JOURNAL OF ARABIC AND ISLAMIC STUDIES

JAIS
ONLINE
Pavel Pavlovitch
Ṣāmit. Consequently, this chronology will be compared with the dating
based on isnād-cum-matn analysis.
In a further section I will analyse the ʿUbāda tradition by means of
isnād-cum-matn analysis. In addition to the well-known tenets of this
method, 10 I will apply several additional criteria that allow for more
terminological and methodological precision.
For the sake of clarity, I distinguish between the key figure and the
Common Link (henceforth CL). 11 Gautier Juynboll did allude to this
difference, 12 but I shall state it in more definite terms. The key figure is
any transmitter in the isnād bundle at whose level the isnād branches to
several other transmitters. The CL is the earliest key figure who can be
proven to have circulated a given tradition. 13 The PCL is any key figure
10 One of the earliest applications of isnād-cum-matn analysis may be traced to
Josef van Ess who studied the matns of exegetical traditions in conjunction with
their isnāds (Josef van Ess, Zwischen Ḥadīṯ und Theologie. Studien zum Entstehen
prädestinatianischer Überlieferung (Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1975).
Subsequently, G. Schoeler and H. Motzki took advantage of van Ess’ method,
which they applied in the field of sīra and legal traditions (Gregor Schoeler,
Charakter und Authentie der muslimischen Überlieferung über das Leben
Mohammeds [Berlin–New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1996], augmented and
translated into English as Gregor Schoeler, The Biography of Muḥammad: Nature
and Authenticity, transl. Uwe Vagelpohl, ed. James E. Montgomery [New York and
London: Routledge, 2011; Motzki, “Quo vadis”).
11 The CL is identifiable when the variants of a single tradition are collated in a
graphical diagram. In such a diagram, which may comprise scores of isnāds, the CL
is the transmitter at whose level the isnād branches out into several strands.
Juynboll contributed immensely to the elaboration of the CL theory (See Juynboll,
“Some Isnād-Analytical Methods”; idem, “Some Notes”; idem, “Nāfiʿ”; idem,
ECḤ).
12 Juynboll, “Nāfiʿ,” 210, 212, 214, 226–7; ECḤ, xx–xxii; Andreas Görke uses
the terms “key figure” and “common link” synonymously (Andreas Görke,
“Eschatology, History and the Common Link: A Study in Methodology,” in
Method and Theory in the Study of Islamic Origins, ed. Herbert Berg [Leiden and
Boston: Brill, 2003], 179–208, especially 198).
13 Three different explanations of the CL phenomenon have been advanced
since Schacht coined that term. According to Juynboll, the CL is the person who
invented the single-strand isnād back to the Prophet “in order to lend a certain
saying more prestige”. Consequently, “the historicity of transmissions represented
in an isnād bundle starts being conceivable only after the spreading out has begun,
namely at the cl level, and not before that” (Juynboll, “Some Isnād-Analytical
Methods,” 353). According to Motzki, the CL is the first major collector of
traditions and, therefore, the CL tradition is older than the CL himself (Motzki,
143