BUKHARI AND EARLY HADITH CRITICISM.

• Author: MELCHERT, CHRISTOPHER

Norman Calder has questioned the attribution of al-Ta'rikh al-kabir to al-Bukhari (d. 256/870). Quotations from Ibn Abi Hatim al-Razi and al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, together with comparisons among the rijal works of Bukhari, suggest that al Ta'rikh al-kabir was one of Bukhari's last works, subject to some correction and rearrangement after his death. It cannot have been retrospectively derived from Bukhari's Sahih, as Calder thought, yet neither can it have been the basis of the Sahih for it omits to mention fourteen percent of the men in the Sahih and mentions personal evaluations of only six percent of all its subjects. Its principal function seems to have been to identify traditionists by name. Inasmuch as it bespeaks sole reliance on isnad analysis to sort strong and weak reports, al-[Ta.sup.contains]rtkh al-kabir may represent a particular Khurasani tendency in hadith criticism. More certainly, it represents the professionalization of hadith science as against the amateurism evident behind Ahmad ibn Hanbal, al Ilal wa-ma'rifal al-rijal.

A FEW YEARS AGO, Norman Calder questioned the attribution of al Ta'rikh al-kabir to Muhammad ibn Isma'il al-Bukhari (d. 256/87), the great Transoxanian traditionist.

Apparently the product of the devoted and orderly activity of a single person, works like the Sahihs of Bukhari and Muslim should probably be recognized as emerging into final form at least one generation later than the dates recorded for the deaths of the putative authors....

A fortiori the rijal works associated with these collections. Bukhari's AI-Ta'rikh al-kabir is probably a post facto description of the Sahih not a set of criteria governing the collection of its materials. [1]

The first goal of this study is to determine whether al-Ta'rikh al-kabir is a post facto description of the Sahih (usually referred to in the sources as al-Jami' al-sahih, al-Jami', or Sahih al-Bukhari; however, its full title is reportedly al-Jami' al-musnad al-sahih al-mukhtasar min umur rasul Allah .. wa-sunanihi wa-ayyamih). [2]

Calder redated various early juridical texts--the Mudawwanah of Sahnun, the [Muwatta.sup.[contains]] of Malik (recension of Yahya ibn Yahya al-Laythi), and others--according to how much they adduced Prophetic hadith or low much the evidently older sources of Companion hadith and especially the opinions of eighth-century jurisorudents. It was Calder's essential argument that it makes better sense to suppose a gradually increasing deference to Prophetic hadith than to suppose early recognition of its priority (in the [Muwatta.sup.[contains]] of Malik, some Hanafi works, and virtually all the works of [al-Shafi.sup.[subset]]i), succeeded by deference instead to reason and the opinions of early jurisprudents (the Mudawwanah), succeeded by a rediscovery of the priority of Prophetic hadith. Accordingly, he assigned the Mudawwanah of Sahnun and the work's of al-Shaybani that constitute Kitab al-Asl to about 250/864-65; the Mukhtasar of al-Muzani to around 270/883-84; and the Umm and Risalah of [Shafi.sup.[subset]]i to around 800/912-13.

The attribution of [al-Ta.sup.[contains]]rikh al-kabir, as of the collections of sound hadith that go by the names of Bukhari, Muslim (d. 261/875), Abu Dawud (275/889), al-Tirmidhi (279/892), and Ibn Majah (273/887), calls into question Calder's redating of various eighth- and ninth-century legal texts inasmuch as such collections presuppose an exclusive interest in Prophetic hadith as opposed to Companion hadith and the opinions of later jurisprudents. Prophetic hadith reports make up only about twenty-two percent of all items in the Musannaf of [Abd.sup.[subset]] al-Razzaq (d. 211/827), as one might expect in so early a collection (although they make up almost half the material of the last volume alone, where we presumably meet the latest additions). [3] Prophetic hadith reports constitute twenty-five percent of the material in the Musannaf of Abu Bakr Ibn Abi Shaybah (d. 235/849), and I have the impression of fewer opinions there from eighth-century jurisprudents. [4] The Musnad of Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 241/855) stresses Prophetic hadith, but it seems to have been compiled after his lifetime, and Ahmad's surviving juridical works (or rather collections by others of his opinions) show heavy reliance on hadith from Companions. [5] But the Six Books are organized by juridical category, plainly for the benefit of jurisprudents and presumably for jurisprudents who had accepted that Prophetic hadith (with the [Qur.sup.[contains]an) constituted the principal basis of the law--this at least a generation before, by Calder's reckoning, [Shafi.sup.[subset]]i's Risalah had told them so.

