1 Introduction
In a world of information-at-your-fingertips, the idea of transmitting knowledge from a pious individual to others, as seen in the Sunnaâs case, might seem regressive and antithetical. While contemporary knowledge practices are but numerous chains of signifiers producing a further number of contexts, the Islamic tradition has held on to a unique system that tries to maintain its link to the Prophet Muḥammad. What is the relevance of such hand-picking and fixation around establishing these links? How can a premodern method of knowledge transmission provide us with material to realise our dissonances in modern comprehension?
This chapter addresses early Islamic ethics and transmission through the premodern Ê¿ulamÄʾ-quṣṣÄá¹£ dichotomy. I argue that the qÄṣṣ-Ê¿Älim (preacher-scholar) relationship was one of a methodological approach rather than conflict that triggered true and false traditions of knowledge. This can better be characterised as a large scale premodern jadal (argumentation) and munÄáºara (debate) that took its gradual course within the Islamic tradition and was not specifically attuned to the operations of rupture or continuity as ascribed by contemporary historians. With the Prophetic tradition being a main site of contention for these two groups, I will first compare ḥadÄ«th and qiṣṣa with an overarching idea of sunan in the background, then I look at that which is desired, in place of a telos, through the activities of the storyteller-preachers and ḥadÄ«th scholars. The chapter moves on to elucidate the kind of selves (and self-lessness) the two groups cultivated and disciplined. This allows us to locate possible genealogies of the isnÄd and matn approach, shaped by the muḥaddithÅ«n, and how the Ê¿ulamÄʾ came to privilege it. Finally, I will end with a suggestion on how to approach such dispersed categories in history without falling for continuity and rupture as the only way out.
Absence and presence are two interconnected themes that direct this chapter â be it mediums analysed or characters cast. Since storyteller-preachers are seen as marginal entities, and are extinct in later centuries, present scholarship has engaged sparsely with them. This chapter then draws attention to the exuberant life of the qÄṣṣ and his indubitable role in the everyday ethics of Islam. The work is historical but does not entitle any specific period in the premodern, and rather seeks to contribute to anthropological debates around transmission and inculcation of ethics.
2 The Scholar Meets the Preacher: Tradition and Authenticity
This chapter begins with an intriguing account. Aḥmad Ibn Ḥanbal (d. 241/ 855), the revered SunnÄ« scholar, and his friend and ḥadÄ«th transmitter YaḥyÄ Ibn MaÊ¿Ä«n (d. 233/847) were in for a shock one day after the noon prayers. They heard a Baá¹£ran qÄṣṣ preaching:
Aḥmad Ibn Ḥanbal and YaḥyÄ Ibn MaÊ¿Ä«n once related to me, on the authority of Ê¿Abd al-RazzÄq (d. 211/827), from MaÊ¿mar (d. 153/770), from QatÄda (d. 117/735), from Anas (d. 93/712), that the Messenger of God is reported to have said: âHe who says lÄ ilÄha illÄ LlÄh causes a bird to be created from every word, with the beak made of gold, and feathers of pearls â¦â
Juynboll 1983, 158â159
The qÄṣṣ went on for an equivalent of twenty pages while the two scholars conferred among themselves if either had transmitted this ḥadÄ«th. Testifying that neither had heard this narration till date, they signalled to the qÄṣṣ after his session and enquired from whom he had learnt this ḥadÄ«th. The qÄṣṣ immediately replied,
âYaḥyÄ Ibn MaÊ¿Ä«n and Aḥmad Ibn Ḥanbal.â Ibn MaÊ¿Ä«n said: âBut I am YaḥyÄ Ibn MaÊ¿Ä«n and this man here is Aḥmad Ibn Ḥanbal and we have never heard of this mentioned as a Prophetic tradition.â
Juynboll 1983, 159
To this the qÄṣṣ retorted âgrinningly,â
I have always heard YaḥyÄ Ibn MaÊ¿Ä«n is stupid ⦠As if there were in the whole world no other YaḥyÄâs or Aḥmadâs except you two! I have written down traditions from seventeen different people called Aḥmad Ibn Ḥanbal apart from this one here.
Juynboll 1983, 1591
This is a classic example of an academically studied encounter with a qÄṣṣ (pl. quṣṣÄá¹£) in medieval Islamic literature.
The linear story of the storyteller, qÄṣṣ, is not new to students of premodern Islam. It begins in the initial centuries, following the death of Prophet Muḥammad (d. 11/632), with the qÄṣṣ or storyteller-cum-preacher seen as instrumental in spreading the tradition. Acting as a bricoleur, the qÄṣṣ dons several religious odd-jobs that include, more frequently, narrating tales of an edifying nature, reciting QurʾÄn (qurrÄʾ), instructing, admonishing and exhorting (wuÊ¿Ê¿Äáº), as well as being transmitters of sunan, and, occasionally serving a s qÄá¸Ä« (judge) and khaá¹Ä«b (Macdonald 1927; Goldziher 1971; Pellat 1976; Ê¿Athamina 1992; Armstrong 2017).
