceptance and students of ḥadīth have been encouraged to memorise it, others emulated his approach. It is important to note that the mujarrad-musnad method did not compromise the authority of sanad. It is rather observed that tajrīd has contributed to the extensive dissemination of ḥadīth in later Muslim communities.