Islam in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives - Islamic Books ...

H i s to r i cal Introduction and Overv i e w 1 1ities documenting the transmission of that information across the generations( i s n a d ) . During the ninth century, the myriad h a d i t h that Muslims had come totransmit and discuss—a vast amount of oral material conveying both the i s n a dand the m a t n—were written down and compiled into a number of collections.Six of these compilations have since come to be regarded as especially authoritativeby Sunni Muslims.Although some of these six books boast titles that include the words“sound” or “authoritative” ( s a h i h ) , throughout the centuries Muslims have continuedto energetically discuss this material, how the authentication of varioush a d i t h is to be evaluated, and how they are to be applied to governing the livesof individuals and the community. The early twentieth century saw a resurgenceof activity in the field of hadith criticism, especially in debates over thecriteria for determining the authenticity of hadith texts through critical examinationsof their chains of transmission (Juynboll 1969). Since the 1970s, howev e r, such debates on the authentication of h a d i t h have become more marginalizedin Muslim discourses. Increasingly today, critical approaches to theauthentication of h a d i t h are met with hostility by those who adhere to modernunderstandings of the sunna that uncritically assert the collective “soundness”and authority of all the individual h a d i t h in certain collections. This phenomenonis evidenced, for example, in the growing number of modern Muslimpublications in Arabic and other languages that relate h a d i t h by reproducingm a t n while at the same time omitting the accompanying i s n a d . Such texts excisethe very part of the h a d i t h that has traditionally been the focus of most activityin the field of Muslim h a d i t h criticism. The use of such publications byc o n t e m p o r a ry Muslims has contributed to important changes in popular understandingsof the sources of the tradition and in the way the Prophet’s teachingsare understood and interpreted in many parts of the world today.Islam after Muhammad: Political Succession andthe Formation of TraditionM u h a m m a d ’s charismatic career of religious, social, political, and militaryleadership was so remarkable that when he died, it is said, some of his followerscould not believe he was mortal. The tradition records, however, that whenhis oldest companion, Abu Bakr, publicly announced the passing of theProphet, he said, “Oh people, those who worshipped Muhammad [must knowthat] Muhammad is dead; those who worshipped God [must know that] Godis alive [and] immortal” (al-Tabari 1990, 185). In this, we have a crystalline expressionof what was undoubtedly the resolution of a much larger and moreambiguous dilemma centered on how, if at all, the movement was to continueafter the Prophet’s death and who would lead the Muslim community as his