JOURNAL OF ARABIC AND ISLAMIC STUDIES

JAIS
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Pavel Pavlovitch
207
Khudhū! (Take it!) is void of the usually observed possessive
pronominal construct, min-nī (from me). At present I cannot assess the
full significance of this change, but, if not inadvertent, it may have been
somehow related to the suggested independence of clause 1 from the rest
of the narrative. I will return to this issue in the next section.
In addition to the already analysed traditions, the Qatāda b. Diʿāma
cluster includes a single-strand isnād provided by al-Ṭabarānī:
(1a) Anna l-nabyy a , ṣalʿam, unzila ʿalay-hi dhāt a yawm in fa-tarabbada
wajh u -hu (1b) fa-lammā surriya ʿan-hu qāla: “(2) Khudhū ʿan-nī! (3) Fainna
l-lāh a qad jaʿala la-hunna sabīl an (4) al-thayyib u bi-l-thayyib i wa-lbikr
u bi-l-bikr (5a) al-thayyib u yujladu thumma yurjam (5b) wa-l-bikr u
yujladu thumma yunfā sana.”
(1a) One day a revelation was sent down to the Prophet, may Allāh bless
him and grant him peace, and his face became pallid (1b) When he
regained his composure, he said: “(2) Take it from me! (3) For Allāh has
appointed the way for them (4) A non-virgin with a non-virgin and a
virgin with a virgin (5a) The non-virgin should be flogged then stoned
(5b) and the virgin should be flogged then banished for a year”. 130
Clause 1 in al-Ṭabarānī’s version may be identified with the
corresponding clause in the tradition through the (S)CL Muʿādh b.
Hishām. Because of al-Ṭabarānī’s single strand of transmission, one
cannot say with certainty whether the clause was copied from Muʿādh or
belongs to the version of Qatāda b. Diʿāma. If the latter be true, al-
Ṭabarānī’s formulation would be a clear indication that Qatāda’s
tradition read, anna l-nabiyy a , ṣalʿam, unzila ʿlay-hi, and not ūḥiya ilā lnabī,
ṣalʿam, as in the version of ʿAbd al-Razzāq.
Al-Ṭabarānī’s use of verbal forms in the prophetic dictum corresponds
to the respective part of Shuʿba’s tradition. Unlike Shuʿba, al-Ṭabarānī,
or one of the tradents along his single line of transmission, has preferred
to specify, like Hushaym b. Bashīr, that the fornicator should be
banished for one year. Such an admixture of early and later matns
combined with a single line of transmission prevents us from using al-
Ṭabarānī’s tradition as an unambiguous evidence of Qatāda b. Diʿāma’s
CL status.
In sum, the cluster through Qatāda b. Diʿāma reveals three major
features. First, the cluster is based on a version of the revelation
preamble that, upon removal of the fictional elements, boils down to a
130 Al-Ṭabarānī, Musnad al-Shāmiyīn, ed. Ḥamdī ʿAbd al-Majīd al-Salafī, 4
vols. (1st ed., Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 1409/1989), 4:40, no. 2675.