This article addresses the early formation of Sunni “orthodoxy” through the prisms of historical memory and collective identity rather than those of theology, law, and formal political power.Footnote 4 It does so by exploring the socio-political context in which the phrase luzūm al-jamāʿa Footnote 5 (adhering to the community) was deployed during the late Umayyad/Marwanid (64/684–132/750) and early Abbasid (132/750–333/945) periods, primarily among the networks of hadith transmitters who circulated the idea during that period. While theological (kalām) and jurisprudential (ʿuṣūl al-fiqh) works discuss the notion of al-jamaʿa (political community) from a rarified scholarly perspective that assumes a pre-existing hermeneutic orientation, a review of the way in which the term al-jamaʿa is used in hadith literature, and specifically its transmission history, allows insight into the Sitz im Leben of a discursive tradition foundational to Sunni identity. The results of this analysis reveal that in the religious imperial context of late antiquity, the discourse of al-jamaʿa stressed unity and loyalty, operated as an element of statecraft in the turbulent Marwanid period, and was promoted by religious and political elites of the Umayyad state. Ideas central to Sunni conceptions of community first developed in Umayyad patronage structures and networks, before being adopted by political and religious elites (often referred to in modern secondary literature as proto-Sunni), who endorsed them for purposes of political stability and legitimation just a few generations later during the Abbasid period. In other words, Sunni ideas about community and orthodoxy drew significantly from late-Umayyad political discourse, rather than representing a radical rejection on the part of the piety-minded of the Umayyad imperial legacy.
Sunni communitarian discourses underlie a range of aesthetic and ideological sensibilities that remain operative even in the present moment but remain outside of the scope of formal theological doctrine or legal thought and thus escape analysis under the rubric of conventional intellectual history. Given the rhetorical and symbolic power of Muslim collective identity, as seen in its enduring appeal and multiple adaptations throughout history, Sunni communitarian discourses that employ and deploy key terms such as al-umma or al- jamaʿa deserve further inquiry as subjects in and of themselves, and not just as sub-topics in the intellectual history of jurisprudence or theology. What are the socio-historical origins and contexts of such concepts? How do they operate through time and space and moreover, across literary, theological, and jurisprudential genres? What are the hermeneutic practices and assumptions underlying these discursive environments? Such inquiries are all the more important given that Sunni claims to orthodoxy (like comparable assertions of exclusive religious authority in Judaism, Christianity, and even Buddhism) are predicated on the idea that the present community represents an unbroken, intact, and authoritative chain of continuity to the original Prophetic moment (Henderson Reference Henderson1998, 85). Approaching the problem of Sunni orthodoxy through the notion of an imagined community—namely that of al-jamaʿa—allows one to consider authority in the Islamic tradition in unconventional ways. Consider, for example, Sherman Jackson's passing but pithy observation that:
the threat of stigma, malicious gossip, ostracism, or verbal attack by respected members of the community is far more imminent, far more effective, and far more determinative of religious belief and behavior than is the threat of formal excommunication. (2002, 30)
This study explores the formation of Islamic communitarian sensibilities in the late Umayyad and early Abbasid periods by reviewing the transmission history of an important Sunni proof text concerning the probity of the Muslim community as a theological precept.
Sectarianism, theological competition, and political discord are some of the most prominent and persistent features of early Islamic history. Despite, or perhaps because of, this the question of orthodoxy and heresy in the study of the Islamic formative period has been fraught with analytic and conceptual problems since its inception. For generations scholars have explored the precise nature, function, and location of “authority” in Islamic tradition. Goldziher's influential comments on Sunni conceptions of consensus (ijmāʿ)—the idea that the Muslim community enjoys a general sense of divinely guided probity—are familiar to most students of early and medieval Muslim societies and have had a lasting impact:
There is no parallel between dogma in Islam and dogma in the religious system of any Christian church. In Islam there are no councils and synods that, after vigorous debate, fix the formulas that henceforth must be regarded as sound belief. There is no ecclesiastic office that provides a standard of orthodoxy. There is no exclusively authorized exegesis of the sacred texts, upon which the doctrines of a church, and the manner of their inculcation, might be based. The consensus is the highest authority in all questions of religious theory and practice, but it is a vague authority, and its judgment can scarcely be precisely determined. (163)
However, just as Goldziher's views on the top-down formation of Christian doctrine are considerably outdated, so too may it be time to reconsider the relationship between the jurisprudential principle of consensus and the ever-nebulous notion of Sunni orthodoxy, a concept that continually resists definition.
