JOURNAL OF ARABIC AND ISLAMIC STUDIES

JAIS
Pavel Pavlovitch
only those matns which exhibit a limited degree of structural instability,
which may be attributed to the peculiarities of the transmission process,
rather than to polygenesis. Larger narratives, which underwent an
apparent process of fictionalization, will be compared with one another
with the aim of removing later fictional accretions15 and, consequently,
of distilling a meaningful narrative core. 16 This approach, albeit not
conducive to restoring what might seem to be an early narrative perhaps
going back to the first century AH or to the time of the Prophet, will
allow me, to some extent, to avoid epistemological uncertainty while
reconstructing the hypothetical CL versions from the versions of their
PCLs. In my isnād-cum-matn analysis, I shall account for the following
possible isnād configurations in their correlation with the matns:
1. An isnād cluster in which only single strands branch from the key
figure
ONLINE
(i.e. ‘a spider’ according Juynboll’s terminology). In this case I
will follow Juynboll’s skeptical approach; the key figure is not a
historically tenable CL but a seeming CL (SCL). The matns provided by
the collectors sitting at the top of each spider leg may either concur or
145
15 Fictionalization does not necessarily preclude authenticity. Fictional elements
may be attached to a non-fictional narrative that refers to actual facts. By
introducing temporal or spatial indicators and grammatical delimiters, the narrator
constructs a plot consisting of more or less easily identifiable sections of acting. In
Islamic legal traditions, one notices distinct layers of fictionalization signalled by
the introduction of details relating to specific locations, historical periods, actors
and their emotional states and attitudes. In some cases, I will divide the tradition
into consecutively numbered clauses that reflect either fictionalization or the nonfictional
activity of linguistic elucidation and legal amendment. On fictionalization
in the Islamic tradition, see Sebastian Günther, “Fictional Narration and
Imagination within an Authoritative Framework: Towards a New Understanding of
Ḥadīth,” in Story-Telling in the Framework of non-Fictional Arabic Literature, ed.
Stefan Leder (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998). Although he does not use the term
‘fictionalization’, Schoeler, following Noth, also speaks of a process of
modification or reshaping (‘Veränderungs-’ oder ‘Umgestaltungsprocess’) in the
course of which topoi, bias and stylization affect the base narrative (Charakter und
Authentie, 11–12, 166).
16 The narrative deficiency of the reconstructed CL versions has been
highlighted by Melchert, who points out that, “Motzki talks of identifying a kernel
of historical truth, but if that is taken to be whatever element is common to his
multiple versions, it seems to be normally so small as to be virtually worthless.”
(Christopher Melchert, “The Early History of Islamic Law,” in Method and Theory
in the Study of Islamic Origins, ed. Herbert Berg [Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2003],
303).