IN THE LITERARY PERIOD 149

Traditions originating between Shāfi'ī and Ibn Qutaiba

Ibn Qutaiba, 113, has a tradition, through Zuhrī—'Urwa— 'A'isha, to the effect that the Prophet ordered the hand of a woman who had borrowed ornaments and sold them to be cut off. This is unknown to Mālik, Shaibānī (Muw. Shaib. 303), and Shāfi'ī, but occurs in an improved form, with the explicit mention of theft, in the classical collections.

Ibn Qutaiba, 206, knows the saying of the Prophet: 'I was given the Koran, and together with it its equivalent', referring to the sunna. This was certainly unknown to Shāfi'ī who would not have failed to mention it, had he known it (see above, p. 16).

See also above, p. 97.

On the whole, the traditions contained, respectively, in the legal works of the second half of the second century, in the classical collections of the second half of the third century, and in the later collections of Ṭaḥāwī and others represent three successive stages of growth. The same process appears in the several versions of the Musnad Ābī Ḥanīfa, which were collected by Khwarizmi: the later versions contain many more traditions than the early and authentic ones, the contents of which are confirmed by Āthār A.Y. and Āthār Shaib. We must postulate the same process of growth for the pre-literary period, and formulate again the methodical rule which follows from Goldziher's results but which has been neglected lately: that every legal tradition from the Prophet, until the contrary is proved, must be taken not as an authentic or essentially authentic, even if slightly obscured, statement valid for his time or the time of the Companions, but as the fictitious expression of a legal doctrine formulated at a later date. Its date can be ascertained from its first appearance in legal discussion, from its relative position in the history of the problem with which it is concerned, and from certain indications in text and isnād which will be discussed in the following chapters. The sources available enable us to draw these conclusions in many cases. We shall find that the bulk of legal traditions from the Prophet known to Mālik originated in the generation preceding him, that is in the second quarter of the second century A.H., and we shall not meet any legal tradition from the Prophet which can be considered authentic.