Wael Hallaq (Reference Hallaq1986), in his classic article “On the Authoritativeness of Sunni Consensus,” explored the historical development of the doctrine of consensus in Sunni Islam, noting that it eventually “became one of the most remarkable doctrinal features which distinguished ahl al-sunna wa-l- jamaʿa [Sunni Islam] from other sects and movements,” (420–28). Hallaq's contribution was an important one in that it advocated an anti-positivist intellectual history of the doctrine; namely that, rather than exploring the potential origins of this concept, it was the overwhelming belief in the probity of the Muslim community as a critical element of collective entity which lies at the center of Sunni self-conceptions of religious authority. Problematically, however, Hallaq, Goldizher, and most other scholars tend to conflate ijmaʿ and jamaʿa; while the former is extracted from the latter etymologically and hermeneutically, they are far from synonymous. To be sure, Imam Shafiʿi (d. 204/820) himself was among the very first to derive the principle of ijmaʿ from the proof texts of hadith that seemingly advocated the general inviolability of the collective body of the Muslims.Footnote 6 Of course, it is one thing for the Muslim jurisprudent to adopt this conceptual premise, but it is quite another for the modern historian.
This essay decouples the jurisprudential principle of ijmaʿ from the concept of al-jamaʿa in order to explore the ways in which the latter functioned as an element of Marwanid period Islamic statecraft and thereby established a discursive precedent linking Sunni identity to early Muslim imperial ambitions. It does so by charting the notion of al-jamaʿa as a political and ethical idea in the late Umayyad and early Abbasid periods through a biographical analysis of hadith transmitters who participated in the discourse of luzum al-jamaʿa (adhering to the community) by collecting and passing on hadith that articulated the concept. This exercise rereads what the concept of al-jamaʿa may have looked like in the context of the social network which subscribed to it before the idea became associated with the Sunni jurisprudential principle of ijmaʿ. What emerges is that the idea and practice of al-jamaʿa are synonymous with the requirements for inclusion in the community of believers, which, at the time, also meant loyalty to the Umayyad state, Islam's first imperial dynasty.
Political Community, Religious Identity, and the Umayyad State
Modern political sensibilities often posit a strict distinction between the political and religious realms and thereby obscure late antique understandings of belonging and being. For its constituents, patrons, and benefactors, the Umayyad state constituted the community of believers and the exclusive conduit through which a Muslim could reach fruition in this life and salvation in the next. In terms of religious discourse, the notions of al-jamaʿa (community), samʿ (acquiescence), and ṭāʿa (obedience), were linked to the patronage structures of the Umayyad polity: loyalty to the Umayyad state was synonymous with inclusion in the jamaʿa.
Andrew Marsham's recent study of allegiance and ceremonial in early Islam provides particularly helpful insight into this phenomenon. He cites the reaction of a prominent figure in early Islamic history, ʿAbd Allah b. ʿUmar (d. 73/693) when the people of Medina refused to continue their allegiance to Yazid, the controversial Umayyad caliph in 60/680:
When the people threw off allegiance to Yazid b. Muʿawiya, Ibn ʿUmar gathered his sons and his family. After uttering the fundamental creed, he stated: ‘To begin: we have already pledged allegiance to this man according to the pact of God and His Messenger, and I heard the Prophet say: ‘Truly on the Day of Resurrection a flag is raised for the traitor on which is written of what his betrayal consists. There is no greater treachery, besides idolatry, than to pledge allegiance to a man according to the pact of God and His Messenger and then to violate his pledge.’ So let none of you throw off allegiance to Yazid, nor should any one of you venture to do this, for there will be a cutting-off between me and him. (Marsham Reference Marsham2009, 99; Ibn Hanbal Reference Ibn Hanbal1993, vii, 5088)Footnote 7
Ibn ʿUmar's comments represent a pervasive understanding during the Umayyad period which did not distinguish between religious and political identity, be it communal or individual. Political solidarity and loyalty in early Islamic history, then, should be understood as a religious ethical practice that tied the individual not only to his community but to the divinely mandated temporal order through which it is constituted.
ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwan, the Marwanid-Umayyad Caliph who ruled from 86/705 to 96/715, regularly invoked the ethic of communal solidarity and loyalty to the state as he attempted to reconsolidate the Islamic empire after a series of destructive civil wars. There is a growing consensus among modern historians that his ruling policies not only influenced structures of governance but the very identity of the Sunni tradition as well. In this sense, the idea of jamaʿa is one of many examples of Marwanid era theopolitical statecraft. For example, upon assuming the mantle of the Caliphate, ʿAbd al-Malik's first son, al-Walid I (r. 86/705–96/715) praised his father for opening the pilgrimage routes and expanding the frontier zones. He implored those that were congregated before him towards unity:
O people, incumbent upon you are obedience and cleaving to the collective body [luzum al-jamaʿa], for Satan is with the individual. O people, he who reveals to us his inner thoughts (that is, of opposition). . . and he who remains silent will die of his malady. (Al-Tabari 1990, 126)
Marwanid efforts to stabilize the fledging Islamic empire required a range of tools. In addition to overt military and political levers of power, the ideology of political community manifested here in the discourse of the jamaʿa also clearly played an important role.
