In the most immediate sense, this book consists of a revised version of

a dissertation submitted to the Department of Near Eastern Languages

and Civilizations of the University of Chicago under the supervision
of Dr. Wadad Kadi. As a project, however, it represents an attempt to
answer a question that perplexed me for many years before I ever sat
down to begin dissertation research: in the history of Sunni Islam, why
are the aayn of al-Bukhr and Muslim so special, what is their true
station, and how did they achieve this status? To rephrase this question
more broadly, what are the origins, nature and applications of authority
in the Sunni adth tradition?
In the West, the study of the Sunni adth tradition has focused
mainly on the Authenticity Questionto what extent does the adth
corpus provide a historically reliable documentation of early Islamic
political, doctrinal and legal history. In its scope (but not in its sources),
the investigation of the Authenticity Question stops in the early and
mid third/ninth century with the appearance of extant documentary
evidence in the form of historical and legal works like the Muwa a of
Mlik and the aayn.
This book is not about the Authenticity Question. It is about the
Sunni adth tradition and its role in Islamic civilization after the
Authenticity Question fades from view. Whether or not the aayn
or any collection of adth truly communicate the original teachings
of Islam across the gulf of time separating us from Muammad is
ultimately beyond the ken of historians. It will remain a question
hobbled as much by the exigencies of faith as a paucity of sources.
How the adth tradition re ects, facilitates and informs the choices that
the Sunni community has made in the thousand some years since its
emergence lies more squarely within the historians purview: the study
of continuity and change in a human tradition. It is my hope that this
book will assist any reader interested in engaging this topic.
Tackling the origins, development and function of the