Ḥadīth Culture and Ibn Taymiyya’s Controversial Legacy in Early Fifteenth Century Damascus

Abstract

In post-canonical times, ḥadīth transmission became a pervasive social and cultural phenomenon, the mechanics of which have recently started to attract the attention of scholars. Despite the fact that, from the eleventh century onwards, the growing authority of the written canon challenged the function of the isnād and the indispensability of the oral transmission, such transmission did not die, rather it deeply changed opening the way to new modes and literary genres that expressed the concerns and aims of post-canonical transmission. Supported by a powerful ideology that justified transmission as a unique mark bestowed by God upon the Muslim community, transmitting the Prophet’s words transformed into a pervasive expression of piety and devotion; an effective way of bringing oneself close to Muḥammad and through him to God; as such “the Prophet’s words” became a most precious social and cultural capital worth of special investment and accumulation.1 From this perspective, ʿulūw (elevation in the isnād), that is proximity to Muḥammad in the chain of transmission, became the quality most eagerly sought after by scholars and transmitters. ʿUlūw allowed not only transmitters but also their auditors to move spiritually near to the Prophet. Such proximity was a source of spiritual benefit as well as social prestige.2 This process was already well on its way in Ayyubid times and was to blossom in the so called “middle period”. Between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, Damascus and Cairo hosted some of the most outstanding ḥadīth experts of all times. Ibn Ṣalāḥ al-Shahrazūrī (d. 1245/643) and al-Nawāwī (d. 676/1277), al-Dhahabī (d. 748/1348) and al-Mizzī (d. 742/1341), Ibn Ḥajar