With a clientele that usually involved a large following of the masses, they were hastily concluded as âpopular preachersâ (Berkey 2001). Drawing ire of more well-trained Ê¿ulamÄʾ and muḥaddithÅ«n,2 the qÄṣṣ were severely criticised and ridiculed for their exaggeration and lack of authenticity. The storytellersâ tale, then, was bound to be a tragic one. The fall of the qÄṣṣ was ensured by subsequent generations of Ê¿ulamÄʾ who saw to it that they put an end to the storytellerâs lies (Halldén 2006; Firestone 2006). Few were roped in, and most were vilified. While the dominant position within academic scholarship has been to read this compelling story from the perspective of the Ê¿ulamÄʾ and muḥaddithÅ«n, in descending linear time, few (Afsaruddin 2002) have been sympathetic to the qÄṣṣ by showcasing their gradual loss in social standing to the Ê¿ulamÄʾ. However, what remains common in these two seemingly opposite standpoints is that the qÄṣṣâs hazy modes and vague means evolve into the Ê¿Älimâs certain and coherent ones. The Baá¹£ran qÄṣṣ instance above highlights this very movement (and moment) of imprecision to a more concrete approach towards the Islamic tradition. By exhibiting and asserting what fabrications are, these discourses have also, inadvertently, enabled definitions of the contours of truth within what came to be known as the Islamic tradition, and more importantly how one needs to go about labelling authenticity.3
The earlier example, however, can generate other possible readings besides typical insinuations. The Baá¹£ran qÄṣṣ appears to playfully engage the two scholars â challenging their certitude and critiquing their method. He is quick in his responses, uses the right amount of rhetoric, and leaves the scholars irresolute for a short period. We only get to learn bits of the preacherâs content but can, undeniably, contend that the imaginative expanse being built-up was beautiful to the spectatorsâ ears. The scholars are left dumbfounded and forced to leave without any comeback. It is also important to observe the interesting oral to written comparison the scholar makes when he equates the length of the preacherâs utterance to a twenty-page entry (Goldziher 1971, 151). Apart from being a testimony to the fact that the quṣṣÄá¹£ have left us with scant written evidence, we also catch glimpses of the rugged terrain in these mediums of transmission. It is accurate that influential premodern scholars have chastised storytellers.4 Nevertheless, it goes unwarranted to state that this represented a major practice among scholars post third/ninth century. Nor does it justify the teleological premise that the qÄṣṣ paved way for the Ê¿ulamÄʾ. What can be said, in the least, is that the Ê¿Älim and qÄṣṣ entered into contestations over practices now and then, but this did not define/limit their relationship.
3 Ḥadīth and Qiṣṣa: A Comparison of Sunna
Works of á¹abaqÄt (Islamic biographical literature) help us understand the lives of scholars, as Ê¿ilm al-rijÄl (the study of ḥadÄ«th transmitters/narrators) is an important criterion for discerning the validity of a ḥadÄ«th. There are special biographical genres for ḥadÄ«th transmitters (á¹abaqÄt al-muḥaddithÄ«n) and the same can be found for the fuqahÄʾ (jurists), quá¸Ät (judges), Sufis, etc. However, there is a strong absence of á¹abaqÄt works specifically revolving around the quṣṣÄá¹£. And yet, the qÄṣṣ is mentioned across most á¹abaqÄt and similar biographies in passing. While we have to leave the reasons for this particular omission for later sections, we can nevertheless begin by observing the material the scholars and storytellers undertook.
The origins of both the ḥadÄ«th and qiá¹£aá¹£ lie in the sunan, and yet the Sunna itself was never a fixed category. The sunan (guidelines for exemplary conduct) were never the sole purview of Prophet Muḥammad, especially in the initial centuries after his death. This does not mean that the Prophetâs mode of conduct was not ideal, or that the companions competed with the Prophetâs Sunna, but that the earlier phase of Sunna in the Islamic tradition included conducts of the Prophetâs companions as well (athar),5 as there was no consensus on the use of terms like âḥadÄ«thâ (Ansari 1972, 256). The companions, as well as people of particular cities (Medina, for instance), considered various aspects of Prophetic and non-prophetic modes of conduct as sunan out of their deep connection with the Prophet. Wael Hallaq locates the history of Sunna and distinguishes between âpractice-based sunanâ and literary ḥadÄ«th, by elaborating on how the former was primarily transmitted by storytellers, while the latter found prominence after the proliferation of a class of mobile traditionalists by the end of the second/eighth century (Hallaq 2009, 39â43). Such practice-based Sunna has to be identified with the very living processes of early everyday Islam, and even though the proliferation of literary ḥadÄ«th at the hands of these newly emergent traditionists gains primacy, the role of the qÄṣṣ and his transmission of sunan does not reduce in any way. Though the literary and living can be said to coalesce and overlap in this era,6 they do not have to eclipse each other. Let us focus on the two separately to understand the fine points with which they approached the Sunna.
ḤadÄ«th transmitters can be cited as some of the first to develop the isnÄd and matn (source and content) form. Thus, the entirety of any ḥadÄ«th would include a set of proper names (kunya, nicknames, regional affiliations would also be included) to indicate the sanad that has been followed in capturing a particular Prophetic tradition. Such traditions are usually actions and sayings of the Prophet, as recounted by his companions, and these make up the matn (main content), the primary text within quotes. These narrations can also be followed by commentaries made by various scholars across time and space. Memory and religiosity (ethicality rather) are primary considerations that ḥadÄ«th transmitters have to demonstrate for the validity of ḥadÄ«th. While uṣūl al-ḥadÄ«th has many ways of dealing with a ḥadÄ«th and its transmitter, I am interested in these fundamental ones because it gives us a sense of the basic premises with which the scholar engages in such activities. Even within the domains of memory, the method was made further rigorous by the inclusion of only that Sunna that could be recollected verbatim. Contrarily, in a famous instance, while al-Ḥasan al-Baá¹£rÄ« (d. 110/728) knew a Prophetic Sunna regarding a theological position, he was unable to give a âverbal transmissionâ attesting the same (Hallaq 1997, 14). Can the religiosity/ethicality of a noted tÄbiÊ¿Ä« (companion of the Companions) like al-Baá¹£rÄ« be contested? Or does memory dictate the certainty of a sunna? How can such Sunna find life under such strenuous measures? One way is to go by the standards set by the muḥaddithÄ«n themselves and consider the varying degrees of á¸aÊ¿Ä«f (weak), maqbÅ«l (acceptable), ḥasan (good), and á¹£aḥīḥ (authentic) ḥadÄ«th. And yet, this approach is only attained after a long and arduous procedure of sieving that gave these Sunna their respective degrees. It is perhaps for this reason that Louis Massignon, the French scholar of Islam, said:
If the muḥaddithÄ«n had succeeded in imposing their method and eliminating all ḥadÄ«th with apocryphal isnÄd from the âauthenticâ collections, believers would now have only dried meat to feed meditation: a few prescriptions concerned only with hygiene and civility, sandal cleaning, and the right wood for making toothpicks.
