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The relationship between maghāzī and ḥadīth in early Islamic scholarship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 June 2011

Andreas Görke
Andreas Görke*
Affiliation:
Christian-Albrechts-Universität, Kiel
*
info@andreas-goerke.de
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Abstract

The relationship between the traditional biographical material on Muḥammad (maghāzī- or sīra-material) and the narrations of his words and deeds (ḥadīth-material) has long been debated in Islamic studies. While some scholars have argued that the biographical material is fundamentally ḥadīth material arranged chronologically, others have argued the opposite: that ḥadīth material originally consists of narrative reports about the life of Muḥammad which were later deprived of their historical context to produce normative texts. This article argues that both views are untenable and that maghāzī and ḥadīth emerged as separate fields; each influenced the other but they preserved their distinctive features. While traditions that originated and were shaped in one field were sometimes transferred to the other, the transfer of traditions from one field to the other apparently did not as a rule involve any deliberate changes to the text.

Keywords

Biography of the Prophet MuḥammadEarly Islamic fields of learningHistoriographymaghāzīḥadīthsīraEarly Islamic literature
Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 74 , Issue 2 , June 2011 , pp. 171 - 185
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 2011

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References

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55 al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥiḥ, Ḥudūd, 12.

56 E.g. al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥiḥ, al-Shahādāt, 8; ibid., Maghāzī, 55; Muslim, Ṣaḥiḥ, al-Ḥudūd, 2; Abū Dā’ūd, Sunan, al-Ḥudūd. 4; al-Nasā’ī, Sunan, Qaṭʿ al-Sāriq, 6.

57 Görke and Schoeler, Die ältesten Berichte, 240, 242–4.

58 ʿAbd al-Razzāq, al-Muṣannaf, x, 201 f.

59 Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, Ḥudūd, 2 (last tradition).

60 Ibn Saʿd, al-Ṭabaqāt, VIII, 192 f.

61 Ibn Saʿd, al-Ṭabaqāt, IV.1, 48 f.

62 Ibn Saʿd, al-Ṭabaqāt, VIII, 192 f.

63 al-Dhahabī, Ta'rīkh al-Islām, XIII, 264–9.

64 al-Dhahabī, Ta'rīkh al-Islām, IX, 674.

65 These circles, of course, should not be regarded as exclusive. We know of several authorities in maghāzī who were also considered to be experts in law or ḥadīth, and they may be partly responsible for the traditions spreading from one circle to the other. However, it seems reasonable to assume that the different conventions prevailing in the different fields led to different changes.

66 Cf. Horovitz, The Earliest Biographies, 12, 23, 27, 55, 60 ff.; see also Leder, “The literary use of the Khabar”, 313.

67 Cf. Landau-Tasseron, “Sayf Ibn ʿUmar”, 9, who comes to a similar conclusion.