The Formation of the Islamic Understanding of Kalāla in the Second Century AH (718–816 CE)

595 Pages·2015·3.31 MB·English

by  Pavel Pavlovitch

The Formation of the Islamic Understanding of Kalāla in the Second Century
ah (718–816 CE)
Islamic History
and Civilization
Studies and Texts
Editorial Board
Hinrich Biesterfeldt
Sebastian Günther
Wadad Kadi

VOLUME 126
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ihc
The Formation of the Islamic
Understanding of Kalāla in the
Second Century ah (718–816 CE)
Between Scripture and Canon
By
Pavel Pavlovitch
LEIDEN | BOSTON
Cover illustration: art by Eva Teneva-Zaykoff.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pavlovich, Pavel
 The formation of the Islamic understanding of kalala in the second century AH (718–816 CE) : between
scripture and canon / by Pavel Pavlovitch.
  pages cm. — (Islamic history and civilization ; volume 126)
 Includes bibliographical references and index.
 ISBN 978-90-04-30606-6 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-30607-3 (e-book) 1. Kalala (The Arabic
word) 2. Qur’an—Language, style. 3. Arabic language—Semantics. I. Title.
 PJ6599.K35P38 2015
 297.1’224042—dc23
2015035477
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issn 0929-2403
isbn 978-90-04-30606-6 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-30607-3 (e-book)
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Contents
Foreword ix
List of Witnesses, Tables, Matn-Composites, and Isnād Diagrams xiv
Abbreviations xvii
Abbreviated Book and Journal Titles xvii
Abbreviated Personal Names of Transmitters in the Isnād
Diagrams xvii
1 Vicissitudes of Interpretation 1
1.1 Kalāla in the Quran 1
1.2 Was the Meaning of Kalāla Known in the Jāhiliyya and Early
Islam? 5
1.3 How to Make Sense of Kalāla? 7
1.4 Western Research on Kalāla 9
1.5 Methodology 22
1.5.1 Isnād-cum-Matn Analysis (ICMA) 22
1.5.2 Ḥadīth as Fictional Narrative 49
1.5.3 Sources of  Kalāla Traditions 52
1.5.4 Matn-Composites, Isnād Diagrams, and Reconstructed
Versions 54
2 The Meaning of Kalāla is Unknown 57
2.1 Cluster 1: Kalāla is One of the Three Most Important Things in this
World 57
2.2 Cluster 2: Kalāla and the Finest Camels 70
2.3 Cluster 3: The Khamr-cum-Kalāla Tradition 86
2.4 Cluster 4: ʿUmar Tells Ibn ʿAbbās that He Did not Issue a Decree
about Kalāla 115
2.5 Cluster 5: ʿUmar Tells Ibn ʿAbbās, Ibn ʿUmar, and Saʿīd b. Zayd that He
Did not Say Anything about Kalāla 127
2.6 Cluster 6: ʿUmar and the Presence of Captives in Medina 137
2.7 Cluster 7: Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī’s One-Thing Narrative 143
2.8 Cluster 8: Nothing Perplexed the Companions of the Prophet as Did
Kalāla 150
2.9 Conclusion 156
vi contents
3 The Meaning of Kalāla is Hidden 162
3.1 Cluster 9: ʿUmar’s Suppressed Statement about Kalāla 162
3.2 Cluster 10: ʿUmar Erases His Decree about Grandfather and
Kalāla 181
3.3 Cluster 11: ʿUmar, Kalāla, and the Ominous Snake 199
3.4 Cluster 12: Kalāla Was not Made Clear to ʿUmar 214
3.5 Conclusion 244
3.5.1 The Historical Development of the Intermediate Traditions 244
3.5.2 T he Relationship between the Undefined and the Intermediate
Traditions 247
3.5.3 ʿAbd al-Razzāq the Exegete 250
4 The Meaning of Kalāla is Defined in the Summer Verse 252
4.1 Cluster 13: The Medinese Version of the Kalāla-cum-Summer-Verse
Tradition 252
4.2 Cluster 14: The Basran Version of the Kalāla-cum-Summer-Verse
Tradition 261
4.3 Cluster 15: The Kufan Version of the Kalāla-cum-Summer-Verse
Tradition 292
4.4 Cluster 16: The Prophet Defines Kalāla 307
4.5 ʿUmar, Ḥafṣa, and the Prophet: Between Masoretic Elucidation and
Halakhic Exegesis 317
4.6 Cluster 19: ʿUmar’s Recollection about Kalāla 341
4.7 Cluster 20: The Prophet and the Importunate Man 355
4.8 Conclusion 362
4.8.1 Kalāla and the Codification of the Quran 365
4.8.2 Pre-Canonical vs. Canonical Kalāla 368
5 Kalāla is Defined in Ḥadīth 376
5.1 The Kufan Definition of Kalāla 376
5.2 Hijazi Doctrines about Kalāla 392
5.3 Cluster 26: The Struggle over the Kufan Definition of Kalāla 427
5.4 Cluster 27: The Polemical Encounter between Yazīd b. Hārūn and
ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī 441
5.5 Cluster 28: Dispensing with the Quran 458
5.6 Cluster 29: Kufan Inroads in Basra 476
5.7 Conclusion 484
contents vii
6 Summary and Conclusion 491
6.1 The Historical Development of the Kalāla Narratives 491
6.2 The Chronology of Kalāla Traditions: Specific Motifs and Attribution
to Early Authorities 496
6.3 *Kalla or Kalāla? 508
6.4 The Breach between the Quran and the Sunna 513
6.5 Kalāla and Varieties of Exegesis 516
6.6 Methodological Challenges and Research Perspectives 517
Appendix 1. Chronology of Kalāla Traditions 520
The Undefined Traditions 520
The Intermediate Traditions 522
Kalāla and the Summer Verse 524
Traditions including Various Definitions of Kalāla 526
Appendix 2. Reconstructed Versions (RVs) of Kalāla Traditions 532
Bibliography 547
Index of Names and Subjects 560
Index of Quranic Verses 577

