The Significance of the Successors (al-Tābiʿūn) as Reflected in Early Ḥadīth Collections

Year 2013, Volume: 4 Issue: 1, 25 - 39, 11.12.2013

Mustafa Macit Karagözoğlu

https://doi.org/10.12730/13091719.2013.41.69

Abstract

In the early generations of Islam, the Successors (al-tābiʿūn) played an important role by making significant contribution to the formation of Islamic sciences such as fiqh, ḥadīth, and tafsīr. Thus, it is not surprising to see var-ious references to their opinions in the early examples of different Islamic literary genres. For example, early ḥadīth collections include a great num-ber of traditions attributed to the Successors – which would later be called al-ḥadīth al-maqṭūʿ – alongside those attributed to the Prophet. This paper, focusing on the usages of al-ḥadīth al-maqṭūʿ in the early ḥadīth literature, is an inquiry into why the Successors’ opinions constituted such an important part of ḥadīth collections. It argues that the veneration of the Successors is derived from the common recognition that they were better qualified to understand religious texts than later generations and that even their personal opinions were either based on the religious texts or at least consistent with them. The historical basis of this widely accepted recognition is the existence of an intimate and close teacher-student relationship between the Companions and the Successors, which made it possible for the latter to inherit the knowledge of the former.

References

• Abū Dāwūd, Sulaymān ibn Ashʿath ibn Isḥāq al-Azdī al-Sijistānī, Sunan Abī Dāwūd, 2 vols., (ed. Aḥmad Saʿd ʿAlī; Cairo: Muṣṭafā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1952).
• Birnbaum, Philip, A Book of Jewish Concepts (New York: Hebrew Pub. Co., 1964).
• Brown, Jonathan, Hadith: Muhammad's Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2009).
• al-Bukhārī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl, al-Adab al-mufrad (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 2007).
• al-Bukhārī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl, al-Jāmiʿ al-ṣaḥīḥ, 4 vols., (eds. Muḥibb al-Dīn al-Khaṭīb and Muḥammad Fuʾād ʿAbd al-Bāqī; Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿa al-Salafiyya, 1980).
• Duri, ʿAbdal ʿAziz, "al-Zuhrī: A Study on the Beginnings of History Writing in Islam," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 19/1 (1957), 1-12, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X00119172
• al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh, Maʿrifat ʿulūm al-ḥadīth wa-kamiyyat ajnāsihā (ed. Aḥmad ibn Fāris al-Sallūm; Beirut: Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 2003).
• Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Abū ʿUmar Yūsuf ibn ʿAbd Allāh, Kitāb al-istīʿāb fī maʿrifat al-aṣḥāb, 2 vols., (Hyderabad: Maṭbaʿat Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif al-Niẓāmiyya, 1917-1918).
• Ibn Abī Ḥātim al-Rāzī, Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad, Kitāb al-jarḥ wa-l-taʿdīl, 9 vols., (ed. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Yaḥyā al-Muʿallimī; Hyderabad: Maṭbaʿat Majlis Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif al-ʿUthmāniyya, 1941-1953).
• Ibn Abī Ḥātim al-Rāzī, Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm musnadan ʿan Rasūl Allāh wa-l-ṣaḥāba wa-l-tābiʿīn, 10 vols., (ed. Asʿad Muḥammad al-Ṭayyib; Mecca: Maktabat Nizār Muṣṭafā al-Bāz, 1997).
• Ibn al-Salāh, Abū ʿAmr Taqī al-Dīn ʿUthmān ibn Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Shahrazūrī, Muqaddimat Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ wa-maḥāsin al-iṣṭilāḥ (ed. ʿĀʾisha ʿAbd al-Raḥmān; Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1990).
• Ibn Saʿd, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad Ibn Saʿd ibn Manīʿ, al-Ṭabaqāt al-kubrā, 9 vols., (ed. Iḥsān ʿAbbās; Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1957-1968).