A few decades later al-Walid II (r. 125/743–126/744), although reigning for only a short period, also participated in this discourse. He sent a highly charged letter to the people of Iraq and Khurasan which aptly demonstrates the way in which ideas of community, empire, and religious identity were fused together in early Muslim society. In their influential study God's Caliph, Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds (Reference Crone and Hinds2003) first drew scholars’ attention to this letter in order to buttress their argument concerning the divinely mandated sovereignty of Umayyad kingship. Andrew Marsham builds on their conclusions by pointing out the significance of the themes of covenant and community in Umayyad ceremonial:
So the caliphs of God followed one another, in charge of that which God had caused them to inherit from His prophets and over which He had deputed them. Nobody can dispute their right without God casting him down, and nobody can separate from their polity (jama ʿ a) without God destroying him. This is how God acts towards anyone who departs from the obedience to which He has ordered people to cling, adhere and devote themselves, and through which the heaven and earth are supported. (Marsham Reference Marsham2009, 174, originally: al-Tabari, v. 2, 1758; tr. Crone and Hinds Reference Crone and Hinds2003, 120)
Among the most important Qurʾanic themes alluded to in this text is that the polity, the jamaʿa, fulfills God's primordial covenant which is understood as that made between God, Adam, and his offspring prior to the creation. This can be seen, for example, in the verse: “And hold fast, all together, to God's rope (or “covenant”). . .and do not scatter. . . .(Q 3:103)” (Marsham Reference Marsham2009, 175). The jamaʿa is both a temporal and a transcendental body that fuses imperial prerogatives with divine importance. Hence, membership in, and loyalty to, the jamaʿa, or here the Umayyad state, became inextricably bound with the discourse of religious and political obedience; the combination was in fact divinely mandated.
Some may argue that the religious overtones of Umayyad self-representations were disingenuous and that Umayyad elites deployed Islamic concepts for purely political reasons. This argument rests upon the idea that Umayyad governors, generals, and courtiers were drawing upon pre-existing religious concepts and ideas in order to draw support from independent religious classes and their constituents. Proponents of this idea maintain that the religious ethics and principles central to Sunni Islam developed in isolation from the Umayyad state, which functioned in a kind of “secular” or non-religious capacity. However, as will be seen below, a preliminary survey of the chains of transmission of prophetic reports (isnads) that articulate the idea of “adhering to the community” (luzum al-jamaʿa) demonstrate a much different picture.
The long debate among modern scholars over the religious or political nature of Umayyad legitimacy is in fact rooted in conflicting medieval perceptions of the first Islamic monarchy.Footnote 8 My research has found that the concept of adhering to the community, central to Sunni identity much later, was circulated and promoted by religious scholars who were wedded to Umayyad state structures. This finding is corroborated by Steven Judd's recent study, Religious Scholars and the Umayyads (Reference Judd2014), which challenges long-held assumptions in the modern scholarly literature that depict a strict separation between the Umayyad court and the religious scholarly class (ʿulamāʾ). He argues that modern scholars have largely based their conclusions on narratives deriving from Abbasid era sources that sought to diminish the significance of the Umayyads in the shaping of the Muslim community's history (Judd Reference Judd2014, 4). This long overdue intervention adds to a growing consensus among historians of early Muslim history that Umayyad imperial policies, especially during the Marwanid period (64/684–132/750), significantly influenced the development of Islamic ritual and doctrinal discourses. For example, Chase Robinson (Reference Robinson2005) and Fred Donner (Reference Donner2010) recently and convincingly argue that ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwan, along with his sons, who reigned until the end of the Umayyad period, are effectively responsible for shaping the imperial confessional identity in Islamic terms. This conclusion is further corroborated in the following section in which one of many hadith reports exhorting believers to “adhere to the community” is analyzed in terms of social and political context.
Luzum al-Jamaʿa: A Marwanid Political Theology?
The notion of “adhering to the community” (luzum al-jamaʿa) was a pervasive idea in early Islamic society. It figured prominently in Marwanid rhetorical efforts to stabilize the fractured Muslim empire after a series of civil wars and uprisings. Later in the Abbasid period these ideas continued to constitute central Sunni notions of belief and belonging. The discourse of “adhering to the community” was so widespread that prominent compilers of hadith such as ʿAbd al-Razzaq al-Sanʿani (d. 211/826) and al-Tirmidhi (279/892) considered it important enough to dedicate a specific subject heading to the concept in their collections. In addition, early figures identified as belonging to the ahl al-hadith in the nascent Hanbali milieu such as Abu Bakr al-Khallal (d. 311/923), Abu Bakr al-Ajurri (d. 360/971), and Ibn Abi ʿAsim (d. 287/900) considered it a cornerstone of their theological system.