Foreword
Writing at the end of the third century AH, the Muslim historian and exegete
Ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī divided the contents of the Quran into three broad herme-
neutical categories.1 The first category comprises legal ordinances (aḥkām)
whose proper understanding is contingent on elucidation (bayān) by pro-
phetic tradition (Sunna). Verses that foretell the future, especially eschatologi-
cal events, make up the second category; their intrinsic meaning is known only
to Allah. The third category refers to “anyone who knows the language in which
the Quran was sent down”2 and is able to understand Quranic vocabulary and
the syntactic relationship between its lexical entities. As the literal meaning
of individual words and rules of syntax are commonly known, and no one
is exempted from this essential knowledge, al-Ṭabarī’s third category appar-
ently subsumes the former two. Hence, mastery of Quranic vocabulary is an
essential prerequisite of exegesis. One cannot engage Quranic verses—clear or
ambiguous—without understanding the lexical units upon which these verses
are built. The possibility of such understanding is implied in Allah’s words that
the Quran was sent down in ‘manifest Arabic speech.’3
Al-Ṭabarī’s third category does not admit exceptions—either at the lower
level of individual words or at the higher level of syntactic structures. One case
in which this doctrine may be shown to break down is the word kalāla in Q 4:12
and Q 4:176. Whereas Q 4:176 suggests that kalāla refers to a man who dies leav-
ing no child and is inherited by collaterals, in Q 4:12 kalāla is used in a manner
that precludes its understanding as a lexical unit and a legal term and leaves us
wondering about its syntactic function. Thus, viewed from a historical-critical
perspective, Q 4:12 calls into question the postulate of a clear and comprehen-
sible Quranic language at the level of both vocables and syntax. It raises the
possibility that certain words in the Quran were obscure already in the life-
time of the Prophet, or, alternatively, that there was a linguistic discontinuity
between the earliest community of believers and the post-conquest Islamic
umma. A similar discontinuity must be postulated for early Islamic law—if,
in fact, a legal term as important as kalāla was unknown to the Muslims at the
end of the first century AH, either as part of their daily linguistic competence
or through a pronouncement by their Prophet. The question “What does kalāla
mean?” relates, therefore, to three wider historical issues: (1) the history of the
1  Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ i, 68–70.
2  Ibid. 69.
3  See, for instance, Q 16:103; 26:194–5; 12:2.
x foreword
Quran, (2) the formation of Islamic law, and (3) the development of Muslim
exegesis.
David Powers’ pioneering research on kalāla highlights the significance of
this word for the history of the Quran. The syntactic and semantic opacity of
Q 4:12 suggested to Powers that, in its original form, this verse dealt with a legal
issue other than inheritance by collaterals, as agreed by Muslim exegetes and
jurists. Powers posited that, initially, the verse included the word *kalla, signify-
ing ‘daughter-in-law,’ and treated cases of testate succession in which a person
contemplating death might appoint as his testamentary heir a daughter-in-
law or a wife. Between 20 and 50 AH/640–70 the original *kalla was changed
to kalāla, and, accordingly, the verse came to refer to intestate succession by
collateral relatives.4 The revision of Q 4:12 triggered a legal chain reaction:
in its new form, the verse appears to limit the inheritance of siblings, as the
closest surviving relatives of the deceased, to one-third of the estate, without
specifying the recipients of the remaining two-thirds. The legal incomplete-
ness of Q 4:12 was offset by a supplementary legislation inserted at the end of
Sura al-Nisāʾ; what is presently known as Q 4:176 envisages scenarios in which
siblings inherit the entire estate.
The earliest traditions about the meaning of kalāla are an important tool
to check Powers’ hypothesis. Since the hypothetical *kalla is not attested in
the Islamic legal, exegetical, and lexicographical sources, our evidence may be
only indirect—to wit, doctrines that understand Q 4:12 as referring to testate
succession and traditions that assert the unintelligibility of kalāla or suggest
the suppression of its original meaning. Such an examination is also impor-
tant because of its bearing on the history of the Quranic codification. If the
Quran remained textually fluid until the end of the first century AH, as Powers
maintains, then we must reconsider traditional accounts according to which,
towards the middle of the seventh century CE, the third caliph, ʿUthmān
(r. 23–35/644–56), promulgated a fixed version of scripture.
Muslim scholars assume that even before ʿUthmān’s codification the Quran
was the fundament upon which the Prophet and his immediate successors
established Islamic legislation. This assumption was challenged in 1950 by
Joseph Schacht, who observed that, paradoxically, the influence of Quranic leg-
islation on the emerging system of Islamic law was superficial at best.5 Kalāla
is no exception to Schacht’s paradox. If Quranic laws had been fundamental
for the Islamic community already in the earliest years of its existence—that
is, in the second and third decades of the seventh century CE, then why is the
meaning of kalāla, which is an important legal term, unclear in Q 4:12? How
4  On Powers’ hypothesis see below, Section 1.4.1.
5  Schacht, Origins 227.