Hadith, Sira and the formation of Sunni and Shi'a Islam

Overview

Recall questions on Hadith and Sira and their limits as sources, the first revelation in al-Bukhari and Ibn Hisham, the Sunni and Shi'a accounts of the succession, the Imams and ahl al-bayt, the salaf and consensus, religious authority, and whether the division is political or theological.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What is Hadith, and what are its two parts?

   Model answer

   Hadith are individual reports of what the Prophet Muhammad said, did, or tacitly approved. Each report has two parts: the isnad, the chain of named transmitters running back from the collector to an eyewitness, and the matn, the text of the report itself. Muslim scholars developed a science of assessing the reliability of each transmitter, grading reports as sound, good or weak. The Sunna, the Prophet's normative practice, is known largely through these reports, which is why their authentication mattered so much.

2. 2

   What is Sira, and how does it differ from Hadith in composition and method?

   Model answer

   Sira is biography: a continuous, chronological narrative of the Prophet's life, including his ancestry, the years at Mecca, the migration and the later campaigns. Hadith collections, by contrast, are compilations of separate reports arranged by legal topic or by narrator, each carrying its own chain. Sira aims at telling a connected story and will use material, including poetry and unsupported reports, that hadith critics would reject; hadith scholarship aims at verifying discrete units and applies stricter transmission tests. The result is that Sira is richer in narrative and weaker in authentication.

3. 3

   Why do Muslims value Hadith and Sira as sources, and what are the limits of each?

   Model answer

   They are valued as sources of historical knowledge, because they supply almost everything known about the Prophet's life and the setting of revelation, and as sources of religious wisdom, because they show how revelation was actually lived. The limits are different in each case. Hadith are precise but atomised, and even a sound chain guarantees careful transmission rather than certainty. Sira gives context and coherence but was compiled generations later and shaped by the concerns of its compilers. Muslim and non-Muslim historians therefore weigh the two differently.

4. 4

   What account of the first revelation is given in al-Bukhari's hadith collection and in Ibn Hisham's biography of the Prophet?

   Model answer

   Both describe Muhammad withdrawing to a cave on Mount Hira for periods of solitude, where an angelic visitor commands him to recite. He protests that he cannot, is pressed hard, and is then given the opening words of revelation. He returns home shaken and asks to be covered, and his wife Khadija reassures him and takes him to her relative Waraqa ibn Nawfal, who recognises the visitation as the same one that came to Musa. The two accounts agree closely, which is one reason Muslims treat the episode as securely attested.

5. 5

   Why is it significant that al-Bukhari's collection opens with the coming of the first revelation?

   Model answer

   Placing the beginning of revelation first sets out the collection's whole premise: everything that follows is authoritative because it comes from a man who received wahy. The narrative also establishes several claims Muslims regard as important, namely that Muhammad did not seek prophethood and was frightened by it, that the words were given and not composed, and that a knowledgeable outsider identified the experience as continuous with earlier prophecy. It thereby answers the suspicion that he was a poet or a soothsayer.

6. 6

   Who was Ibn Hisham, and what is his relation to the standard biography of the Prophet?

   Model answer

   Ibn Hisham produced the version in which the earliest full biography of Muhammad survives. He edited and abridged the earlier work of Ibn Ishaq, removing material he judged irrelevant, offensive or poorly supported, and adding his own notes. Because Ibn Ishaq's original does not survive intact, Ibn Hisham's recension is the text that later Muslim tradition and modern historians actually use, which is also why questions about editing and selection attach to it.

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