Massignon 1997, 85â86
What happens to the remaining sunan? Are they never to be actualised in the Islamic tradition?
The quṣṣÄá¹£ place us in a unique predicament given that they are hardly studied in any relevant manner, especially regarding how they engaged ethically or their transmission of Sunna. The fact that focus has never been on the qÄṣṣ, even at the minimal level of a storyteller, is indicative of an issue of obsession around who wrote over who spoke. Much of the qiá¹£aá¹£ that are available from early Islam are anonymous entries, repetitions, and a combination of various ḥikÄyÄt (stories). Lyall Armstrong writes:
The term qiṣṣa (pl. qiá¹£aá¹£) is more problematic; âstoryâ does not adequately encompass the breadth of the term ⦠[A] qiṣṣa, during the period of time in question, seems to indicate any general piece of instruction given by a qÄṣṣ [preacher/storyteller] ⦠The term incorporates number of different types of instruction, including actual stories, verses of poetry, legal rulings, ḥadÄ«th, as well as martial statements given on the field of battle.
Armstrong 2017, 9
My concern is not with the written author or the original narrator, but with those who related and passed on the qiṣṣa generation after generation. These âstorytellersâ are never mentioned or given their due because western scholars have indulged in a larger historianâs disdain for the storyteller in studies on the Islamic tradition. In doing so, they follow the legacy of historians like John Wansbrough (1977) and Patricia Crone (1987) who saw the storyteller with suspicion and as a source of inauthenticity in the tradition (Armstrong 2017, 81). This absence and dearth of sources then imply that we must look at other places for answers. Concentrating on the root q-á¹£-á¹£, we learn from Arabic lexicons (especially Ibn ManáºÅ«râs (d. 711/1311) LisÄn al-Ê¿Arab (âThe Tongue of the Arabsâ)), from the eighth/fourteenth century onwards, that the words âtrace,â âecho,â and âfootprintâ are equally important when locating the multiple definitions of the term âqÄṣṣ.â7 A shared quality of traces, footprints, and echoes is that they do not have an ever-active presence, and yet their absence is never fully realised. Derrida (d. 2004) puts it succinctly:
Trace is not a presence but is rather the simulacrum of a presence that dislocates, displaces, and refers beyond itself. The trace has, properly speaking, no place, for effacement belongs to the very structure of the trace.
Derrida 1973, 156
This peculiar potential of the term qÄṣṣ needs to be read as a built-in mechanism that challenges standard mnemonic practices and mediums.
To illustrate the same, let us look at the narrative strategies employed by the qÄṣṣ in their qiá¹£aá¹£. Stories (qiá¹£aá¹£) did not take the prominent isnÄd and matn form, but the storyteller (qÄṣṣ) took the Prophet Muḥammad as their model (Abbott 1967, 14). The quṣṣÄá¹£ played a major role in extending the Prophetic imagination in the initial centuries after his death. The form of the qiṣṣa would generally include narratives of and around the Prophet. The Prophet would appear in various ways â in dreams or in other spatio-temporalities (al-isrÄʾ wa-l-miÊ¿rÄj being an example), or, simply, in the ḤijÄz. There would be an added local flavour to these stories â generally a story of how the ruler of the locale embraced Islam and how he felt intense love for the Prophet. They would also include the á¹£aḥÄba (Companions), tÄbiÊ¿Å«n (Companionsâ companion), and other well-known Islamic figures. Tellings of qiá¹£aá¹£ al-anbiyÄʾ included stories of other Prophets and these would usually lead to a story of the Prophet Muḥammad. Emphasis and inclination always tend to the Prophet and this is the widespread rule of the qiṣṣa. Reception is of key importance here and the audience enters into the world of the storyteller (Berkey 2001, 43â52; Armstrong 2017, 161â163).
The qÄṣṣ does not rely much on memory and improvises most of the time. These improvisations were often called bidÊ¿a (innovations) and admonished by scholars. An interesting example is the reason for the ninth/fifteenth century scholar al-SuyÅ«á¹Ä« (d. 911/1505) writing TaḥdhÄ«r al-KhawÄṣṣ min AkadhÄ«b al-QuṣṣÄá¹£ (âA Warning to the Retinue against the Lies of the Storytellersâ). The grand Ê¿Älim says that he had come across a qÄṣṣ (preacher/storyteller) who was transmitting a Prophetic Sunna without verifying or attributing it to the âright sources.â The preacher retorted to this blatant criticism by saying, âI will verify them with the people!â and the audience who were witness to al-SuyÅ«á¹Ä«âs admonishing turned against the Ê¿Älim and threatened to stone him (Berkey 2003, 255â256). We have two interconnected points to reflect on: one, an organic relationship between the larger public (the masses) and the qÄṣṣ as seen in this instance, and second, the concept of âverifying with the people.â When the preacher says that he derives his verification from the people, he is not implying a popular idea of religion or subscribing to a status of the popular. The qÄṣṣ observes the community he is attached to, interacts with people, is knowledgeable about their issues, spends time with them, is privy to their moral fibre, recognises the various classes, gives advice when sought, and prays for them.8 It is for this reason that Ibn al-JawzÄ« (d. 597/1201) notes:
The common people ⦠rarely meet a jurist, so they discuss things with [the preacher]. The preacher is like the trainer of animals, who educates them, reforms them and refines them.
