T31443 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO Dare March 4 9. \Gas Khar Zaman __03/20 60 ‘Author Birth Date The evolution of a hadith: transmission Title of Dissereation arouth and the Seronca of rifa ina bedi th of Sad b. Ali Waqgyas Nese East. nd Gye. 2d Department oF Convocation | Permission is herewith granted to the University of Chicago to make copies of the above title, at its discretion, upon the request of individuals or institutions and at their expense. Extensive Quotation or Further Reproduction of This Material by Persons or Agencies Other than the University of Chicago May Not Be Made without the Express Permission of the Writer. fntd ) 19 9¢ Sof Date filmed ‘Number of pager Note:UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO ‘THE EVOLUTION OF A HADITH: ‘TRANSMISSION, GROWTH AND THE SCIENCE OF RAL IN A HADITH OF SA‘D B. ABI WAQQAS ADISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO ‘THE FACUTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE HUMANITIES IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF NEAR EASTERN LANGUAGES AND CIVILIZATIONS BY IFTIKHAR ZAMAN CHICAGO, ILLINOIS MARCH 1991PREFACE Al-Hakam b. Nafi* related to us that Shu‘ayb told us of Zuhri that he said: “Amir b. Sad related to me regarding Sa‘d b. Abi Waqgas that he told him that the Messenger of God 2%! said: “You will be rewarded for whatever expenditure you undertake for God's pleasure, even to the morsel of food you put in your wife's mouth.” (Abu “Abdullah al-Bukhari, ALjami* al-sahih, #56) Muslims have recorded sayings and deeds of the Prophet, such as the one quoted above, by the thousands. There are a large number of such records, known as hadiths, transmitted through Various chains of narration. Often a single text will be recorded with numerous minor and major variants. This, as I see it, is the source of the problem of hadith literature: what is one to make of the many variants of a single text, all of which purport to record a single event? Early Muslim scholars of hadith literature recognized this problem and developed methods to solve it. By analyzing the various texts and the narrators through whom these texts were transmitted they attempted to categorize the narrators in terms of their reliability in transmitting the texts. Using this information on the characteristics of narrators they developed classes for the various versions of a hadith, ranging from “authentic” to “forged.” 1 have used this sigham for the Arabic sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam (“May God send blessings and peace on him") which is commonly used after the name of the Prophet Muhammad 2, in two ways. ‘Where I have used the Prophet's name in my own text, Thave used it to dispense of my own religious duty in this regard to say this prayer for the Prophet when I write his name. Also, where I present Arabic toxt ‘quoted in transliteration, and the original actually contains this prayer, I have referred to the occurrence of this prayer in that text by inserting this siglum in its place, To have transliterated every occurrence of this prayer in quoted Arabic texts would have made the already difficult task of reading Arabic in transliteration even more difficult,