164 THE EVIDENCE OF ISNĀDS

iii. 71 and Muw. Shaib. 258), Yaḥyā b. Sa‘īd and ‘Abdallāh b. ‘Umar (‘Umarī) (Muw. ii. 197 and Muw. Shaib. 207), Yaḥyā b. Sa‘īd and Rabī‘a (Muw. ii. 362 and Tr. III, 42). An example from the generation before that is the alternation between Muḥammad b. ‘Amr b. Ḥazm and Abū Bakr [b. ‘Amr] b. Ḥazm (Muw. i. 259 and Tr. III, 101). The following are further examples of the general uncertainty and arbitrary character of isnāds.

In Muw. iv. 49 we find: Mālik—Muḥammad b. ‘Abdalraḥmān b. Sa‘d b. Zurāra—Ḥafṣa killed a mudabbar slave of hers who had bewitched her. But in Muw. Shaib. 359 and in Tr. III, 93 we find: Mālik—Abū al-Rijāl Muḥammad b. ‘Abdalraḥmān [b. Jāriya]—his mother ‘Amra—‘Ā’isha sold a mudabbar slave of hers who had bewitched her. One of these versions is modelled on the other, and neither can be regarded as historical. It is obvious that the story was put into circulation in the generation preceding Mālik on the fictitious authority of one Muḥammad b. ‘Abdalraḥmān, and this name was completed in such a way as to refer to two different persons in the two versions; it is at least doubtful whether Mālik met either of them.¹

A tradition in Muw. i. 371 reads: Mālik—Hishām—his father ‘Urwa—‘Umar prostrated himself [on a certain occasion which is described], and the people prostrated themselves together with him. As ‘Urwa was born in the caliphate of ‘Uthmān, this isnād is ‘interrupted’ (munqaṭi‘). Bukhārī has a different, uninterrupted isnād. But old copies of the Muwaṭṭa’ have ‘and we did it together with him’, which is impossible in the mouth of ‘Urwa. This of course is the original text of the Muwaṭṭa’. The same words occur in the text of a different tradition from the Prophet on the authority of Abū Huraira. This shows that the formulation of the text of the tradition came first, the isnād was added arbitrarily and improved and extended backwards later.

The Iraqian doctrine which extends the right of pre-emption to a neighbour is expressed in two legal maxims: ‘the neighbour is entitled to the benefit of his proximity’ (al-jār aḥaqq bi-saqbih), and ‘the neighbour of the house is entitled to the house of the neighbour’ (jār al-dār aḥaqq bi-dār al-jār). The first has the isnād ‘Amr b. Sharīd—Abū Rāfi‘—Prophet (Tr. I, 49; Ikh. 260), the second the isnād Qatāda—Ḥasan Baṣrī—Samura—Prophet (Ibn Ḥanbal, v. 8 and often; Ibn Qutaiba, 287). But the second was also provided with