Berkey 2001, 24
Coming back to the genre of the qiṣṣa, we learn from al-KhÄzin (d. 741/1340) that a ḥikÄya (story) is called a qiṣṣa because the ânarrator releases the story bit by bitâ (bin Tyeer 2016, 12; see also al-KhÄzin 2004, 2:511). This releasing in piecemeal is deliberate and is based on the depth and breadth of knowledge the audience is accustomed to. The qÄṣṣ is careful not to overdo the amount of preaching and storytelling, and is highly receptive to the moods and sentiments of the audience. In such instances, the qÄṣṣ has to then âverifyâ with the people as to what they want and how well they can be instructed and narrated appropriate tales worthy of that period. These could vary from specific Islamic months, impending war, water scarcity, famine, extensive fitna, severe debt, and social crises to numerous everyday personal issues. In all these cases, the qÄṣṣ would narrate and mention the Prophet, instil hope, and bring about unity among people. In short, these were not mere qiá¹£aá¹£ but aḥsan al-qaá¹£aá¹£ (the best of stories) as the fifth/eleventh-century exegete and mystic al-QushayrÄ« (d. 465/1074) maintains â such qiá¹£aá¹£ would mention the beloved Prophet Muḥammad and his beloveds, usually contain imitable and inspiring âideal behaviour,â and are not âexplicitly didactic (command/forbid)â as these could induce âfeelings that insinuate shortcomingsâ (bin Tyeer 2016, 12; see also al-QushayrÄ« 2000, 2:166â167).
4 Medium beyond Absence and Presence
In one of his earlier works, Jacques Derrida rereads the origin myth of writing through Plato (d. 347 BCE). He shows how Western philosophy privileges speech over writing since it was believed that the latter was a mere representation of higher forms of truth and presence (Derrida 1981). Muslim societies privilege a âculturally specific logocentrism,â in the Derridean sense, of the spoken word via recitation (both textually and from oral/rote memory) (Messick 1993, 25). The dichotomy between the written and spoken word can be seen right from the beginning of Islam, with various close associates and teacher-student ties diverging on this question (Afsaruddin 2002, 20). And yet, our previous discussion on the quṣṣÄá¹£ and their trace-based characteristics, points to different modalities of absence/presence from the western one. Regarding a mark or trace, Derrida believes that absence is key to communication, and words can be grafted onto other contexts which results in endless chains of signifiers, divorced from its origins and a metaphysics of presence (Derrida 1982). It is crucial to locate Derridaâs idea of absence/presence in more concrete terms. His commentary on communication and transmission of ideas vis-à -vis absence is an apt representation of the conditions with which modernity moves about. Rather than the mere breakdown of authority or specific sites of dissemination, absence involves the blurring of ethical contours that were in place.
I propose reading Derridaâs transformation of a metaphysics of presence to an ontology of absence as an insightful reading of the very shift from premodern knowledge practices (like the ones seen in the Sunna) to a modern-day information explosion. While the written and oral came to be identified as modes that changed due to its explicit nature, the ethical has often gone unrecognised as the larger site for transformations. Derridaâs re-reading of the origin myth of writing in Plato is crucially an attempt to showcase the ethical value at stake in the written and oral. The various Gods involved in this reading are not tropes to give an essential Greek flavour but attempts to provide metaphors to the deep shifts that are studied and witnessed by Derrida.
In this chapter, I invoke the Derridean trace only because there are no clear concepts of absence and presence in an immediately available language of Islam.9 In a different spatio-temporal context, the ḥadÄ«th, as chains of transmission that harbour on pious individuals throughout the premodern, allowed for some kind of presence.10 This can be seen as late as al-SuyÅ«á¹Ä« who wrote KitÄb al-Farq Bayna al-Muá¹£annif wa-l-SÄriq (âBook on the Difference Between the Compiler and the Thiefâ) to expose another Ê¿Älimâs âmisdoingsâ (Abdel-Ghaffar 2018). The latterâs crime was that he had not attributed a particular work to al-SuyÅ«á¹Ä«. The work in question is not one that al-SuyÅ«á¹Ä« composed himself, rather his labour was in organising, gathering, and ordering narrated accounts of the Prophet. This book is âa tissue of quotationsâ and al-SuyÅ«á¹Ä« believed that proper attribution to the one who found them, gathered them from a variety of sources, and ensured their authenticity is essential to respect the effort put in to make the bookâs knowledge available (Abdel-Ghaffar 2018). The book is not al-SuyÅ«á¹Ä«âs words and yet the kind of attribution that he seeks is one of presence or harbouring around pious individuals who could authorise the content within. Al-SuyÅ«á¹Ä«âs concerns, almost like a premonition, also give us a sense of the world that was about to emerge (early modernity/colonialism) â a strong threat to both knowledge and ethics wherein it could be communicated in absence. Thus, we learn that the Ê¿ulamÄʾ were not necessarily attacking the quṣṣÄá¹£ alone but were wary of an impending approach to knowledge and ethics, and it was the realm of practices that they sought to redress.
All the same, what did presence and absence mean to the qÄṣṣ and his followers? It can be noted that various qiá¹£aá¹£ were translated into the written format at the hands of author-jurists and scholars who attended their sessions in the sixth/twelfth century, and onwards. People and their qÄṣṣ, nonetheless, do not seem interested in this transitional phase. If anything, it has probably only been of application for later day historians. To advance the question we have set for ourselves at the beginning of this section, it is pertinent to tap into multiple potentials of the trace within the qÄṣṣ.
The legendary tale of AbÅ« ḤÄmid al-GhazÄlÄ« (d. 505/1111) and the marauders give us a starting point to think of the diverging ways in which presence/absence plays in an Islamic setting. The story goes that a group of raiders stopped al-GhazÄlÄ«âs caravan and robbed him of his most prised possession â numerous books he had written, collated, and held close to heart. A desperate al-GhazÄlÄ« tells the chief raider to take away his possessions except for his cherished books. To this the chief retorts that if al-GhazÄlÄ« requires the presence of these books then the scholar has not benefited from studying them (Macdonald 1899, 76). This leaves the great Ê¿Älim in deep reflection and initiates his second phase of heightened truth-seeking. The thief is not coincidental here, just like nothing else is in the Islamic tradition. His statements are not mere statements but are quite similar to those of the qÄṣṣ. They are effective and powerful. They hit exactly where they are supposed to and ImÄm al-GhazÄlÄ« undergoes a thorough transformation thereafter. I am not suggesting that the thief is a qÄṣṣ in disguise. Rather, the potential of the verb âqÄṣṣâ can only be found in such extreme or unusual instances. The thief is interesting because, in his act of thievery, he is also advising (naṣīḥa) al-GhazÄlÄ«. The advice is also not a direct statement issued to al-GhazÄlÄ«, which is quite similar to the edifying content of the qiá¹£aá¹£. He is not commanded to enjoin right or forbid wrong (al-amr bi-l-maÊ¿rÅ«f wa-l-nahy Ê¿an al-munkar).11 And yet, the nature of this transformation is an ethical one.
