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they had grounds to expect a gift as of favour, but possessed no legal title
to a "share." Such are specimens of the way in which tradition,
direct and by analogy, grew up.
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Each tradition is in a separate independent form. It consists simply in a
statement of the Prophet's dictum or his act; in a question and his reply; or
in the brief narrative of a conversation, or action which constitutes a
precedent for all time to come. It is given, in the direct form of speech, on
the authority of the Companion who tells the story; and the names in
succession of every witness in the whole chain through whom it has been handed
down, and who vouch for its authenticity, are carefully prefixed to it. In
process of time this string of authorities becomes of immense length, until it
stops at the period when (as we shall see) a written record. of the tradition
and its authorities supersedes the system of oral communication.
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According to Sprenger, tradition was developed into a regular science by the
civil wars which broke out upon the murder of Othmân. These, at any rate,
imparted to it the powerful impulse of faction; and the force of that impulse
will be understood if we remember that the prize in contest was no less than
the Caliphate itself. Each party anathematised the other, and based its
denunciations upon the authority of the Prophet. The faction that followed Aly
held him and his successors in the Imâmship to be as infallible as the
Prophet. Their opponents, on the other hand, acknowledged but two sources of
infallible authoritythe Coran, and the precept or practice of Mahomet. To
place the certified precedents of their Prophet upon an authoritative basis,
and to preserve them from the possibility of unauthorised additions, the
Sunnies, or vast body of orthodox Moslems, reduced tradition to a fixed form,
namely, the Sunna; by it and by the Coran alone they have ever been
guided, and hence their name.
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The rapid and exuberant growth of tradition is truly marvellous. Sprenger
thinks that the collection of traditions was not taken up as a regular
profession till A.H. 40, or some thirty years after the Prophet's death. From
the Companions who died before that time only such traditions were preserved
as the contingencies and requirements of the day called forth in the way
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