As Wael Hallaq points out, hadith reports praising the probity and general inviolability of the community were used as proof texts by early Sunni jurists in their justification of the principle of consensus (1986, 438). One such hadith report, cited by al-Shafiʿi in his Risala, figures prominently in a number of authoritative hadith collections:
God will make radiant any servant who hears my words, remembers them, understands them, and conveys them further. Many a bearer of religious knowledge is not himself knowledgeable, and many a bearer of such knowledge bears it to one more knowledgeable than himself. Three things will not fill a man's heart with rancor: sincere devotion in works for God, sincere advice to Muslims, and adhering to the Muslim community. Their religious mission protects them from what they cannot see.Footnote 9 (Hallaq Reference Hallaq1986, 433; Al-Shafiʿi Reference Al-Shafiʿi and Lowry2013, 337)Footnote 10
Referred to hereafter as the “Three Things Hadith,” this tradition appears in the works of most major early hadith collections, for example: al-Musnad, Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 241/855) (Ibn Hanbal Reference Ibn Hanbal1993, 13058, 16435, 16419); al-Sunan, Al-Darimi, (d. 255/869) (Al-Darimi 1996, 232–5); al-Sunan, Ibn Majah (d. 274/887) (Ibn Majah Reference Majah1998a, 3130); al-Musnad, Al-Tayalisi (d.204/819) (Al-Tayalisi 1990, 326); and al-Mustadrak, Hakim al-Naysaburi (d. 405/1014) (Al-Naysaburi Reference Al-Naysaburi1997, 151–2). It is transmitted through many chains of authority back to a number of Companions of the Prophet, and so enjoys the status of being substantially corroborated, or mutawatir in hadith terminology. For the purposes of this study, however, the question of authentic transmission from Muhammad is in fact irrelevant; more important is the general belief that early Muslims invested not only in these purported words of the Prophet but also in the credibility of their transmitters. Put simply, whether or not the hadith report does in fact reflect the words of Muhammad is far less significant for this argument than its rhetorical function in the politics of the Marwanid period.
The reign of ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwan (r. 65/685–86/705), according to Chase Robinson, marks the “effective beginning of the [Islamic] state,” in which a number of ideological and governing structures that would mark the imperial Islamic polity for centuries to come were established (2005, 6). Given the intense level of fragmentation and discord that marked the late Umayyad and early Abbasid periods, it is significant that the idea of the jamaʿa operated as an idiom and signifier of the legitimate body politic and of the community of believers simultaneously. Indeed most of ʿAbd al-Malik's time was spent putting down internal rebellions and regaining lost territory from the Byzantines. For example, al-Mukhtar al-Thaqafi (d. 68/687) raised his rebellion from Kufa in the name of the ʿAlid claimant Muhammad b. al-Hanafiyya (d. 81/700) in the year 66/685. ʿAbd Allah Ibn al-Zubayr (r. 61/680–73/692) staged his “counter-caliphate” from the Hijaz, controlling a vast swath of the Arabian Peninsula and extending his command as far as Iraq. ʿAbd al-Rahman b. al-Ashʿath (d. 84/703), an Umayyad general himself, revolted against ʿAbd al-Malik's infamous governor al-Hajjaj b. Yusuf (d. 95/714). When one adds to this list the Azraqi Kharijite rebellions in Iran and that of Najda b. ʿAmir in Yamama during the same period, it becomes clear that the Umayyad state faced ideological and military opposition from nearly all quarters of the empire. No wonder, then, that the discourse of “adhering to the community” would be a critical piece of the late Umayyad regime statecraft. The Marwanid imperial moment therefore provides the social, historical, and political context for the emergence of discourse of the jamaʿa as a signifier of legitimate Muslim belonging, an idea that would later be appropriated by Sunni exegetes. The following section offers a biographical survey and analysis of the individuals involved in the transmission of the Three Things Hadith report, mentioned above, in order to demonstrate that the continuity of the discourse of “adhering to the community” between the Umayyad and Abbasid periods, although seemingly counterintuitive, was an accomplishment of state-affiliated hadith transmitter networks.
