bukhari: a research paper on ancient historical methodologies

8/7/2019 Bukhari: A research paper on ancient historical methodologies

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This is a research paper introducing some of the methodologies of Al-Bukhari, an ancient Muslimhistorian who may have been the founder of the modern western methods of source criticism.

The essay was finished and submitted at the University of Lethbridge in December 2010. It was

subsequently re-edited and posted online for the benefit of future students and any interested parties.

This work may be freely copied, cited or reproduced, however the use of it is still subject to plagiarismregulations.

By: Taylor Webb


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were ever compiled, and the reason they were seen as an acceptable canon, yet this analysis has

been left to the field of religious studies. It is important for historians to investigate the early

development of this historiographical research and not leave it too far toward the boundary of

religious studies because it may be a key step in the creation of a modern method of source

criticism that has otherwise vague origins. Furthermore, the methodology of source criticism is

only one area which is being used to expose the subject. There may well be others to be

uncovered.

To explore this phenomenon further we need a background of just what the Hadith are to

extrapolate what they mean. The Hadith collection that I will be dealing with most closely will

be the Sahih Bukhari. This is the largest of the collections of Hadith and the most trusted, and

while it may be interesting to investigate the purpose and effect of a smaller, more obscure work,

it would be distracting as an introduction to the study of these collections and require far too

much time and paper. The words used to describe this work are of significance similar to that of

early Chinese writings, where the book simply adopts the name of its writer, in this case

Bukhari. However, there is an important difference in the addition of Sahih, an adjective which

means authentic. This is a judgment of the work, and a title in a much more modern European

sense, and will be discussed later. What is found within the Sahih Bukhari is a huge collection in

many volumes of personal accounts of what the Prophet did in every sense of the word. These

accounts are rarely first-hand, and are often repeated, they are a collection of oral histories but

much work was evidently put into the scientific analysis of each reports authenticity.

The book was compiled about two hundred years after the death of the Prophet

Muhammad, which demands an explanation to its necessity, why it did not exist before, and what

prompted its writing. The thing that changed most importantly for this study in the two hundred


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years after the death of Muhammad was that four schools emerged outlining methods to apply

the teachings of the Prophet in new, changing, and unforeseen contexts. The Sharia law of Islam

is based entirely off of the Quran, including an injunction to follow the Prophet, thus in order to

apply the law to situations not explicitly described in the Quran the words and teachings of

Muhammad were employed. The exact method of employment of these teachings 1 differed in

four important ways which developed into four important schools 2 of Islamic jurisprudence all in

the generation before Bukhari, 3 which was also the generation after the Prophet. After the

philosophy of jurisprudence was established and the methods came into effect the scholars of

these traditions were faced with the problem of conflicting or absent reports about what theProphet did or said. The first generation after the prophet used simply used direct transmission of

the sayings and deeds of the Prophet, though there was much fighting about the meaning behind

them, there was a concensus about methodology, it was simply word of mouth. The second

generations leading scholars became consumed in the debates of the time and the creation of the

schools but it was only after the schools were established that the Muslims on a large scale

realized how perilous the phrase the Prophet said... had become. Thus, it seems that Bukhari

was born into an environment ripe for his idea of an absolute, exhaustive and correct collection

of history. He was also born into a time where this collection would hold enormous political

power, and indeed would come to define authority in an empire larger and more diverse than

Rome.

1 For example whether to forbid only what was explicitly forbidden or to forbid all that was not explicitly allowed isa very important dilemma.2 Called Madhhab, these schools are called Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi i, and Hanbali and while enjoying traditionalphysical locations the principles of the schools were also used to describe the jurisprudential methods derived bytheir founders.3 All of these schools are seen as orthodox, so practitioners of the very same Islamic faith may justifiably haveopposing views on such matters as the acceptability of eating shellfish, shark, or raw meat.


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When Bukhari set out to create his collection he did something unique that changed his

work from a simple telling of tales to a trusted history: he applied scientific analysis to his search

for the truth. The trouble with the Hadith that were circulating at the time was that their

admittance to court could easily be rendered meaningless if another saying was proposed that

seemed to contradict the first. With the belief that the Prophet was, if not infallible, at least

entirely coherent it would have been an obvious course of action to develop a method of rooting

out the made-up tales and collecting only those which could be verified. The verification process

was then established, it would be established that the chains of narration would be included in

every Hadith that Bukhari came across linking the story directly back to the Prophet. Obviouslyif the chain could not be made the Hadith was rejected, but also if the chain was made up or seen

as improbable 4 or delivered through an untrustworthy source doubt was cast on the narration as

well. Finally, a collection of over 7000 sayings was compiled that had passed the test of

authenticity according to Bukhari. This final collection is traditionally assumed to be only 2% of

the stories Bukhari encountered in his efforts to write his book 5. If Bukhari had indeed intended

to simply lay down a verified account of the sayings of Muhammad through rigorous scholarship

and he followed his method faithfully the textbooks literally need to be re-written on the subject

of the birth and development of scientific historical scholarship 6.

