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Pavel Pavlovitch
bi-sunnat i rasūl i l-lāh fa-huwa sabīl u -humā l-ladhī jaʿala l-lāh u ʿazza
wa-jalla la-humā). Such a clear distinction between the Qurʾān and the
sunna contradicts Wansbrough’s view that “status as Qurʼān or sunna
was hardly operative in his [Abū ʿUbayd’s, P.P.] formulation of the
rules”. 30
The next two traditions, both passing through ʿUbāda b. al-Ṣāmit, 31
provide substance to Ibn ʿAbbās’ view that the adulterers are stoned
according to the prophetic practice. The first ʿUbāda tradition
emphasizes the Prophet’s statement that fornicators should be flogged
and banished, whereas adulterers should be flogged and stoned. The
matn opens with the characteristic tag qad jaʿala l-lāh u la-hunna sabīl an ,
153
which, in addition to linking the sunna to Qurʾān 4:15, implies that the
ensuing prophetic utterance has abrogated the Qurʾān. Abū ʿUbayd does
not overlook the issue and offers a simple solution: he adduces a second
variant of the ʿUbāda tradition, in which the Prophet speaks amid
symptoms characteristic of the way he used to receive divine revelation
(waḥī). 32
It must be noted that Abū ʿUbayd was apparently aware of yet another
solution to the stoning conundrum. Elsewhere, he discusses the existence
of a stoning verse (āyat al-rajm) that was later withdrawn from the
Qurʾān. 33 Nonetheless, he never mentions this putative verse and the
ʿUbāda tradition in a single context, which suggests that, in Abū
ʿUbayd’s view, the stoning verse did not function as an alternative to the
problematic sunna that abrogates the Qurʾān.
Even though Abū ʿUbayd does not discuss chronology, he marshals
his traditions in a manner suggesting that the ʿUbāda tradition is
subsequent at least to Qurʾān 4:15–6. Furthermore, it is not gratuitous
that Abū ʿUbayd chooses to place the tradition that describes the
Prophet’s uttering of khudhū ʿan-nī as divine revelation after the
tradition that does not mention revelation symptoms. This order reflects
sequential stages in the development of the ʿUbāda ḥadīth, where the
30 Wansbrough, Quranic Studies, 198. Jens Scheiner has pointed to me that his
study of Abū ʿUbayd’s Kitāb al-Amwāl has shown a clear distinction between the
Qurʾān and sunna.
31 Abū ʿUbayd, al-Nāsikh wa-l-Mansūkh, 132, nos., 240–1.
32 Melchert rightly observes that “here at least is the rude beginning of a theory
that Qurʾān and sunna are equally the products of divine inspiration.” (Melchert,
Qurʾānic Abrogation, 87).
33 Abū ʿUbayd, Faḍāʾil al-Qurʾān, ed. Marwān al-ʿAṭiyya and others
(Damascus: Dār Ibn Kathīr, 1415/1995), 318–22.