In an important essay on the category of maÊ¿rÅ«f, Kevin Reinhart comments that ethical content and reflection must be found outside the QurʾÄn in relation to changing environments (Reinhart 2017). He also suggests that solutions to âsocially fraught situationsâ (especially those that concern the micro doings of people) that require Muslims to enact maÊ¿rÅ«f cannot be directly found in the QurʾÄn. Reinhartâs premise is based on the closing of tradition in the early centuries of Islam and postulates that people in the present end up distorting the QurʾÄn, a debate that I will not enter into.12 Reinhart, nevertheless, mentions in passing that such social situations demand âtact,â and âcreative openness,â and these are âqualitiesâ that the âSÄ«ra emphatically attributes the Prophet himselfâ with (Reinhart 2017, 67). The essay works towards the scripture with an overt presence, privileging the written, and yet, it cannot do this without mentioning (even in passing) an aspect that he considers to be absent â the Prophetâs unique life. What the scholarly analysis fails to do is take up this crucial aspect of the sÄ«ra when it comes to dealing with maÊ¿rÅ«f, ethics, and the QurʾÄn itself. This could stem from modern scholarship that presumes law and ethics as confused in the SharÄ«Ê¿a, or a predominant focus on the textual without bringing out their deeply embodied characteristics. The human body is disciplined to bring about necessary ends, with the ethical being an important one.
In his exceptionally brilliant ethnography, Rudolph Ware examines QurʾÄn schools in Africa to show that the QurʾÄn and knowledge that emanates from it is not learnt, but, rather, embodied.13 The Prophet, simply, is the walking QurʾÄn, while the ḥadÄ«th cannot be treated as scripture but âare best understood as historical traces of normative practice that can also be known through chains of embodied transmissionâ (Ware 2014, 13). The medium then is not about written or oral, but about the very person who transmits the Prophetic Sunna.
If so, ethics and maʿrūf (and the diverse possibilities the term offers) need to be understood through the ways in which they are actualised through the body rather than consider them as a mental process of choices to be found in quotes or texts.14
But how do we understand this embodiment in the case of the qÄṣṣ? How do we think of the qÄṣṣ as a medium beyond absence and presence in the usual Western philosophical sense? al-QushayrÄ« cites AbÅ« Ê¿AlÄ« l-ThaqafÄ« (d. 328/940) in his RisÄla (âEpistleâ) to say:
If someone could absorb all the sciences ⦠he would still be unable to attain the rank of the real men (lÄ yablughu mablagha al-rijÄl) unless he engages ⦠in exercises under the supervision of a master (shaykh), religious leader (imÄm) or a sincere preacher (muʾaddib nÄá¹£iḥ).
al-Qushayrī 2007, 6315
This move beyond the usual sciences in the attainment of higher degrees of being is characterised by exercising on the self with the help of a set of experts. That the sciences alone could not get one to a higher degree of piety or closeness with his Lord is stressed here. Thus, we come to realise an aspect of knowledge through the potential of the trace. It is to such experts and exercises that we need to turn to realise what and who the storyteller-preacher is. The quṣṣÄá¹£ as a medium beyond the oral, written, presence, and absence point to their trajectory as ethical repositories.
5 Self and Self-Lessness
Let us focus on this bodily aspect of ethics in detail. As we have seen in the previous section, the one who moves beyond nominal knowledge and sciences makes use of assistance from particular experts to attain the ârank of real men.â But, how does such assistance work out? One of the standard ways in which internalisation of ethics is understood is via what Foucault has given currency to â âtechnologies of the self.â However, the subject does not transform themselves on their own in all scenarios. They avail âthe help of othersâ to orient their âown bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of beingâ to attain particular states of living (Foucault 1988, 18; 1997, emphasis added). Within an Islamic context, especially picked up by the anthropology of Islam, such operations on the self (and soul) have been studied in detail to show how the body becomes a site for the cultivation of virtues and discouraging of vices as defined by the tradition (Asad 2003; Mahmood 2005; Hallaq 2013).
What interests me are these âothersâ who âhelpâ people with their desired ethical practices and states of living. What kind of disciplining do they go through to ensure this service? There is literature available on how the fuqahÄʾ, Ê¿ulamÄʾ, and Sufis go through disciplinary training, and yet, as indicated earlier, given the kind of attitude historians have taken towards the quṣṣÄá¹£, the question of internalisation and pedagogic exercises can hardly be found even among those who studied the various facets of the storyteller-preacher. To reach this point of what went into training the qÄṣṣ, we are forced to look for answers elsewhere again. We learn from multiple sources that preachers were generally associated with or mentioned alongside zuhd in premodern Islam (al-QushayrÄ« 2007, 37â38; Massignon 1997, 112â115; Berkey 2001, 50â53; Afsaruddin 2007, 142). The concept of zuhd is a complex one to explain predominantly due to the easy translation in âasceticismâ that it receives. While numerous premodern scholars have defined and thought about this in detail, I will (due to my limitations) merely term it here as âmoving away from the self.â Controlling the self or nafs is a common trope in the Islamic tradition,16 and it comes as no surprise that the quṣṣÄá¹£ took it up as an important component of their work while preaching and narrating.17
Exploring the subtle details of preaching led me to locate a few significant roles that the storyteller-preacher engaged in. Healing in its multiple dimensions happened to be a role that the quṣṣÄá¹£ took up, or had to pick up, given the intimate nature of their relationship with the society they were placed in or visiting, as mentioned earlier. A couple of verses composed, as late as the ninth/fifteenth century, in honour of a preacher is illuminating here:
Our imam preached [waÊ¿aáºa] to mankind â the eloquent man who poured out the sciences like an ocean filled to overflowing and healed hearts with his knowledge and his preaching for only the preaching of a righteous man [á¹£Äliḥ] can heal.
