The Historians' History of the World 08 [Parthians, Sassanids and Arabs; The Crusades and the Papacy]

Moreover there was another point of view from which the systemisation of the use of speculation as a source of law on the one hand and of tradition on the other proved an imperative necessity. If, in the one case, it was requisite to curb the arbitrary exercise of the subjective reason, it was no less necessary to check the rank growth of traditional matter, which, as it increased, hampered more and more the use of authentic tradition. The one-sided partisans of the sunna needed traditional matter for the establishment of such a legal system as they desired to see. Nor was any refutation of their theses, nor any opinion advanced against them, in their eyes worth discussing unless it could appeal to the authority of tradition. As a result, where no traditional matter was to be had, men speedily began to fabricate it. The greater the demand, the busier was invention with the manufacture of apocryphal traditions in support of the respective theses.

For the verification of didactic records, whether sacred or profane, Islam has adopted a singular form, which imparts to Islamite tradition a character altogether peculiar to itself, to which we can find no parallel (at least in such a mature and consistent shape) in any other literature. This is the hadith. The word hadith means simply communication, or narrative. If any such narrative is to be put forth with pretensions to authenticity the actual text must be preceded by what is called the sanad or isnad (literally, ‘support’). This enumerates in correct and unbroken sequence the authorities who have handed the narrative down from mouth to mouth, from the last person responsible for its circulation up to its original author. The examination of this sanad allows free and unbiased criticism the opportunity of judging whether these men on whose authority any particular narrative has been passed from mouth to mouth and from generation to generation, and set down as an actual occurrence, were persons deserving of full credit.

From this point of view an unbroken chain of oral tradition constitutes a surer and more valuable guarantee of authenticity than any written document, whether contemporary or based upon contemporary records. Even if a written document bears all the outward tokens of authenticity, it must be able to show a consistent sanad reaching in uninterrupted sequence from the first author to the last teller of the tale, if its claim is to be admitted. Every narrative and every matter of tradition, without regard to its quantitative or qualitative importance, must be set forth with its “genealogy.” This genealogy is the sanad. In theological matters, more particularly, it is the backbone without which no record can stand upright.

The literature of historic research also avails itself of this form of verification. Readers of the classic work of Muhammed Jarir al-Tabari, the “father of Islamite history” are familiar with this method of historic authentication. Each record takes the form of an appendage to a chain of tradition which reaches back to some direct authority, and to this chain the record is appended in the very words of the first narrator. It sometimes happens that a record of the same event occurs in narratives that are traced back to different authorities, and not merely in different words and with trifling variations. The facts themselves are represented in a totally different fashion, or the narratives of different authorities set them or their accompanying circumstances in a different light. All these divergent narratives are simply placed side by side, in a manner which cannot be compared with the different authorities for the narratives of the Pentateuch; for, unlike the latter, the traditional records of Arab history are not anonymous. On the contrary, they owe their distinctive character to this circumstantial system of authentication and the enumeration by name of the successive vouchers for their truth. Again, they show no trace of an attempt on the part of any editor to reduce conflicting accounts to harmony; they are simply set side by side, instead of being welded together. This circumstance has greatly facilitated the critical study of the periods from which such parallel narratives date. Wellhausen has recently given to the world a masterly study, in which he skilfully discriminates between the various points of view, and the particular bias of each of the authorities for the narrative of the victory at Tabari (Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, VI).