Perhaps the most prominent representative of this phenomenon is Muhammad Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri (d. 124/742), who appears in numerous chains of transmission of the Three Things Hadith. His role in its transmission seems to be central (Ibn Majah Reference Majah1998b, 230).Footnote 11 Al-Zuhri is often remembered as a prominent Medinese scholar given that he was born and raised there and later spent significant time in the city. However, because of his close proximity to the Umayyad court, he is better understood in a Syrian political context. Al-Zuhri arrived in Damascus as a casualty of the turbulent politics of Medina and Damascus at the time. His father and his tribe/clan had been excised from the court register that distributed stipends (diwān) on account of their support of Ibn al-Zubayr. In fact, in one account, al-Zuhri explicitly asks ʿAbd al-Malik for forgiveness for his father's transgression (Abou El Fadl Reference Abou El Fadl2001, 69). It is possible that he went to Damascus either to seek employment or to participate in fighting, both routes of rapprochement with the Umayyads. As Stephen Judd notes, upon his reception by ʿAbd al-Malik, he “gained the respect of [the Caliph] by reciting hadith that affirmed his decisions,” and thereafter became a “fixture in the Umayyad court,” (2014, 53). Throughout his subsequent career he served as an Umayyad judge, police chief, tax collector, commander in the army, and court tutor.
Al-Zuhri's wider influence on Sunni scholarship suggests that his political and intellectual ambitions and accomplishments are somewhat inextricable. As Judd notes,
Even the most tentative foray into the canonical hadith collections reveals the extent of al-Zuhri's influence on the corpus of materials from which later generations would draw. For instance, al-Bukhari includes over 600 hadith reports on al-Zuhri's authority in his Sahih and Ibn Hanbal includes over 1,200 al-Zuhri reports in his Musnad. Al-Bukhari, Ibn Hanbal, al-Tirmidhi, al-Nisaʿi, and Abu Daʾud all include more material from al-Zuhri than even from Nafiʿ, the mawla [client] of Ibn ʿUmar.” (2014, 57)
Viewed from one angle, al-Zuhri may seem like an independent religious scholar placed in the unenviable position of advising the powers that be. Viewed from another angle, al-Zuhri, can be seen as one of many scholars who shaped Islamic communal discourse in an overtly imperial context, working in tandem with Umayyad state interests.
Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri related the Three Things Hadith on the authority of Muhammad b. Jubayr b. Mutʿim b. ʿUdayy, whose father and grandfather were important figures in Mecca in the first Islamic century. Muhammad b. Jubayr's father, the Companion Jubayr b. Mutʿim b. ʿUdayy al-Qurayshi (d. 56/675), was among the elites of the Quraysh. He and his father were among the chief adversaries of Muhammad's prophetic mission. For example, Jubayr was the “owner” of Wahshi b. Harb, the Ethiopian slave who slayed Hamza, the Prophet's uncle, at the Battle of Uhud. He also led the funeral prayer for ʿUthman b. Affan, the assassinated third caliph, an anecdote which places Jubayr and his family in a firmly ʿUthmanid partisan social context.
It should be noted that the medieval scholar of hadith criticism al-Dhahabi (d. 748/1348) reports that Muʿawiya received Muhammad b. Jubayr in Damascus as part of a Qurashi delegation.Footnote 12 Ibn ʿAsakir (d. 571/1175) records that ʿAbd al-Malik also received him after he defeated Ibn al-Zubayr (Ibn ʿAsakir, TMD, v. 55, 141). In this sense, like al-Zuhri, Muhammad b. Jubayr represents a class of Hijazi aristocracy that was eager to make amends with the Umayyads after Ibn al-Zubayr's failed counter-caliphate. The presence of scholars with close connections to the Umayyad court in the isnads of the Three Things Hadith corroborates the notion that the idea of the jamaʿa in the first Islamic centuries was synonymous with Marwanid claims to represent the legitimate religious body politic.
Another line of transmission which goes back to al-Zuhri and indicates a strong Umayyad connection is that of Salah b. Kaysan (d. 140/757).Footnote 13 Salah b. Kaysan resided in Medina and tutored the children of the reputable Umayyad Caliph ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-Aziz (r. 98/717–101/720) when he was the city's governor; he was sent there by al-Walid b. ʿAbd al-Malik (r. 86/705–96/715). Salah was considered by the scholars of hadith criticism to be among the most reliable and prodigious of al-Zuhri's students and earned the approval of al-Bukhari (Al-Dhahabi 1997, v. 6, 234–5).