Berkey 2001, 39
âHealing heartsâ can be said to have a spiritual angle to it.18 However, the heart is also about the body â a body that is at once individual and social.19 The qÄṣṣ with his intimate approach to people allows for not merely an advisory or counseling relationship, but one where he is in the centre of things. A deeply grounded kind of ḥikma (wisdom) arises from such intimacy. This is an organic relationship and needs to be addressed and read in that manner. By interacting and intervening in social issues that take the breadth and expanse of day to day problems, family complications, bodily ailments, mental issues, the qÄṣṣ attempts solutions. Ḥikma now expands in prospect and we get to see multiple meanings of the concept in play. There is a sense of signifying âwisdomâ which is also about holding things in equilibrium and harmony. The body (social and individual) needs to be healed to maintain its equilibrium. The qÄṣṣ would initially diagnose a problem and try to come to a point that attempts to balance issues. This can be found in the case of a heated argument between two families where the qÄṣṣ would play the role of a moderator and try to ease the tension by alluding to simple examples or sayings. This moderator role can be found among many learned men, but the qÄṣṣ stands out for uniquely submitting themself to this particular role. Thus, the zuhd that they engage in can be seen to derive from moving away from their selves in the service of other-selves. I term this as technologies of self-lessness.
But, we are still not clear on the exact nature of this pedagogical training that the qÄṣṣ enters into. How does one discipline the self to move away from the self? A point that goes hand-in-hand with this is the anonymous nature of the qiá¹£aá¹£ that the storyteller-preacher-ḥakÄ«m (wiseman) entertains the society with. Why do they remain anonymous when we have seen scholars, like al-SuyÅ«á¹Ä«, take strong positions on attributing and referencing people? Why have the qÄṣṣ remained anonymous to the extent that there are no specific á¹abaqÄt that discuss them as their primary topic? Humility is an overarching concept of zuhd and is perhaps the most common among all who have practiced self-lessness (al-QushayrÄ« 2007, 134â138). Thus, anonymity was part of the humility that the zÄhid-qÄṣṣ cultivated which led them to stay unnamed, care less for titles or labels, and, at times, forget their designations.
It is important to take this point in direct comparison with that of the Ê¿Älim, not to privilege a dichotomy, but to understand the divergent ways in which selves can also be thought of.20 One primary goal in a fast-changing world, that the scholars had rightly anticipated throughout â the idea of ensuring proper attribution, is also part of moving away from this world and still being remembered and prayed for. Al-SuyÅ«á¹Ä«âs purpose in writing al-Farq is also to ensure this very aspect of life and afterlife (Abdel-Ghaffar 2018). As part of cultivating humility and other virtues, the qÄṣṣ went about preaching and narrating without naming themselves but would often name others. By attributing others â fictitiously and genuinely â they were not entering into the realm of what constitutes honesty/dishonesty, but were ensuring that one of the goals of the scholar lives on. It is this kind of service that needs to be thought of when we take up narratives like that of Ibn Ḥanbal and YaḥyÄ Ibn MaÊ¿Ä«n which we saw in the beginning. Thus, the grin that appears on the Baá¹£ran qÄṣṣ needs to be rethought through what the Prophet taught: âsmile, itâs Sunna.â21
6 Transmission and Development
Having learnt the divergent approaches to disciplining the self, we are now left with the question of transmission, itself. Once again, the lives of the Ê¿ulamÄʾ and quṣṣÄá¹£ need to be read as intertwined if we are to unearth the ways in which transmission took place among the qÄṣṣ. We are aware of the presence of scholars in various qÄṣṣ sessions â imÄm al-GhazÄlÄ« being quintessential here (Berkey 2001, 53). Easy deductions allow us to say with some clarity that preachers attended other preaching sessions. This is seen through numerous renditions of the same story in several qiá¹£aá¹£ â few characters and a basic narrative stand while additions play out now and then. A storyteller follows another storyteller only to the extent where the fundamentals of the story are intact. The rest is left to what has been accused as innovation/imagination (bidÊ¿a).
Let us focus on this imaginative aspect of such âaccretions.â While charges against the quṣṣÄá¹£ are that of giving free rein to peopleâs imaginations, the counter can also be claimed. By being highly performative and moving beyond ordinary conventions of lisÄn (linguistic abilities),22 the world that the storyteller-preacher presents are minutely detailed. This richness in description can be compared to the Geertzian âthick description,â for a lack of a better analogy.23 The ethnographer utilises this method to describe the field in detail â taking in every aspect, big or small, a wink or a fight, while analysing the various subjective positions and meanings that can be generated â the same can be said of the storyteller. The âtwenty-pageâ equivalency that the writer imputes to the Baá¹£ran qÄṣṣâ preaching in the initial example can be understood as a kind of thick description. We get to learn only the introductory bit and are left to imagine what may have followed. However, the storytellerâs audience is enthralled by the kind of âthick descriptionâ they are privy to. In short, the qÄṣṣ steers the imagination of the audience and limits their capacity to do so on their own. Perhaps a ḥadÄ«th, in contrast, with its short and crisp layout might evoke an untethered imagination in the contemporary era.
As the qÄṣṣ were ethical repositories, a point we have delved in detail in earlier sections, it can also be safe to add that the imaginative they encouraged via these âthick descriptionsâ was well within the boundaries of the ethical. In a way, if the Ê¿ulamÄʾ were attentive to scrupulousness in sources, the quṣṣÄá¹£ can be said to have shown scrupulousness in the daily lives of the people around them. This is not to say that the Ê¿ulamÄʾ were not careful of their outward behaviour, but it can be said that their over emphasis on texts might have kept them aloof from the laity. The qÄṣṣ, on the other hand, derived their sources from other ethically sound qÄṣṣ (quite similar to the muḥaddithÅ«n). The only difference happens to be their diverging approaches to presence and absence on a longer duration. The qÄṣṣ are aware that the qiá¹£aá¹£ have been transmitted through a kind of presence that is almost-ever absent, while the Ê¿ulamÄʾ are wary of losing an ongoing presence within the tradition.
