|
of precedent and direction. But afterwards, while everybody continued more or
less a tradition-monger, it became the special business of a numerous class to
record from all quarters whatever recollections of the Prophet still lingered
in the memory of the people. Mecca and Medina, of course, were specially
ransacked, while every spot, however distant, was visited in the hope of
meeting some one from whom the fragment of a reminiscence might be gleaned. We
have consequently a much greater body of traditions from the Companions who
survived to this busy time, than from those who died before it. Abu Horeira (d.
A.H. 58), himself a Companion, collected no fewer than 3000 traditions
regarding the Prophet, from the lips either of eye-witnesses or of those who
had received them from eye-witnesses
|
At such a distance of time there could be no great scrupulousness or
exactitude either as to the expressions or the subject-matter thus handed
down. Penetrated by an irresistible fanaticism, the traditionist" placed
subjective truth far higher than objective." It was the ideal of the
Prophet, and the glory of Islam, which tradition set forth, rather than any
accurate and historical statement. At all events, it was only such reports as
coincided with the spirit of Islam that maintained their currency; and hence
we find tradition to be necessarily partial and one-sided. The strife of sect
and party, it is true, acted to some extent as a check upon misstatement, but
only in so far as sect and party were concerned. In the glorification of the
Prophet and exaltation of Islam all were interested and all agreed.
|
One cannot fail to be struck by the uniformity of style and construction which
pervades the whole mass of tradition. The form and type throughout are one.
Sprenger thinks this remarkable similarity to be the work of the professional
traditionists who shaped and formularised, according to the recognised model,
all traditional matter which fell into their hands. Thus, an imperfect
fragment would be set in the frame of question and answer; or the prolix story
of some aged descendant of a Companion would be compressed and as such dressed
up in the traditional shape. Then, as new points of usage or law from time to
time came forward for settlement, these, reduced into the proper interrogatory
|