After Salah b. Kaysan, the hadith report was transmitted by Ibrahim b. Saʿd b. ʿAbd al-Rahman b. ʿAwf (d. 182/798) (Al-Dhahabi 1997, v. 7, 551) and then in Baghdad environs through Nuʿaym b. Hammad (d. 229/843). As his name indicates Ibrahim b. Saʿd was the grandson of one of Islam's most important early figures, ʿAbd al-Rahman b. ʿAwf (d. 33/653), who is counted as one of the al-Ashara al-Mubashshara (the ten promised direct entry to paradise) and was the key power broker in the consultation that led to the appointment of ʿUthman as the third Caliph. Ibrahim's father Saʿd (d. 127/745) was a staunch supporter of ʿUthman's position in Islam's first civil war and served as judge of Medina during the Marwanid period on behalf of the caliph Yazid b. ʿAbd al-Malik. He harshly rebuked the city's population for the murder of ʿUthman b. ʿAffan (Judd Reference Judd2014, 154–5). Ibrahim was entrusted with the administration of the treasury in Abbasid Baghdad and seems to have been one of the primary conduits through which the Three Things Hadith traveled from Medina to the Abbasid capital. Well-known hadith transmitters such as Shuʿba b. al-Hajjaj (d. 160/776) and al-Layth (d. 175/791) ranked Ibrahim among their teachers.
Nuʿaym b. Hammad (d. 227/842) was considered by his biographers as having “embodied the sunna,” using the distinctive terminology of “sahib al-sunna” and as such is considered by later ahl al-hadith as a progenitor of their school (Al-Dhahabi 1997, v. 9, 249–60). Nuʿaym was a martyr of the mihna, having died in prison for refusing to concede that the Qurʾan was created. He also took a strong stand, it is said, against the so-called Jahmiyya, an allegedly deviant group described by their critics in the early Hanbali school as a branch of the Muʿtazilites. Sunni biographers defend him against charges of slandering Abu Hanifa, which at the very least indicates that perception was prevalent among learned circles, something that is consistent with tensions between Hanbalis and Hanafis at the time. It is telling that during this period of early sectarian formation in Islamic history, one of the many hadith reports about the centrality of the jamaʿa to Muslim identity was circulated by someone like Nuʿaym b. Hammad, who falls into the anti-rationalist, nascent Hanbali milieu, the same network that would provide the foundation of Sunni identity in the post-mihna period.
Another example of a member of the late Umayyad, early Abbasid elite responsible for the transmission of this tradition is Ibrahim b. Abi ʿAbla (d. 151/768).Footnote 14 Ibrahim was a prominent successor (tabiʿi) well regarded by later critics for his work in collecting and transmitting hadith in greater Syria. Al-Dhahabi gives him the title “Shaykh of Palestine” and notes that he was known by various nisbas such as al-Maqdisi, al-Shami, and al-Dimashqi (Al-Dhahabi 1997, v. 6, 485–86). He was sent by the Caliph al-Walid b. ʿAbd al-Malik to distribute the military pension in Jerusalem, an indication of the trusted position he must have held at the Marwanid court. He is also said to have met prominent Companions such as Ibn ʿUmar and Anas b. Malik.
Ibrahim b. Abi ʿAbla related the Three Things Hadith from ʿUqba b. Wassaj al-Azdi al-Basri (d. 80/699), who was originally from Basra but settled in Syria and was aligned with ʿAmr b. al-ʿAs's son ʿAbd Allah (Al-Mizzi 1994, v. 13, 141). He enjoyed close ties with a number of Umayyad leaders, and one of his students, Abu ʿUbayda, was the Caliph Sulayman b. ʿAbd al-Malik's chamberlain. His loyalty to the Umayyad state was demonstrated when he killed “a Kharijite named Abu Salil who had rebelled in Basra” (Ulrich Reference Ulrich2008, 117). Most notably, however, he participated in al-Hajjaj's efforts to quell the rebellion of Ibn al-Ashʿath and died doing so, either at the Battle of al-Zawiya (82/701) or at the Battle of Skulls (83/702), named for the Nestorian monastery near which the battle took place. This is a significant point because, according to al-Tabari, the Battle of the Skulls demonstrated the extent to which the people of Iraq opposed Umayyad rule:
There gathered there together at Dayr al-Jamajim the Kufans, the Basrans, the people of the frontier ways of access and the strong points, and the qurraʾ [Quran reciters] of the two urban centers of Kufa and Basra. They were unanimous in making war on al-Hajjaj, being united in that by their hatred and loathing of him. They were at that time one hundred thousand stipendiary fighting men, accompanied by a like number of their clients. (Al-Tabari 1990, 220)
That a hadith transmitter like ʿUqba b. Wassaj was willing to be martyred while fighting alongside al-Hajjaj in the face of such overwhelming opposition is telling of the social location of such scholars in the political milieu of the moment. Through individuals like ʿUqba b. Wassaj, the discourse of adhering to the community was actualized as an element of political theology that equated political loyalty with inclusion in the body of religious believers at a time of intense imperial fragmentation.
