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

Abstract

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.