By Jonathan Brown (Georgetown University)Â
I once found myself trapped on a phone call with an exercised adherent of the Ḥanafī school of Islamic law who made it clear that the conversation was not going to end until I acknowledged that Abū Ḥanīfa (d. 767), the school’s founder, was the greatest Hadith scholar in Islamic history. This is not unheard of, as followers of the Ḥanafī school have, from time to time, strayed into excessive adulation. Such was the case with some staunch Ḥanafīs who claimed that, when Jesus returns, he will rule without exception by the details of Ḥanafī law (thankfully, responsible Ḥanafī scholars reined them in).[1] Nor are Ḥanafīs alone in their love for their tradition or reverence for its founder.
Unique among the founding figures of the four Sunni schools of law, MÄlik b. Anas (d. 795), author the Muwaá¹á¹aʾ, remains uncontroversial and beloved by all. The earliest articulations of Sunni Islam already recognized him as a pillar of Sunni identity, yet even those whom the earliest Sunnis viewed with suspicion, like Abu ḤanÄ«fa’s disciples, Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-ShaybÄnÄ« (d. 805) and AbÅ« YÅ«suf (d. 798), sought out the Muwaá¹á¹aʾ and the opportunity to study with MÄlik. MÄlik became a figure of universal approbation among Sunnis and, as we’ll see, establishing a connection to him was quite appealing to later adherents of the Sunni doctrinal schools of law. MÄlik’s Muwaá¹á¹aʾ represented a collection of common and foundational scriptural evidence for Sunni reasoning on law, at the same time as MÄlik’s own process of legal reasoning in the Muwaá¹á¹aʾ challenged those like AbÅ« ḤanÄ«fa who had adopted a different method. MÄlik’s centrality and universality are revealed by an illustrative, if ultimately marginal and slightly amusing, debate among later, non-MÄlikÄ«, Sunni scholars, one that exemplifies both MÄlik’s standing in the Sunni tradition and that tradition’s occasional lapses into chauvinistic infighting.
In the chapter on sales in the Muwaá¹á¹aʾ, MÄlik narrates from his teacher NÄfiÊ¿, from the Companion Ibn Ê¿Umar, who heard Prophet (may God’s peace and blessings be upon him) say, “Do not make an offer after someone else has made a firm offer†(#2105). MÄlik’s (most?) famous student al-ShÄfiʿī (d. 820) narrates this Hadith from MÄlik in his own work.[2] And al-ShÄfiʿī’s (most?) famous student Ibn Ḥanbal narrates it from him in turn in his famous collection of hadith, the Musnad.[3]
But were these scholars really each the greatest or most illustrious student of their teachers? As the ShÄfiʿī scholar TÄj al-DÄ«n al-SubkÄ« (d. 1370) suggests, one could name students of Imam al-ShÄfiʿī other than Ibn Ḥanbal, ones whose efforts went into building the ShÄfiʿī school of law instead of founding (even if unintentionally) the rival Hanbali school. And, of course, it was no settled matter that MÄlik’s most illustrious student was al-ShÄfiʿī to begin with.
Hadith critics considered the chain of transmission to the Prophet via MÄlik, from NÄfiÊ¿, from Ibn Ê¿Umar to be one of the soundest and most reliable. One famous ShÄfiʿī polymath from Khurasan, AbÅ« Manṣūr al-BaghdÄdÄ« (d. 1037-8), thus extrapolated that the soundest of chains was al-ShÄfiʿī, from MÄlik, from NÄfiÊ¿, from Ibn Ê¿Umar, from the Prophet. This was obvious, he noted, since scholars of Hadith had reached consensus that ‘the most illustrious (ajall)’ transmitter from MÄlik was his student al-ShÄfiʿī. Another scholar, AbÅ« Bakr al-ḤÄzimÄ« (d. 1188-9), compiled a book of Ibn Ḥanbal’s Hadith narrations from al-ShÄfiʿī and with great pomp titled it The Golden Chain (Silsilat al-dhahab).
The Cairene ḤanafÄ« jurist and Hadith scholar Mughulá¹Äy (d. 1361) would not let such claims go uncontested. If we look at those who transmitted MÄlik’s Muwaá¹á¹aʾ from the perspective of Hadith specialists, Mughulá¹Äy asked, was al-ShÄfiʿī really the most accomplished? And in terms of illustriousness, surely the fact that AbÅ« ḤanÄ«fa had narrated Hadiths from MÄlik undermined ShÄfiʿī claims.
