Abu al-Hasan al-Qabisi and the Methodology of Hadith in the introduction of Kitab al-Mulakhkhas al-Muwatta'

Abstract

In the early Islamic world, various works were written on the issues on hadith methodology. Then, independent studies on the hadith methodology began to be compiled from the fourth century of the hijra, and many hadith methodologies were written in the following period. Before the writing of the independent studies on the hadith procedure, there were no separate hadith works, but there were copyrights in which the procedural subjects were handled. It should be noted that the introductory parts of the hadith books, in particular, are of great importance at this point. Because the authors sometimes include the issues of hadith methodology in the intro-ductions in which they deal with the copyright purposes of their works and the methods they follow in the study, and they explain some hadith methodology concepts. The aforementioned prefaces and the issues covered in them provide important content about the hadith methodol-ogy. In addition to this, these texts also shed light on the procedural approaches of their authors. In addition, the concepts used in the period when the author lived, the meanings given to these concepts and the issues that came to the fore at that time are also revealed. In this article, the introduction to the book of Kitab al-Mulakhkhas al-Muwatta' by Qabisi (d. 403/1012), one of the hadith scholars of Maghrib geography, is discussed. The author wrote this work in order to bring together the continual documents in the Ibn al-Qasim narration of Malik b. Anas' (d. 179/795) al-Muwatta. In the introduction, the author first stated the purpose of the writing of Kitab al-Mulakhkhas al-Muwatta''s and the method followed in the work. Namely, he states that he compiled this work to respond to the demands of those who asked him to bring together the hadiths of Malik b. Anas, whose chain is complete. In the compilation of the work, he was content with the only narration of Muwatta. He followed the method of collecting the musnad hadiths in this narration, the ones with clear continuous. However, he preferred not to include the narrations that were closed in his continuous in his work. After this information, the author has included some issues of hadith methodology in the introduction part. The main pur-pose of the study is to determine the concepts and subjects of the hadith methodology that he discussed in this section. In this context, firstly, information about Qabisi's life was given, and his education was mentioned. Then, some information about the features of the work in question is presented. Afterwards, the concepts of hadith methodology that he mentioned in the introduc-tion of his work and his explanations on these issues were examined under separate headings. Although he is encouraged to narrate hadiths in this introduction, he provides information about the refraining of many hadith transmissions, the conditions of endurance of hadith, the words of the narration considered as 'muttasil and munqati', the narration with the meaning of the hadiths and the lahn in the hadith. When the approaches of Qabisi on these issues are examined, it is revealed that he tends towards the views of the Maliki school, which he is a follower of and Imam Malik. For this reason, the parts in which he adopted Malik's approaches and tended to explain the issues by referring to him are mentioned. In addition, Qebisi pioneered the Maghrib's acquaintance with some hadith works belonging to the Eastern literature on his return from the Mashrik rihla. Through his students, these studies were also transferred to Andalusia. Bukhari's al-Sahih is at the beginning of the works that he brought upon his return from the Eastern rihla. That is, while al-Sahih spread in Ifriqiyah through Qebisi, it became widespread in Andalusia thanks to his students. However, among the works transmitted from him in Qayrawen and known in Maghrib and Andalusia through him, Nase'i's al-Sunan, Musnad Hadith Malik and Tafsir al-Qur'an, Duhaym's Musnad Hadith Awza'i, Ibn al-Jarud's al-Muntaqa fi al-sunan al-musnadah, al-Mustaksiyah fi al-Muwatta of Ibn Muzayn and there are various versions and different narrations of Muwatta. In addition to the books he brought, the works and views of Qebisi, who wrote many works himself, also reached the Andalusia Region. From this point of view, it has been tried to determine the scholars of the Andalusian region who made reference to Qebisi's views on the hadith methodology. In addition, studies on his works reveal the care shown to him and his works. However, it is also important in terms of revealing his influence on the Andalusian hadith scholars. For this reason, the commentaries written by Andalusians on Kitab al-Mulakhkhas al-Muwatta', the article's subject, are specially mentioned.