Actually, the Sahih of Bukhari seems not to have been widely published until well into the tenth century, for virtually all known transmissions were through a single man, Muhammad ibn Yusuf ibn Matar al-Firabri (d. 320/932). [6] Somehow, no one else of the many illustrious traditionists who related hadith of Bukhari (al-Mizzi lists over eighty) recognized the value of his collection of sound hadith and transmitted it. Its organization, in particular its chapter headings, seem not to have stabilized until the mid-tenth century. [7] It first attracted commentaries in the later tenth century. [8] The earliest hadith collection based on the Sahih of Muslim is said to have been that of Abu Bakr ibn Raja' al-Sindi al-Isfarayini (d. 286/899-900); [9] however, the earliest that might have been based on the Sahih of Bukhari is that of Abu [blank.sup.[subset]]Ali [Sa.sup.[subset]]id ibn [blank.sup.[subset]]Uthman ibn al-Sakan (d. 353/964) [10] Inasmuch as the Sahih of Bukhari (as we know it) was apparently not widely published until well after Calder's date for the RiSalah of [Shafi.sup.[subset]]i, its organizing principle, the sufficiency of Prophetic hadith for the derivation of the law, cannot decisively refute Calder's chronology.

AL-TA RIKH AL-KABIR: NOT WHAT CALDER GUESSED

Al-[Ta.sup.[contains]]rikh al-kabir (henceforward TK) describes over 12,300 traditionists. [11] A typical entry reads so:

Ad'ham al-Sadusi, Abu Bishr. Hajjaj al-[A.sup.[subset]]war quoted [Shu.sup.[subset]]bah, "He was client to Shaqiq ibn Thawr." He heard [Abd.sub.subset]] Allah ibn Buraydah. There related (hadith) from him [Shu.sub.[subset]]bah and Hushaym. His hadith is among the Basrans. [12]

According to a story from Firabri, transmitter of the Sahih of Bukhari, and from an Abu [Ja.sub.[subset]]far Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim, described as a copyist (warraq) and sometimes as Bukhari's own copyist, Bukhari wrote TK on moonlit nights in Mecca, when he was a youth fairly new to the collection of hadith. [13] Through the same source comes the story that Ishaq ibn Rahawayh (d. 238/853?) showed a copy to the governor of Khurasan, [Abd.sub.subset]] Allah ibn Tahir (d. 230/844), who could scarcely believe it. [14] Its composition is thus placed well before the Sahih, supposedly assembled at the instigation of someone in Isliiiq's circle. [15]

The textual history of TK is complex, and what I offer is provisional (perhaps waiting for someone to make Bukhari's histories the center of a doctoral dissertation). It raises considerably less doubt than the transmission of the Sahih, as we have several witnesses from the ninth century. Admittedly, like the Sahih, TK survived through the transmission of a single man, Abu al-Hasan Muhammad ibn Sahl ibn [Abd.sub.[subset]] Allah (alternatively al-Kurdi), a Basran [Qur.sub.[contains]]an reciter and grammarian. [16] Almost nothing seems to be known of the man apart from his transmitting TK. [17] One colophon states that he heard TK from Bukhari in Basra, 246/860-61 (TK 1:3). However, other recensions evidently circulated in the Middle Ages. Abu Zur[subset]ah al-Razi worked from a copy provided him by al-Fadl ibn al-[Abbas.sub.[subset]] (Fadlak al-Razi, d. 270/883). [18] Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi quotes TK with a chain ending [less than] Abu Ahmad ibn Faris [less than] al-Bukhari. [19] The association with Bukhari o f a professional copyist (Abu [Ja.sub.[subset]]far Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim) suggests, following Calder, deliberate authorship and multiple identical copies. It also means that someone besides Bukhari himself stood to profit by the publication of works attributed to him, so one might suspect the copyist of organizing material in Bukhari's name; yet our text of TK seems to have bypassed this copyist.

The earliest extant commentary on TK appeared a generation earlier than any treatment of the Sahih, namely by Ibn Abi Hatim al-Razi (d. 327/938), Bayan [khata.sub.[contains]] Muhammad ibn [Isma.sub.[subset]]il al-Bukhari fi [ta.sub.[contains]]rikhih, based on the criticism of Abu [Zur.sub.[subset]]ah al-Razi (d. 264/878) and Abu Hatim al-Razi (d. 277/890-91). It presupposes an alphabetical collection like our TK, with a section on kund an integral part at the end. It also presupposes a somewhat different text from ours. In a sample of seventy-two items (from seven hundred seventy-one proposed corrections), fifty-one have to do with changing the names of main entries in TK. (Most of the rest deal with chains of transmitters in TK.) In five cases (ten percent), Ibn Abi Hatim proposes to change a name altogether missing from our present text of TK. In twenty-one cases (fortyone percent), the change proposed by Ibn Abi Hatim is what is already in our present text of TK. The editor of Bayan, anxious to defend Buk hari, suggests that either Fadlak al-Razi had taken his copy of TK from an early, unfinished draft by Bukhari or Abu [Zur.sub.[subset]]ah actually used another, bad copy from some unnamed source. [20] The first of these proposals better squares with Abu [Zur.sub.[subset]]ah's own reported description of the copy he used, and as Bukhari is said to have spent sixteen years compiling the Sahih, he must also have spent a great deal of time reworking TK. [21]

Contrary to the story from Firabri and...