I will now move away from the history of Bukhari himself and toward the history of his

legacy. Though both Religious studies and theology have a great interest in the historical aspects

of Bukhari and his work, neither understands them in a historical context alone. The work will be

4 These problems could be rooted out by application of historical knowledge, the lives and whereabouts of certainapostles to the Prophet were used to critique the idea of their meeting with other people on the chain etc.5 That is if one assumes the 300 000 sayings he heard existed, and if one counts the Sahih to contain 7000 sayings.6 This renders the assertion Nineteenth century historians developed systematic rules for making [comparisons of sources] in Howel & Preveniers Comparison of Sources obsolete by 1100 years.


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considered first for its considerable intellectual achievements, then for its internal coherence and

reliability, and lastly for its impact on both the Islamic and European worlds.

Bukhari, as was stated earlier, was engaged in a world that was ripe for his endeavour.

Because it was such an important and widespread academic need, Bukhari was not the only

collector of Hadith in the ancient Islamic world. In fact, Bukhari consulted and debated many

contemporaries concerning their shared endeavour, and in these debates we can find the

beginnings of philosophies and attitudes toward history that can be called nothing short of

modern. The second largest collection of Hadith, and one also labelled authentic is that of

Muslim. Muslim was a collector of similar calibre, age, and influence to Bukhari and

unsurprisingly he had many similar views. However, the most interesting aspects of Muslims

mind are not its similarities, but its differences from Bukhari, differences which have been

recorded for our study.

Jonathan Brown of Georgetown University writes that Muslim acknowledged a relatively

less rigorous approach in his authentication of the Hadith literature7. Of course being an Islamic

studies expert and not strictly a historian Brown misses the importance of this discussion in the

realm of intellectual history, but his recording of it does allow other historians to pick up where

he left off. The implication is that the contemporaries of Muslim tended to have even more strict

guidelines concerning their oral tradition sources. Brown goes on to describe just what it was that

caused Muslim to acknowledge that he stood apart, and this self critique is very telling. When

an8 is used, Muslim does not require affirmative proof that the two transmitters actually met.

Instead he requires only that they were contemporaries with no clear indication ( dalala

7 Brown 2007, 82 8 This is an Arabic word which has acquired much meaning and importance in the study of Islam but for ourpurposes it essentially indicates from or on the authority of as a reference to a saying being told through atransmitter.


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b ayyina) that they did not meet. 9 Muslim requires this less strict transmission because he

believes those who are stricter such as Bukhari lack precedent from earlier hadith masters. 10

This implies at least one real change in the source criticism of the time, the matter is spelled out

in the plainest of terms, Bukhari and his contemporaries were changing the way history was

done. The importance of this change has been examined through changes in religious theory but

not in a purely historical context, and leased of all in the context of historiography.

Source criticism of this calibre requires libraries of reliable information in this day and

age. In order to asses if the lines of transmission were truly reliable the scholars of the time

needed reliable accounts of the lives of the transmitters, not just the Prophet himself. Not only

that, but to assure that the lines of transmission were not easily made up there needed to be a

class of scholars who had access to this information and had intellectual freedom. In researching

the access to this information we find the most astonishing and nearly unbelievable side of

Bukhari, his 7000 article encyclopaedia of traditions of the Prophet was both his latter and his

lesser work. Before the Sahih, Bukhari wrote an encyclopaedia of hadith transmitters in order to

establish a base of knowledge from which transmissions could be analysed. This first work was

entitled al-Tarikh al-ka b ir (The Great History) contains now over 12 000 entries, but it is

believed that an entire volume of the work (that of women) has been lost, meaning the original

would have been one of the largest encyclopaedias on Islam available today in any language.

From this astonishing level of research, historians can rest assured that many of Bukharis

contemporaries would have had ample evidence to critique hadith transmission lines. 11

9 Ibid, 8210 Ibid, 82 11 Many historians researching any epoch could justifiably be jealous of Bukhari and his like-minded scholars for theincredible bounty of information available to them.


