Carrying on the Tradition: A Social and Intellectual History of Hadith Transmission across a Thousand Years

Garrett A. Davidson, Ph.D. (2014) University of Chicago, is Assistant Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the College of Charleston. His research focuses on hadith and the Arabic manuscript tradition.

• List of FiguresIntroduction1 Reimagining Hadith Transmission in the Shadow of the Canon1 The Ideology of Hadith Transmission2 The Social Logic of Hadith Transmission3 “Nothing Gold Can Stay:” The End of the ‘Golden Age’ of Hadith Transmission4 Elevation and Decline5 Degrees of Separation6 Supernatural Elevation7 Conclusion2 The Post-canonical Evolution of Oral Hadith Transmission1 The Audition Notice2 The Evolving Function of Oral Transmission3 The Age Structure of Oral Transmission4 Hadith Speed Reading5 Further Liberalization of Oral Transmission6 The Ritualization of Oral Hadith Transmission7 Locations of Oral Hadith Transmission8 Musalsalāt: Ritual and Mimesis in Oral Hadith Transmission9 A Shifting Culture of Oral Hadith Transmission3 Non-oral Transmission in the Oral Idiom: The Development and Function of the Ijāza1 Confusion in the Secondary Literature2 The Origins and Early Development of the Ijāza3 The Earliest Attestations of the Ijāza4 The Tide Begins to Turn: The Increasing Acceptance of the Ijāza in the Fourth/Tenth Century5 Al-Khaṭīb and the Expansion of the Ijāza6 The ijāza as a Means of Preserving the Chain of Transmission7 Permission for the Unspecified8 Who Can Receive an Ijāza?9 The Ijāza and the Short Chain of Transmission10 The Ijāza and the Unborn11 Ijāzas for All: The Development and Function of the al-Ijāza al-ʿĀmma12 Conclusion4 The High and the Low: Men, Women and the Social Aspect of Elevation1 The Laity and the Randomness of Longevity and Elevation2 A Medieval Hadith Rock Star: The Extraordinary Case of Abū ʿAbbās al-Ḥajjār3 The Elevated Chain of Transmission and Women Hadith Transmitters4 The Exceptional Case of Karīma al-Marwaziyya5 The Question of Learning among Women Hadith Transmission6 The Case of Women Hadith Transmitters in al-Sakhāwī’s al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ7 Longevity, Elevation and Women Transmitters8 The View of Women’s Hadith Transmission from the Documentary Evidence9 Women and Hadith Transmission beyond the Tenth/Sixteenth Century10 Conclusion5 Brevity, Breadth and Elevation: The Forty Hadith and ʿAwālī Genres1 The Prophet’s Promise: The Forty-Hadith Genres and Elevation2 The Forty-Hadith Genre as a Tool for the Cultivation of Elevation3 The Forty-Hadith Genre and Elevation4 Forty Hadith, Forty Shaykhs, Forty Towns5 The ʿAwālī Genre: Compiling and Presenting Elevation6 Thulāthiyyāt al-Bukhārī: al-Bukhārī’s Threes7 Degrees of Separation: Link-Themed ʿAwālī Collections8 Categories of Elevation: Muwāfaqāt, Abdāl, ʿAwālī9 Conclusion6 Men of Books and Books of Men: The Muʿjam/Mashyakha and Fihrist/Thabat Catalog Genres1 The Mashyakha and Muʿjam al-Shuyūkh Genre2 The Muʿjam/Mashyakha Genre as s Vehicle for Cultivating Elevated Hadith3 The Reception of Mashyakha and Muʿjam al-Shuyūkh Works4 The Fihrist/Thabat Genres5 The Thabat: The Development of the Catalog Genre in the Central and Eastern Islamic Lands6 Conclusion7 Hadith Transmission in an Age of Transformation and Reform1 The Last of the Mohicans: Al-Kattānī and the State of Hadith Transmission in the Early-Twentieth Century2 Hadith Transmission and Reform3 Reformers and the Irrationality of Post-Canonical Hadith Transmission4 Transmitting Hadith in the Shifting Political and Cultural Terrain of the Twentieth Century5 Hadith Transmission as a Feature of Late Sunni TraditionalismIndex