• Jacobs, Louis, The Jewish Religion: A Companion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).
• Kallek, Cengiz, "Fukahâ-i Sebʿa [al-Fuqahāʾ al-sabʿa]," Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi (DİA) [Turkish Religious Foundation Encyclopedia of Islam], XIII, 214.
• Karagözoğlu, Mustafa Macit, Maktû Hadis ve Delil Değeri [Maqtūʿ Ḥadīth and Its Authority] (MA thesis; Istanbul: İstanbul University, 2007).
• Kesler, Muhammed Fatih, Mekke Tefsir Ekolü: Öncüleri ve Görüşleri [Pioneers and Opinions of Meccan School of Tafsīr] (Van: n.p., 1996).
• al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn Thābit, al-Jāmiʿ li-akhlāq al-rāwī wa-ādāb al-sāmiʿ (ed. Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ṣalāḥ ibn Muḥammad ʿUwayḍa; Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2003).
• Lucas, Scott C., Constructive Critics, Ḥadīth Literature, and the Articulation of Sunnī Islam: The Legacy of the Generation of Ibn Saʿd, Ibn Maʿīn, and Ibn Ḥanbal (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2004).
• Mālik ibn Anas, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Mālik ibn Anas ibn Mālik ibn Abī ʿĀmir al-Aṣbaḥī, al-Muwaṭṭaʾ (ed. ʿAbd al-Majīd Turkī; Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 1994). Translation of the text has been quoted from Imam Malek b. Anas, al-Muwaṭṭaʾ (translated by F. Amira Zrein Matraji, rev. Mahmoud Matraji; Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1994).
• Muslim, Abū l-Ḥusayn Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj al-Qushayrī al-Nīsābūrī, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, 5 vols., (ed. Muḥammad Fuʾād ʿAbd al-Bāqī; Beirut: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth al-ʿArabī, 1965).
• Özkan, Halit, Hicrî İlk İki Asırda Farklı Şehirlerde Amel Telakkisi Oluşumunda Sünnet ve Hadisin Yeri [ʿAmal Understandings of Fuqahāʾ al-amṣār at the Second Century of the Hijra] (PhD dissertation; Istanbul: Marmara University, 2006).
• Ritter, Hellmut, "Ḥasan al-Baṣrī," The Encyclopaedia of Islam Second Edition, Brill Online,
• http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/hasan-al-basri-COM_0273, 2013 (accessed 24.10.2013).
• Robinson, Chase F., Islamic Historiography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
• Schacht, Joseph, The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1950).
• Sezgin, Fuat, Buhârî'nin Kaynakları [Sources of al-Bukhārī] (Ankara: Kitabiyat Yayınları, 2000).
• Spectorsky, Susan A., "Tābiʿūn," The Encyclopaedia of Islam Second Edition, Brill Online, 2013,
• http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/tabiun-SIM_7259 (accessed 14 May 2013).
• al-Suyūṭī, Abū l-Faḍl Jalāl al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Bakr, Tadrīb al-rāwī fī sharḥ Taqrīb al-Nawawī (ed. Naẓar Muḥammad al-Faryābī; Riyāḍ: Maktabat al-Kawthar, 1994).
• al-Tirmidhī, Abū ʿĪsā Muḥammad ibn ʿĪsā, al-Jāmiʿ al-kabīr, 6 vols., (ed. Bashshār ʿAwwād al-Maʿrūf; Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 1998).
• Tokpınar, Mirza, "el-Musannef [al-Muṣannaf]," Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi [Turkish Religious Foundation Encyclopedia of Islam], XXXI, 236.
• Ulu, Arif, Tâbiûnun Sünnet Anlayışı [Sunna Perception of the Tābiʿūn] (PhD dissertation; Ankara: Ankara University, 2006).
• Ünal, Ali, The Qurʾān with Annotated Interpretation in Modern English (New Jersey: Tughra Books, 2006).
• al-Zuhrī, Abū Bakr Ibn Shihāb Muḥammad ibn Muslim, al-Maghāzī al-nabawiyya (ed. Suhayl Zakkār; Damascus: Dār al-Fikr, 1981).
• al-Zurqānī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Bāqī, Sharḥ al-Zurqānī ʿalā Muwaṭṭaʾ al-Imām al-Mālik, 4 vols., (Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifa, 1987).