To further this argument, it is necessary to recognise the kind of transformation the qÄṣṣ went about themselves. This will also partially answer questions on the public nature of their preaching and the idea of public religion. The evolution of the quṣṣÄá¹£ is to be read along lines with the evolution of the guild system post the fourth/tenth century. The close association of the qÄṣṣ with the guilds provide us some direction as to how transmission itself was undertaken. Association with a guild was the only credential to possessing knowledge and later being able to transmit it (Makdisi 1993, 377). However, associating with guilds would also mean opening up the category of the storyteller to include other vocations â that of the blacksmith or the barber or any occupation that would ensure humility while staying mobile.
The isnÄd and matn approach has been the major site of methodology in most contemporary scholarship on Islam. But, once again, it should be noted that during the premodern period it was a matter only for those who were concerned about it. Or rather, to put the same idea in another way â fixating around absence and presence in terms of authority/authenticity was not the concern of all scholars. While many modern scholars are quick in pointing to âpoliticalâ issues, especially that of the KharijÄ«s, as the reason for obsessing around authenticity (Juynboll 1983), we have already seen that the ethical can be equally important. However, we have hardly been able to think of the context in which the ethical has been placed by and for the scholar. Reception might give us a faint idea in this regard. Scholarly works were read, copied, transmitted, and memorised by a group that, though spread across time and space, were overtly beginning to identify themselves as one. Their interlocutors, and quite often concerns, were not the people or the larger masses directly. The qÄṣṣ, on the other hand, was one among the people, their audience was the common mass, and the society they were placed in were their interlocutors. By this comparison, the aim has been to suggest that the idea of the ethical when it comes to scrupulousness need not be the same for the Ê¿ulamÄʾ and others. When we approach the isnÄd and matn method in this fashion, we need to admit that it was more a scholarly engagement among a few, rather than a methodology to approaching Islam as a whole, till at least the tenth/sixteenth century.
But the question remains how did we, in modern academia, come to privilege the isnÄd and matn approach as the only one? I believe the issue stems from how we have looked at the concept of trust itself. If anything, our entire argument till now shows that the dialectic between the Ê¿ulamÄʾ and quṣṣÄá¹£ has been based on various ideas that take the breadth and length of methodology, approach, and sources but not overarchingly around trust. How people came to trust their peer in the premodern has nothing to do with how contemporary scholarship has come to trust and obsess around positivist facts and phenomena.
7 Conclusion
Rather than summarising what has been done in this chapter, I would like to conclude by suggesting that reading premodern Islam through the historical methods of both conflict/rupture and continuity need not be the only ways in which the past needs to be studied. While they do make for important analyses, one is left wondering whether our privileging of such binary methods can explain and expand the scope of matters that have deeper non-material underpinnings.24 Rather than seeing the qÄṣṣ and Ê¿Älim (preacher-scholar) relation as one of conflict that spurred separate traditions of knowledge, I have tried to argue that the issue was one of a methodological approach to knowledge itself. This chapter should not be read as overemphasising the scholar versus preacher-storyteller theme to reimpose a binary, but to recognise how important the scholar is to any historical understanding of knowledge in the Islamic tradition. It is through a comparison with the scholar that the storytellerâs method can be traced and closely read.
Further their diverging methods of transmission also converge at many junctures, and hence they need not be seen as drastically in opposition to one another. They were not in competition but were interested in maintaining and propagating their approach (and the subsequent chains of transmission) as the best/unique one for their varied reasons. This can better be characterised as a large scale premodern jadal (argumentation) and munÄáºara (debate) that took a gradual course over time within the Islamic tradition and was not specifically attuned to the operations of rupture or continuity as ascribed by historians. Or, this can be thought in terms of how learned members of the society would balance practices that stretched between overt-piety and extreme laxity. Ḥikma (wisdom) would be sought in these cases to, then, induce a new set of dialectics in place. While the Ê¿ulamÄʾ did come to represent all walks of engagement with knowledge in the Islamic world, knowledge itself came to be defined by historians within the ambit of âreligion.â
The history of the quṣṣÄá¹£ is a way to initiate discussion into preconceived notions of what knowledge meant, how they were authorised, and in what ways people responded to them. It also attempts to think of the ethical beyond literal scriptures and manifest in pious individuals who walked across the length and breadth of the premodern world, imitating the Prophet Muḥammad. While the chapter attempted to answer the question of what happened to all the sunan that did not go through the rigorous method of isnÄd and matn, we are left with another matter to end with: What happened to the quṣṣÄá¹£ after the early period of transmission? Where did they disappear into with the coming of stronger authorities and established knowledge traditions?
To attempt a history of the storyteller beyond the initial centuries of the Islamic tradition will then require us to also move along with these preachers and enter into domains away from the âcentre.â The periphery, in a way, being the site for conversion and future conversations, allows for a richer history of the storyteller-preacher. The preacherâs connection with guilds and the way they moved about preaching the word of Islam will give us a better lead to the lives of these storytellers that is not limited to the activity of storytelling. This will also mean analysing not only the standard ḥikÄya or qiṣṣa, but also the multiple forms that such genres would later merge with such as shadow puppetry, kissa pattu, dastangoi, and other storytelling forms in South and Southeast Asia. The storyteller, if anything, is yet to complete his tale.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Dr. Mutaz al-Khatib, Dr. Ali Altaf Mian, Omar Abdel-Ghaffar, Shirin Saifuddeen and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions.