ʿAbd al-Wahhab b. Bukht (d. 113/731) (Ibn Hanbal Reference Ibn Hanbal1993, 98)Footnote 15 , whom Ibn Kathir (d. 774/1373), the annalist and Qurʾanic exegete, remembers as “The Commander,” is another figure affiliated with both Marwanid military campaigns and the transmission of the Three Things Hadith (Ibn Kathir Reference Ibn Kathir1998, v. 9, 304). He is often listed in the biographical dictionaries with the nisba al-Makki (Meccan), but he also appears with that of al-Umawi (Umayyad) because he was a client of the Marwanids. It is likely that some biographers attempted to play down his relationship with the Umayyad ruling house by emphasizing his connection to Mecca. He settled in Syria and then Medina and is remembered as having fought alongside the famous warrior ʿAbd Allah al-Battal (d. 122/740) in a number of raids on the Byzantine frontier, where he died as a martyr. Through ʿAbd al-Wahhab the tradition travels to Homs, which, like Kufa, was a turbulent center of early Shiite support that drew the punitive attention of the Sufyanid and Marwanid regimes. It was taken there, however, by a Damascene, Muʿan b. Rifaʿa, who settled there and transmitted hadith from the “people of Greater Syria,” albeit with little diligence, as later critics would concur (Al-Mizzī 1994, v. 18, 190–1).
This tradition also enjoyed widespread transmission in Kufa, the well-known center of Shiite theological movements and political insurrections. However, here too the social milieu in which this hadith circulated was close to official Umayyad state structures. In this context, it is safe to assume that the hadith functioned in part as counter-opposition discourse. Transmitters who doubled as Umayyad-appointed judges in the city seem to have been the key figures in circulating the tradition. For example, two judges appear in two different Kufan isnads: al-Qasim b. al-Walid al-Hamdani (d. 141/759) (Ibn Hajar 184, v. 8, 305–6) and ʿAbd al-Malik b. ʿUmayr al-Lakhmi (d. 136/754).Footnote 16 It is significant to note that ʿAbd al-Malik al-Lakhmi was an ally of Bani ʿUdayy just as ʿAbd al-Raḥman b. Muʿawiya, mentioned above. ʿAbd al-Malik b. ʿUmar was also referred to as al-farasi, a reference to his horseback riding skills for which he probably gained repute during his participation in the conquest of Balkh under the command of an Umayyad general.
The most important member of the Kufan Hamdani intellectual landscape, however, was undoubtedly ʿAmir b. Sharahil al-Shaʿbi (d. 99/718). Al-Shaʿbi, who also served briefly as judge in Kufa, is better known for his lasting influence in the circles of Kufan hadith transmitters. Both medieval and modern scholars have debated his role in the city's turbulent political landscape especially given his support for both al-Mukhtar's and Ibn al-Ashʿath's rebellions in 66/685 and 80/699, respectively. However, as Judd concludes, al-Shaʿbi was able to secure a rapprochement with the much feared al-Hajjaj and on the whole “was hostile to many of the Umayyads’ enemies [and] remained at the center of a pious, pro-Umayyad scholarly network that replicated itself over several generations” (2014, 50). Indeed, most Kufan judges for the remainder of the Umayyad period were considered his students and protégés. Given his participation in, and support of, official Umayyad institutions, it is not surprising to find al-Shaʿbi in another Kufan isnad of this hadith.Footnote 17
Interestingly, this isnad includes al-Nuʿman b. al-Bashir, a well-known Companion who reportedly delivered the third caliph ʿUthman's bloodstained shirt to Muʿawiya (E.I.2 , s.v. “al-Nuʿman b. Bashir”). He served as Muʿawiya's governor in Kufa and Homs dutifully but paid with his life for the political miscalculation of supporting Ibn al-Zubayr's claim to the caliphate. It is also worth noting that al-Tabari records that al-Nuʿman, while in Kufa, urged the people there towards obedience and “to adhere to the community.” Muʿawiya's own client, Layth b. Abi Salim (d. 143/760), also appears in the Kufan isnads of Three Things Hadith. Taken together, then, from a Kufan standpoint, the discourse of luzum al-jamaʿa seems to be virtually synonymous with loyalty to the Umayyad state.
Conclusion
Modern historians such as George Makdisi, Aziz al-Azmeh, and most recently Scott Lucas have long recognized that the scholarly community responsible for transmitting Muhammad's sayings, the ahl al-hadith, played a central role in the development of Sunni orthodoxy and identity.Footnote 18 Their studies have shown that Abbasid period hadith scholars, in part, provided the discursive framework necessary to articulate the notion of a continuous community from the time of the Prophet Muhammad to their present moment. However, the review here, by demonstrating that Umayyad courtiers such al-Zuhri and al-Shaʿbi and many others spread the discourse of luzum al-jamaʿa, adds an additional layer of significance to this argument. The ahl al-hadith, by promoting the jamaʿa as the legitimate body politic of the community of believers, provided the bridge between Umayyad and Abbasid articulations of imperial religious legitimacy. This lends insight into one of the more remarkable discursive features of Sunni mytho-history, what Patricia Crone calls “the depoliticization of the community of believers” or the simultaneous decoupling of the body politic from the ruling dynasty (whether Umayyad or Abbasid) and the retention of the idea of a community as a discrete entity (2004, 30).