Indeed, it seemed that AbÅ« ḤanÄ«fa had narrated one or two Hadiths from MÄlik, as the two great ShÄfiʿī Hadith scholars, al-DÄraquá¹nÄ« (d. 995) and al-Khaá¹Ä«b al-BaghdÄdÄ« (d. 1071), both acknowledged.[4] And, as ḤanafÄ« devotees frequently reminded their peers, did AbÅ« ḤanÄ«fa not enjoy unmatched standing among his competition? Unlike MÄlik or any other early scholar, AbÅ« ḤanÄ«fa had actually narrated Hadiths directly from at least one Companion of the Prophet, namely Anas (though non-ḤanafÄ« Muslim historians retorted that he had only seen Anas and not actually narrated any Hadiths from him).[5] Surely this elevated AbÅ« ḤanÄ«fa above any other narrator of Hadiths or narrators of the Muwaá¹á¹aʾ from MÄlik.
Not so fast! Mughulá¹Äy’s ShÄfiʿī interlocutors in Mamluk Egypt made their objections known. Ibn Ḥajar (d. 1449), known simply as ‘the Hadith master (al-ḥÄfiẓ),’ observed that AbÅ« ḤanÄ«fa’s narrations of Hadiths from MÄlik had not been conclusively established (lam tathbut). Many Hadith scholars had in fact raised doubts about the accuracy of the chains of transmission that were said to prove that AbÅ« ḤanÄ«fa had narrated Hadiths from MÄlik.[6] And Ibn Ḥajar’s famous teacher, Zayn al-DÄ«n al-Ê¿IrÄqÄ« (d. 1404), had pointed out that, even if we were to concede that AbÅ« ḤanÄ«fa had narrated Hadiths from MÄlik, the two narrations that were cited as evidence did not proceed from MÄlik to the Prophet via the Golden Chain of NÄfiÊ¿, from Ibn Ê¿Umar.  And was this not the issue under debate?[7]
If anyone could parry this attack and restore ḤanafÄ« standing in this admittedly marginal debate it would be Mehmet Zahid Kevseri (d. 1952), the last senior academic official (shaykh dars) of the Ottoman Empire and a Hadith scholar whose command of the Islamic sciences and manuscripts continues to dazzle researchers to this day. Kevseri had penned numerous treatises highlighting the ḤanafÄ« school’s excellence. The Syrian judge and famous Islamic scholar, Ê¿AlÄ« al-Ṭaná¹ÄwÄ« (d. 1999), described him with praise very a propos this issue: ‘After I met him, I studied with no one else. Except that he had two fatal flaws: his blind favoritism in favor of AbÅ« ḤanÄ«fa and his hatred of Ibn Taymiyya.’[8]
Sure enough, in 1941 Kevseri composed a short treatise entitled The Firmest Path on MÄlik’s Narration from AbÅ« ḤanÄ«fa and AbÅ« ḤanÄ«fa’s Narration from MÄlik. In it Kevseri meticulously mines obscure manuscripts to establish a related claim (one which is arguably much more consequential), namely that AbÅ« ḤanÄ«fa and MÄlik had met each other in Medina, discussed Islamic law and theology at length and had great esteem for one another. But positive results for the matter of Hadith transmission were not forthcoming. Kevseri was too exact a scholar to look past the problems with the claim, and he concludes that there is no reliable evidence that AbÅ« ḤanÄ«fa narrated Hadiths from MÄlik. It had been well established that AbÅ« ḤanÄ«fa’s son, ḤammÄd, had studied with the author of the Muwaá¹á¹aʾ. In the case of one of the two Hadiths, one Ê¿ImrÄn bin Ê¿Abd al-RahÄ«m (d. 895) had (intentionally or not) switched the segment of the chain ‘IsmÄʿīl from (Ê¿an) ḤammÄd son of (bin) AbÅ« ḤanÄ«fa’ to ‘IsmÄʿīl bin ḤammÄd from (Ê¿an) AbÅ« ḤanÄ«fa…’.[9]
Kevseri no doubt considered this whole argument silly. As he had amply demonstrated elsewhere, Muslims worldwide remained indebted to AbÅ« ḤanÄ«fa in their understanding of law and theology. Narrating the Muwaá¹á¹aʾ or any Hadith from a figure of MÄlik’s stature would be a blessing. But, as Kevseri noted, there is ‘no blessing’ in claiming chains of transmission that are made up.[10]
That scholars devoted time, and even wrote short treatises, exploring the extent to which they could affirm an intellectual connection with MÄlik, no matter how tenuous or marginal, speaks volumes regarding the stature of MÄlik in the Sunni tradition. While MÄlik’s status in later Sunni thought became quasi-legendary, that should not distract us from recognizing the very real role that MÄlik played in the early development of Sunni law and Hadith tradition. The Muwaá¹á¹aʾ played an essential role in the consolidation of what would become Sunnism. The availability of this new translation will offer students of Islam a more direct window into the formation of early Sunni identity, and MÄlik’s role in that process.
