Hadith Commentary: Continuity and Change

Description

Hadith commentary has been a central site of Islamic intellectual life for more than a millennium, across diverse periods, regions and sects. This is the first volume of scholarly essays ever collected on the key texts and critical themes of hadith commentary. The book unfolds chronologically from the early centuries of Islam to the modern period, and readers will discover continuities and changes as a group of international experts offer illuminating studies of Sunnis, Shi’is and Sufis who interpret and debate the meaning of hadith over a wide terrain: Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, India, and further. The volume also models a variety of methodological approaches, including social history, intellectual history, the study of religion, and digital history. By highlighting both differences and commonalities as the practice of hadith commentary circulated across distant eras and lands, this volume sheds new light on the way Muslims have historically understood the meaning of Muhammad’s example. Contents Figures Notes on Contributors Preface Introduction What is Hadith Commentary? Part I Formations and Developments in the Early and Middle Periods Chapter 1 Between Philology and Hadith Criticism: The Genre of Sharḥ Gharīb al-Ḥadīth Chapter 2 The Hermeneutics of al-Sharīf al- Murtaḍā: The Interpretation of akhbār al-āḥād in Kitāb al-Amālī Chapter 3 ‘Blessed are the Strangers (ghurabāʾ)’: An Apocalyptic Hadith on the Virtues of Loneliness, Sadness and Exile Chapter 4 Sufi Contributions to Hadith Commentary Chapter 5 Ibn Rajab’s Commentary on al-Nawawī’s Forty Hadith: Innovation and Audience in the Jāmiʿ al-ʿulūm wa-l-ḥikam Chapter 6 The Words of the Imam beyond Philosophy and Tradition: Shīʿī Hadith Commentaries in the Ṣafavid Period Part II Modern Recollections and Reimaginings Chapter 7 Contesting Ḥanafī Thought in a Twentieth-century Turkish Hadith Commentary Chapter 8 Debating Authority and Authenticity in Modern South Asian Hadith Commentaries: Muḥammad Zakariyyā Kāndhalawī’s Awjaz al-masālik Chapter 9 ʿAllāma Ṭabāṭabāʾī and Exegetical Hadiths in al-Mīzān: A Contemporary Imāmī Commentary on Hadith? Chapter 10 Studying Hadith Commentaries in the Digital Age Afterword: More Comments, Further Questions Index