192 UMAIYAD PRACTICE AS THE STARTING-POINT

We often find the names of 'Uthmān, of the Umaiyad Caliphs Mu'āwiya, Marwān b. Ḥakam, and 'Umar b. 'Abdal'azīz, and of other members of the family mentioned in traditions which directly or indirectly reflect Umaiyad practice, and the occurrence of these names in a tradition makes a prima-facie case for the origin of the problem in question in Umaiyad times. We must not, of course, conclude without positive proof that the decisions or opinions ascribed to these persons are authentic; their names were quoted sometimes in order to put a genuine old practice under their authority, but often in order to make them responsible for a rejected practice or opinion, or even in order to claim their authority in favour of a doctrine which superseded an older practice or opinion. The traditions which implicate 'Uthmān and the Umaiyads are therefore to a great extent, explicitly or implicitly, counter-traditions, and in so far as they represent an anti-Umaiyad tendency, which they often express strongly, they cannot be earlier than the rise of the 'Abbāsids, when everything to which exception was taken was blamed on the fallen dynasty of the Umaiyads.¹ The 'pious' Umaiyad 'Umar b. 'Abdal'azīz escaped this fate and became a favourite authority of Auzā'ī and of the Medinese for the fictitious 'good old' practice, which was opposed to the real practice as it existed at the end of the Umaiyad period. Examples of all this have occurred before,² and others will be found in the following sections.

B. UMAIYAD POPULAR PRACTICE

The present section is intended to illustrate the reactions of nascent Muhammadan jurisprudence to popular practice as it existed under the Umaiyads in general.

Cult and Ritual

Islamic cult and ritual were certainly rudimentary at the beginning of the Umaiyad period, and the Umaiyads and their