CHAPTER 3

THE CONFLICT OF DOCTRINES

AS REFLECTED IN THE GROWTH OF

TRADITIONS

WE often find that traditions are formulated polemically with a view to rebutting a contrary doctrine or practice. Some of these counter-traditions, as we may call them, are obvious; others are cleverly disguised but can be detected by analysis and comparison with parallel traditions. Counter-traditions are of course later than the doctrine or practice which they are meant to rebut. In addition to the cases noted before,¹ the following simple examples will show how counter-traditions can be found and used for ascertaining the development of doctrine.

Muw. ii. 14: 'Ā'isha relates that the Prophet said the funeral prayer over Suhail b. Baiḍā' only in the mosque. The wording shows that this is directed against the Medinese practice of saying the funeral prayer outside the mosque (Tr. III, 33). The isnād of this tradition is incomplete (it was later completed in an unsatisfactory manner, see Zurqānī, ii. 14), and as the only person between Mālik and 'Ā'isha is Mālik's immediate authority Abul-Naḍr the client of 'Umar b. 'Ubaidallah, it must have originated in the generation before Mālik. In view of this, the tradition through Mālik—Nāfi'— Ibn 'Umar, to the effect that the funeral prayer over 'Umar was said in the mosque (Muw. ii. 15), should likewise be taken not as a bona fide historical statement, but as a counter-statement against the Medinese practice, and the parallel version in Muw. Shaib. 165 has in fact the same polemical wording as the 'Ā'isha tradition. The reference to the funeral of 'Umar is older than the reference to the Prophet and served as a model for it.

Muw. ii. 89 and Muw. Shaib. 178 contain an imposing array of traditions of two types, both obviously polemical, directed against the doctrine ascribed to Abū Huraira, that he who starts a day in Ramadan in the state of major ritual impurity cannot make a valid fast. One type seeks to establish that starting the fast in this condition was not a personal privilege of the Prophet; the other claims the acquiescence of Abū Huraira in a doctrine opposite to that.