Notes:
[1] Ê¿Abd al-Ḥayy al-LaknawÄ«, al-FawÄ’id al-bahiyya fÄ« tarÄjim al-ḥanafiyya (Karachi: QadÄ«mÄ« Kutub-khÄne, n.d.), 6.
[2] AbÅ« JaÊ¿far al-ṬaḥÄwÄ«, al-Sunan al-ma’thÅ«ra li’l-imÄm Muḥammad b. IdrÄ«s al-ShÄfiʿī, ed. Ê¿Abd al-MuÊ¿á¹Ä« AmÄ«n QalÊ¿ajÄ« (Beirut: DÄr al-MaÊ¿rifa, 1986), 279-80.
[3] Aḥmad Ibn Ḥanbal, Musnad (Maymaniyya print numbering), 2:108.
[4] Al-Khaá¹Ä«b al-BaghdÄdÄ«, TÄrÄ«kh BaghdÄd, ed. Muá¹£á¹afÄ Ê¿Abd al-QÄdir Ê¿Aá¹Ä, 14 vols. (Beirut: DÄr al-Kutub al-Ê¿Ilmiyya, 1997), 12:440-1. Al-DhahabÄ« (d. 1348) laconically seems to affirm the claim in his biography of AbÅ« ḤanÄ«fa in his Siyar, but he also notes that Ê¿ImrÄn b. Ê¿Abd al-Raḥīm of Isfahan (d. 281/895) ‘forged the Hadith of AbÅ« ḤanÄ«fa, from MÄlik’; al-DhahabÄ«, Siyar aÊ¿lÄm al-nubalÄ’, ed. ShuÊ¿ayb al-ArnÄ’ūá¹, et al., 25 vols. (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-RisÄla, 1992–98), 6:392; idem, MÄ«zÄn al-iÊ¿tidÄl fÄ« naqd al-rijÄl, ed. Ê¿AlÄ« Muḥammad al-BijÄwÄ«, 4 vols. (Beirut: DÄr al-MaÊ¿rifa [no date], reprint of 1963–64 Cairo ʿĪsÄ al-BÄbÄ« al-ḤalabÄ« ed.), 3:238.
[5] Al-Khaá¹Ä«b and other Hadith scholars acknowledged that AbÅ« ḤanÄ«fa had seen Anas b. MÄlik; al-Khaá¹Ä«b, TÄrÄ«kh BaghdÄd, 13:325.
[6] Ibn Ḥajar, Nukat, 53.
[7] Al-Ê¿IrÄqÄ«, al-TaqyÄ«d wa’l-Ä«á¸Äḥ, 23.
[8] This statement was related to me by one of al-Ṭaná¹Äwī’s students, NiẓÄm al-YaÊ¿qÅ«bÄ«, in 2010. I have not found it in any written source.
[9] Muḥammad ZÄhid al-KawtharÄ«, Aqwam al-masÄlik fÄ« baḥth riwÄyat MÄlik Ê¿an AbÄ« ḤanÄ«fa wa riwÄyat AbÄ« ḤanÄ«fa Ê¿an MÄlik, addended to IḥqÄq al-ḥaqq bi-ibá¹Äl al-bÄá¹il fÄ« mughÄ«th al-khalq, ed. Aḥmad Ḥasan TalÄwÄ« (Cairo: al-Maktaba al-Azhariyya, 2012), 103.
[10] Al-KawtharÄ«, al-TaḥrÄ«r al-wajÄ«z fÄ«-mÄ yabtaghÄ«hi al-mustajÄ«z ([Cairo]: Maá¹baÊ¿at al-AnwÄr, 1941), 4.