Hadith Commentary
Continuity and Change
Published on 28. February 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
320 pages
978-1-4744-6105-4 (ISBN)
Description
Hadith commentary has been a central site of Islamic intellectual life for more than a millennium, across diverse periods, regions and sects. This is the first volume of scholarly essays ever collected on the key texts and critical themes of hadith commentary. The book unfolds chronologically from the early centuries of Islam to the modern period, and readers will discover continuities and changes as a group of international experts offer illuminating studies of Sunnis, Shi'is and Sufis who interpret and debate the meaning of hadith over a wide terrain: Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, India, and further. The volume also models a variety of methodological approaches, including social history, intellectual history, the study of religion, and digital history. By highlighting both differences and commonalities as the practice of hadith commentary circulated across distant eras and lands, this volume sheds new light on the way Muslims have historically understood the meaning of Muhammad's example.
Reviews / Votes
The papers in this volume span the pre-modern and the modern, address Sunni, Shii and Sufi writings, cover different geographical settings, as well as highlight digital methods. Altogether, this is a superb and much-needed contribution that attests to the importance of a discourse that has been undervalued in the secondary sources. -- Andrew J. Newman, University of Edinburgh Engaging and informative, this impressive book explores the rich genre of commentary literature that developed around the interpretation of the Hadith. With its broad coverage and analysis, the work should serve as a valuable reference source for the academic study of the Prophetic hadiths. -- Mustafa Shah, SOAS, University of London The contributions brought together in this volume demonstrate both continuity and change across centuries and regions in the history, culture, and tradition of hadith commentary-stretching from ninth-century Khurasan until twentieth-century Turkey-and open up entirely new perspectives in which to explore and analyse this important genre. -- Sabine Schmidtke, Institute for Advanced StudyMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Illustrations
9 black and white illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 157 mm
Width: 234 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
496 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4744-6105-4 (9781474461054)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Joel Blecher is Associate Professor of History at the George Washington University in Washington, DC, the author of Said the Prophet of God: Hadith Commentary Across a Millennium (University of California Press, 2018), and co-translator of Ibn ?ajar al-?Asqalani's Merits of the Plague (Penguin Classics, 2023). His other writings have appeared in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Islamic Law & Society, Oriens, and several edited volumes. His work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Library of Congress, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Stefanie Brinkmann is Research Fellow at the "Bibliotheca Arabica Project" at the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig. Trained in Arabic, Persian, and Roman Studies, she had acting professorships at the universities of Freiburg and Hamburg, and was member and principal investigator of a number of manuscript projects. She has published in the fields of manuscript studies, especially on hadith manuscripts, material culture in hadith, and classical Arabic poetry.
Content
List of Figures
Notes on Contributors
Preface
Introduction: What is Hadith Commentary?
Joel Blecher and Stefanie Brinkmann
Part I Formations and Developments in the Early and
Middle Periods
1 Between Philology and Hadith Criticism: The Genre of
Shar? Gharib al-?adith
Stefanie Brinkmann
2 The Hermeneutics of al-Sharif al-Murta?a: The Interpretation
of akhbar al-a?ad in Kitab al-Amali
Ali Aghaei
3 'Blessed are the Strangers (ghuraba?)': An Apocalyptic Hadith
on the Virtues of Loneliness, Sadness and Exile
Youshaa Patel
4 Sufi Contributions to Hadith Commentary
Samer Dajani
5 Ibn Rajab's Commentary on al-Nawawi's Forty Hadith:
Innovation and Audience in the Jami? al-?ulum wa-l-?ikam
Mohammad Gharaibeh
6 The Words of the Imam beyond Philosophy and Tradition:
Shi?i Hadith Commentaries in the ?afavid Period
Sajjad Rizvi
Part II Modern Recollections and Reimaginings
7 Contesting ?anaf i Thought in a Twentieth-century Turkish
Hadith Commentary
Susan Gunasti
8 Debating Authority and Authenticity in Modern South Asian
Hadith Commentaries: Mu?ammad Zakariyya Kandhalawi'
Awjaz al-masalik
Ali Altaf Mian
9 ?Allama ?aba?aba?i and Exegetical Hadiths in al-M?zan:
A Contemporary Imami Commentary on Hadith?
Shadi Nafisi
10 Studying Hadith Commentaries in the Digital Age
Maroussia Bednarkiewicz, Aslisho Qurboniev and
Gowaart Van Den Bossche
Afterword: More Comments, Further Questions
Joel Blecher
Index
Notes on Contributors
Preface
Introduction: What is Hadith Commentary?
Joel Blecher and Stefanie Brinkmann
Part I Formations and Developments in the Early and
Middle Periods
1 Between Philology and Hadith Criticism: The Genre of
Shar? Gharib al-?adith
Stefanie Brinkmann
2 The Hermeneutics of al-Sharif al-Murta?a: The Interpretation
of akhbar al-a?ad in Kitab al-Amali
Ali Aghaei
3 'Blessed are the Strangers (ghuraba?)': An Apocalyptic Hadith
on the Virtues of Loneliness, Sadness and Exile
Youshaa Patel
4 Sufi Contributions to Hadith Commentary
Samer Dajani
5 Ibn Rajab's Commentary on al-Nawawi's Forty Hadith:
Innovation and Audience in the Jami? al-?ulum wa-l-?ikam
Mohammad Gharaibeh
6 The Words of the Imam beyond Philosophy and Tradition:
Shi?i Hadith Commentaries in the ?afavid Period
Sajjad Rizvi
Part II Modern Recollections and Reimaginings
7 Contesting ?anaf i Thought in a Twentieth-century Turkish
Hadith Commentary
Susan Gunasti
8 Debating Authority and Authenticity in Modern South Asian
Hadith Commentaries: Mu?ammad Zakariyya Kandhalawi'
Awjaz al-masalik
Ali Altaf Mian
9 ?Allama ?aba?aba?i and Exegetical Hadiths in al-M?zan:
A Contemporary Imami Commentary on Hadith?
Shadi Nafisi
10 Studying Hadith Commentaries in the Digital Age
Maroussia Bednarkiewicz, Aslisho Qurboniev and
Gowaart Van Den Bossche
Afterword: More Comments, Further Questions
Joel Blecher
Index