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Many modern academics cite this example showcasing premodern scholarâs contempt for the preacher (see also Juynboll 1983, 158â159; Goldziher 1971, 151â152). The story was cited in Ibn Ê¿AsÄkir 1995, 65:27; al-DhahabÄ« 1985, 11:86; Ibn Ḥajar 2002, 1:315. Al-DhahabÄ« (d. 748/1348) said: âthis is a weird story (ḥikÄya Ê¿ajÄ«ba). Its narrator, [IbrÄhÄ«m b. Ê¿Abd al-WÄḥid] al-BakrÄ« is not known to me. It might be forged by him.â Ibn Ḥajar (d. 852/1449) also said: âI donât know him. He narrated unbelievable story (ḥikÄya munkara). It might be forged by somebody else.â
Primarily, my comparison is between the muḥaddithÅ«n and quṣṣaá¹£. I use the term Ê¿ulamÄʾ because in the end they privilege the isnÄd and matn form and method of the ḥadÄ«th scholars.
Before entertaining the idea that this work takes a Shahab Ahmed (2015) turn, I would like to maintain that my interests are exceedingly around how modern academia have engaged with such discourses, rather than showcase supposed internal contradictions within the tradition.
See, for example, Ibn al-JawzÄ« 1983; Ibn Taymiyya 1988; al-SuyÅ«á¹Ä« 1974.
Literally means âtrace.â They are modes of conduct as well and can include artefacts related to the Prophet and his Companions.
The best example is to think of how the QurʾÄn was never considered as learnt but as embodied. See Rudolph Ware (2014) for âembodiment as epistemology.â More on this in subsequent sections.
To cut, narrate, and shear are other meanings.
Ideally, the qÄá¸Ä«, should intimately know the society where he is placed or know ethically sound people from the society who have knowledge in these matters. It comes as no surprise that the quá¸Ät and quṣṣÄá¹£ were one and the same for a brief time in Islamic history. It is highly possible that those whom the qÄá¸Ä« sought for intimate social knowledge were the qÄṣṣ.
Without doubt, fanÄʾ might be one. However, the term has been so closely associated with the mystical that reimagining it, or working through its standardised meaning, might be difficult.
âAllowedâ in the past tense, because ḥadÄ«th and other Prophetic sayings are almost always used in the present, out of context, or contexts are given to them when people use them for various purposes, including rhetoric and polemics, in their lives. Modernity has made it possible to by-pass the pious individuals they usually were harboured around. âSo and soâ reports âsuch and suchâ is only important for the text and content that is iterable and graftable to new contexts.
While I agree that maÊ¿rÅ«f can include lots of possibilities beyond a fixed category of âgood,â my case is against those who try to read Islamâs entire ethical content through a shallow rendition of al-amr bi-l-maÊ¿rÅ«f wa-l-nahy Ê¿an al-munkar.
For more on the closing of the gate tradition and ijtihÄd, see Hallaq 1984. For more on the modern construction of the Muslim subject vis-Ã -vis fundamentalism, see Mamdani 2004.
The idea of habitus is relevant here while thinking of knowledge, bodies, and their intimate connections. Habitus are those aspects of tradition that are effective, learnt, and acquired by the body through transmission which includes essentially oral, imitative, and repetitions among others (Mauss 1973; 2006). Ibn KhaldÅ«n (d. 808/1406) theorised the concept of âmalakaâ which can be said to be a forerunner of the concept of habitus (Messick 1993, 261).
This is not to return to the debate between âlivedâ and âtextualâ Islam, but to look at the very nature of tradition as primarily embodied discourses (Asad 2015).
Whether al-GhazÄlÄ«âs thief was âmuʾaddibâ is, nevertheless, contested. We do, however, know through this very RisÄla, that thieving marauders can undergo events which set deep transformations in motion (al-QushayrÄ« 2007, 18, 390).
The nafs is again differentiated into many types and is beyond the scope of this chapter. ImÄm al-GhazÄlÄ«âs works have influenced much scholarship to this day on this subject.
A good example is Qiṣṣat ShakarwatÄ« FarmÄḠor âTale of the Great Chera Kingâ (Kugle and Margariti 2017, 362) where the qÄṣṣ includes a separate prayer seeking features of zuhd, and pushes the audience to think and reflect beyond their selves.
Which is not to divide the spiritual from other aspects of life. Rather, my point is to extend this argument alone.
A famous á¹£aḥīḥ ḥadÄ«th goes like this: âYou see the believers as regards their being merciful among themselves, showing love among themselves and being kind among themselves, resembling one body, so that, if any part of the body is not well then the whole body shares the sleeplessness (insomnia) and fever with it.â Al-BukhÄrÄ« 1997, 8:36: KitÄb al-Adab (âBook of Good Mannersâ), BÄb Raḥmat al-NÄs wa-l-BahÄʾim (âChapter on Being Merciful to the People and Animalsâ).
I do not want to engage with the self in terms of a telos because a set of ethical practices only lead to another or affirm/better the ongoing ones. Thus, to read the disciplining of selves as aimed only for the next world can limit the potential of thinking around cultivation of ethical selves.
Various instances of the Prophet smiling are commonplace in all major ḥadÄ«th sources. âYour smiling in the face of your brother is charity (á¹£adaqa), commanding good and forbidding evil is charity â¦â Al-TirmidhÄ« 2007, 4:62: KitÄb AbwÄb al-Birr wa-l-á¹¢ila (âBook on Righteousness and Maintaining Good Relations With Relativesâ), BÄb MÄ JÄʾa fÄ« á¹¢anÄʾiÊ¿ al-MaÊ¿rÅ«f (âChapter on What Has Been Related about Various Kinds of Good Deedsâ).
On a detailed engagement of the qÄṣṣ with lisÄn, please refer to Armstrong (2017, 157â159).
Clifford Geertz (d. 2006) is an anthropologist of fame for developing the ethnographic method of âthick descriptionâ which is still used and taught in the discipline of anthropology (Geertz 1973). However, subsequent anthropologists have critiqued the method for being ahistorical and limiting the idea of âreligion,â see Asad (1993), especially chapter one. The analogy here is strictly to describe the lengths to which the storyteller goes into describing a narrative.
The attempt is to include the non-material, or rather immaterial. This does not mean that the material is a separate domain or cannot be perceived through the non-material. Rather, privileging the material is contested.