JOURNAL OF ARABIC AND ISLAMIC STUDIES

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Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 11 (2011)
Shuʿba’s non-revelation version indicates that Qatāda’s version did
not include the revelation preamble. Above Qatāda, a similar
contradiction is observed in the Saʿīd b. Abī ʿArūba cluster. If Saʿīd
was a CL, he appears to have transmitted a tradition that described the
symptoms of revelation; Saʿīd’s most salient CL, Yaḥyā b. Saʿīd al-
Qaṭṭān, however, cites a non-revelation matn. To compensate for the
ambiguity of the isnād and matn evidence, I brought into play the
evidence of the ḥadīth collections. It indicates that the preamble was
attached to the dual-penalty maxim only towards the end of the
second century AH; that is long after the deaths of Qatāda and Ibn Abī
ʿArūba.
While I realize that one cannot work out all of the above analytical
inconsistencies, I think that a process of organic development of the
revelation tradition may provide alleviation. The matns of the
traditions that pass through Qatāda and al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, it should be
recalled, have preserved sufficient information for the reconstruction
of al-Ḥasan’s original tradition. At the same time they reveal multiple
layers of editorial deletions and accretions whereby the early versions
were changed more than once at the hands of later redactors. Elements
of fictionalization that describe vividly the Prophet’s symptoms of
revelation were introduced to strengthen the volatile link between the
revelation preamble and the dual-penalty maxim. None of these
fictional elements is unique to the ʿUbāda tradition; almost without
exception they draw on the generic imagery of revelation found in a
number of narratives about the Prophet’s revelatory experience.
As the supporters of the revelation notion in the third century AH
became increasingly convinced that the dual-penalty maxim has
always been part of the wider revelation narrative, they would project
their own understanding of that narrative’s contents onto the earlier
links in the isnād chain, such as Qatāda b. Diʿāma and Saʿīd b. Abī
ʿArūba. The narrative transformation has at times followed paths
inexplicable to the present-day researcher. We surely miss a lot of
isnād and matn variants that, if uncovered, would shed ampler light
on the development of the revelation tradition. At the present stage of
our knowledge, we have to concede that our effort to reconstruct the
revelation version of the ʿUbāda tradition has left ambiguities.
In the table overleaf, I have summarized my efforts to reconstruct
the historical development of the ʿUbāda tradition: