JOURNAL OF ARABIC AND ISLAMIC STUDIES

JAIS
scripture”. 11
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Pavel Pavlovitch
endorses the Schachtian rupture between the Qurʾān and the sunna as
sources of law. Together with other works that treat the discontinuity
between the Qurʾān and Sharīʿa, Burton’s discussion of the penalty for
zinā has led Crone to infer that “all [these works, P.P.] suggest that Schacht
underestimated the discontinuity to which he drew attention: of rules based
on the Qurʾān from the start we no longer possess a single clear-cut
example”. 8 From her study of the DAEP9 rule, Crone concluded that the
Muslim jurists started taking into the consideration the Quranic rules on
the inheritance of the cognates between the years 90 and 120 AH. 10 This
led her to the following important conclusion: “the evidence of the DAEP
rule suggests a mid-Umayyad date for the arrival of the canonical
235
The results of Crone’s study await a more thorough inspection by means
of isnād-cum-matn analysis. Nevertheless, the present investigation of the
early doctrine of the penalty for zinā entails a chronological conclusion
that greatly overlaps with Crone’s. If al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (d. 110/728) had
relied on the scriptural ruling on zinā, then, already towards the end of the
first century AH, scripture, or at least what was to become part of the
Qurānic textus receptus, would have served as the basis for derivation of
legal pronouncements. Contrary to Schacht’s theory, in the case of zinā
scripture appears to have been the primary stage in the development of the
legal doctrine. The sunnaic ruling, represented by the ʿUbāda tradition,
unfolded as a secondary stage of legal elaboration during the second
century AH. Thus one observes at least one case, in which the development
of the sunna source ensued from the Qurʾān source. One should note,
however, that these are preliminary conclusions; their correctness depends
on the study of other traditions dealing with the punishment for zinā. 12
8 Crone, “Two Legal Problems,” 10–11.
9 This acronym was coined by Crone. It stands for Dhawū l-Arḥām Exclude
Patrons.
10 Crone, “Two Legal Problems,” 36.
11 Ibid., 37.
12 My investigation of other zinā traditions has hitherto shown that already Ibn
Shihāb al-Zuhrī (d. 124/742) considered rajm as the normative penalty for adultery
deriving from the prophetic practice. (Pavel Pavlovitch, “Early Development of the
Tradition of the Self-Confessed Adulterer in Islam. An Isnād and Matn Analysis,”
al-Qanṭara, 31:2 [2010], 371–410). Nevertheless, a further study of the rajm
traditions is needed before one may define the earliest date of their circulation.