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In fact, Bukhari was not seen in his time as the pinnacle of Islamic or historical

research, 12 so it can be assumed that neither his Sahih nor his al-Tarikh al-ka b ir were unique to

their time. Despite the sources available to historians, it is imperative that a culture of scholarly

freedom be available so that proper criticism and issues can be brought to the surface. This

culture of freedom was as strong in the time that Bukhari was writing as it is in todays world,

and that is not evidenced by the wide recognition and acceptance of the Hadith works but the

scrutiny, volatility, and even the angry tone 13 of the scholars who engaged in the debates. That

these scholars could take the roots of the newly emerged religion and openly criticise, debate,

dismiss and uphold different theories and methods while remaining well endowed above theshoulders proves that proper scholarship could easily have taken place in this environment. The

little work we have translated or that is accessible is enough to get a sense that these scholars felt

free to express themselves, and many of them took chances that todays historians would shy

away from for fear of reprisal from our scholarly community.

Bukhari was thus subject to much criticism himself and his works were almost by default

peer-reviewed, but after the period of intense scholarship in this area waned, Bukhari and

Muslim became the champions of their realm. The works became so influential that they may

have actually fulfilled the fears of some of their competitors who did not want too much

credence put on these two works. The fear was that if one (or two) of these collections became

canonised it would spell out the end of proper scholarship on the issue because they would

become off-limits and critical opinions would be suppressed 14. This is exactly what happened

and the scholarship surrounding these works has become almost entirely religious. A secular

12 Ibid, 8713 Brown frames Muslim in a sort of Thomposnian light by saying he angrily asserts some of his scholarship. Thisanger was no doubt also felt by the rulers at the time, many of whom were engaged in the debates themselves, butfew of whom got in the way of free scholarship. 14 Ibid 90-97


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viewing of these works, in a secular context would be not only very appropriate but could revive

a bounty of intellectual history that is being treated now as mere speculative religious banter.

The impact the Sahih Bukhari has had on the Islamic world is immense. More important

to this study though is the legacy of intellectual freedom and excellence that the Sahih Bukhari

represents. Developing over the centuries after the emergence of Bukhari his work was gradually

made canon, thus taking it out of the sphere of historical study alone and necessarily involving

religious scholarship. Before this, however, the work is clearly a divergence in contemporary

philosophies on historical study. This divergence must have been popularly accepted in order for

the work to gain such widespread appeal, thus it can be assumed that later Muslim historians, not

just religious scholars, would be influenced by the methodologies used in this book. By the time

the debates ended and the work was canonized it was not only possible, but probable that most

Islamic scholars would be introduced to the Sahih Bukhari and what made it special. As the

Caliphate grew and advanced well beyond the intellectual achievements of contemporary

Europe, the historians of that realm would have, knowingly or otherwise, been studying modern

source criticism along with other methodologies that would have given them a great edge in

historical research. What influence this had on individual Muslim scholars has not been

addressed, and the impact of this sort of historical criticism on the reliability of the other

contemporary histories is also an area unstudied. Because there are no historians in this field,

only religious studies experts, we have shamefully little to show for this period of immense

scholarship in intellectual history. Furthermore, I have been thus far unable to ascertain the

impact this period has on modern intellectual history in the Middle East. Lastly, it is well

understood that many ideas that left Europe in the Middle Ages returned in Arabic in the

Renaissance. These ideas were often quite changed, and very frequently heavily commented on


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by the Muslim scholars. There is no reason to assume that modern source criticism as well as

other relics of intellectual history developed in Europe, but there is also no research done to

justify the theory that they crossed over to Europe from the Islamic Empire. Unfortunately, there

is a lack of evidence either way, but fortunately there is a good starting point and likely ample

research materials available to trace the path and pattern that these principles had though Muslim

and possibly later European literature.

The Sahih Bukhari is a staple of intellectual history that has been excluded from the

realm of analysis for centuries. It may well be that Bukhari is a foundational character in the

development of history to rival Herodotus, Marx, and other hugely influential characters, but

much more research needs to be done to either support or knock down this theory.


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Condensed Bibliography

Brown, Johnathan. The Canonization of al-Bukhari and Muslim : The Formation and

Function of the Sunni Hadith Canon. BRILL 2007

Guillaume, Alfred. Traditions: An Introduction to the Study of Hadith Literature.

Kessinger 2003

Maulana Muhammad Ali. A Manual of Hadith. Routlegde 1944

Safi ur Rahman Al Mubarakpuri. The Sealed Nectar: Biography of the No b el Prophet

Darussalam, 2002

bukhari: a research paper on ancient historical methodologies

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