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Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 11 (2011)
While it is conceivable that al-Dawraqī’s matn partly draws on the
tradition of Shuʿba, (Diagram 2, p. 175) shows that the relationship
between al-Dawraqī and his stated informant, Hushaym b. Bashīr,
stumbles at a chronological problem. Al-Dawraqī is said to have died
almost seventy years after the death of Hushaym, which means that the
pupil must have lived at least eighty-five years in order to have heard
traditions from his teacher. According to later biographers this condition
is fulfilled, as al-Dawraqī is said to have been born in 166/782–3; that is,
he was about seventeen years old at the time of Hushaym’s death. Thus,
al-Dawraqī is yet another representative of the large group of
traditionists who, according to the isnād evidence, must have attended
the lessons of very old shaykhs, while being themselves in their (early)
teens. Such catenae of traditionists and their informants, when employed
frequently, leave the impression of artificial isnād-shortening devices.
Although Muslim biographers are confident that al-Dawraqī heard
traditions from Hushaym, their information on al-Dawraqī is very
limited. The biographical accounts usually boil down to al-Dawraqī’s
dates of birth and death and statements that he was reliable (thiqa) and
trustworthy (ṣadūq). 86 Given the obvious chronological problem, the
scant biographical information on al-Dawraqī, and the absence of
indications that he possessed a written source with Hushaym’s traditions,
to accept al-Dawraqī as a PCL of Hushaym b. Bashīr would require an
excess of credulity. As the matn peculiarities suggest, al-Dawraqī’s
tradition was coined under the influence of the Shuʿba cluster.
The Wāsiṭi traditionist ʿAmr b. ʿAwn (d. 225/839–40) cannot be
considered a PCL as his name occurs in two collective isnāds. The
earlier one is provided by al-Dārimī, 87 who attaches it to a differently
worded matn, which is an unmistakable conflation of the Shuʿba and
Hushaym versions. As for al-Bayhaqī, his isnād suggests that he had in
86 Ibn Abī Ḥātim, Jarḥ, 9:202; Ibn Ḥibbān, Thiqāt, 10 vols. (Hydarabad: Majlis
Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif al-ʿUthmānīyya, 1973–1983), 9:286; Abū Yaʿlā al-Khalīl b.
ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad al-Qazwīnī, Al-Irshād fī Maʿrifat Rijāl al-Ḥadīth, ed.
Muḥammad Saʿīd b. ʿUmar Idrīs, 3 vols. (Riyadh: Maktabat al-Rushd, n.d.), 2:603;
al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Tārīkh, 16:407–8; Ibn al-Qaysarānī, Kitāb al-Jamʿ bayn a
Kitābay Abī Naṣr al-Kalābādhī wa-Abī Bakr al-Iṣbahānī, 2 vols. (2nd ed, Beirut:
Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1405/1985), 2:589; al-Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-Kamāl, 32:311–
4; Ibn Ḥajar, Tahdhīb al-Tahdhīb, 11:381–2.
87 Al-Dārimī, Sunan, ed. Ḥusayn Salīm Asad al-Dārānī, 4 vols. (1st ed., Riyadh:
Dār al-Mughnī, 1421/2000), 3:1500, nos. 2372–3.