By way of conclusion, we turn to an anecdote about the execution of a prominent Shiite citizen in Baghdad recorded in Abu Bakr al-Khallal's (d. 311/923) al-Sunna. Al-Khallal, as Christopher Melchert argues, can be considered the veritable founder of the Hanbali school of law, given his synthesis of Ahmad b. Hanbal's opinions and writings (Melchert 137–55). It is worth noting that the story appears under the heading of the merits of staying steadfast to the “Sunna, community, listening, and obeying” (Al-Khallal Reference Al-Khallal2007, 62). In Baghdad, in the year 241/855, a caravanserai owner by the name of ʿIsa b. Jaʿfar b. Muhammad b. ʿAsim was subjected to a public flogging of 1000 lashes for allegedly cursing the first two Caliphs of Islam, Abu Bakr and Umar, and slandering Aisha and Hafsa, the esteemed wives of the Prophet Muhammad. Al-Mutawakkil (r. 226/847–247/861), the reigning ‘Abbasid Caliph infamous for his radical reversal of the mihna and generous patronage of the ahl al-hadith, is said to have ordered the punishment. The prolific Sunni writer, Ibn Abi Dunya (d. 281/894) was asked to serve as a witness to the punishment. Ibn Abi Dunya is a significant figure for “although he was a freedman of the Umayyads, he became the tutor of several Abbasid princes” (E.I.2 , s.v. “Ibn Abi Dunya”). Interestingly, in the directive letter from the Caliph, it was commanded that, “if he dies, he should be thrown into the river without a funeral prayer, thus deterring every deviant in religion who abandons the community (al-jamaʿa) of Muslims.” In this fashion ʿIsa b. Jaʿfar was declared outside the pale of Islam; he died after being left limp in the sun, and his body was discarded in the Tigris (Al-Khallal Reference Al-Khallal2007, 62). It is important to note that al-Mutawakkil's letter equates the sin of disparaging the Prophet's Companions with leaving the community, a sin in and of itself.
The execution of ʿIsa b. Jaʿfar marks one of the many instances in which al-Mutawwakil's caliphate was defined in terms of appropriating the theological vision of the ahl al-hadith and meeting out punishment against Shiite and Muʿtazilite heresies. It is also an important moment in which Sunni orthodoxy establishes itself as an imagined community, both in the execution itself and in the pedagogical uses thereof. What is significant about the ʿat b. Jaʿfar affair is that his heresy was not to be found in a theological issue such as the nature of the Qurʾan or of God's attributes, nor was it to be found in a dispute over ritual and legal praxis. Even still, his crime was not, like that of so many of his Shiite peers of the time, one of political rebellion and treason, which would invite execution in just about any Islamic political theology. It is also worthy to note that it was not until much later in Sunni tradition that the crime of cursing the companions would be fully articulated as a violation of orthodoxy and developed as a point of law.Footnote 19 Rather, his crime, according to the Caliph, was abandoning “the jamaʿa of the Muslims” by disparaging its early founders. In that sense, ʿIsa b. Jaʿfar's crime was one against not only God, but against His chosen community, the jamaʿa, as well.
The story of ʿIsa b. Jaʿfar's flogging demonstrates the way in which the discourse of al-jamaʿa retains the Umayyad license of both identifying and destroying enemies of the state as enemies of God. The execution took place at the behest of the Caliph. However, for early Hanbalīs who were reputedly averse to state power, the execution constituted not only a necessity of the law but a religious merit as well. That the story is recounted in the opening sections of one of the earliest and most significant Hanbali texts should be read not only as a point of doctrinal pedagogy but also as a moment when al-jamaʿa is articulated as both orthodoxy and identity.
How the nascent Hanbali school, and the ahl al-hadith before them, authorized the state as an arbiter of orthodoxy along with making it synonymous with the jamaʿa but without investing the caliph with divine right constitutes one of the most interesting questions in understanding the transition from the Islam of the Umayyad era to the crystallization of Sunni orthodoxy during the Abbasid period. One may ask what role the ahl al-hadith played in the early ninth century in preventing the emergence of an Abbasid imamate. While such questions exceed the scope of this study, the data presented here suggests at least, that ideas central to Sunni conceptions of self were first developed within the social milieu of Umayyad patronage structures and networks. These ideas then overlapped with the interests of Abbasid elites and their supporters who appropriated and endorsed them for their purposes of political stability and legitimation in the face of their own governing challenges.
