The Book of Sulaym ibn Qays
Template:Short description Script error: No such module "Infobox".Template:Template otherScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Template:Wikidata image The Book of Sulaym ibn Qays (Template:Langx) is the oldest known Shia hadith collection. It was attributed to Sulaym ibn Qays al-Hilali (died 678), who purportedly entrusted it to Aban ibn Abi Ayyash.[1]
Scholars consider the attribution of this work to Sulaym ibn Qays, who himself may have been a legendary figure, to be false.Template:Efn The earliest known reference to the book was in the Script error: No such module "lang". by Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Nu'mani (tenth century).[2]Template:Better source needed
The precise dating of the work is not clear. Hossein Modarressi dates the original core of this work to the final years of Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik's reign (Template:Reign), which would make it one of the oldest Islamic books that are still extant.[3] However, it contains many later additions and alterations of unknown date, which may render it impossible to reconstruct the original text.[4] Two individual passages which have been the subject of a case study have been dated to c. 762-780 and to the late 8th/early 9th century, respectively.[5]
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Views of medieval scholars
Sources indicate that the book was well known, but not always held in high esteem. Ibn al-Nadim (d. 995) said that the book was among the well-known Shia books,[6] and Mohammad-Baqer Majlesi mentioned the book and the author in his book, Al-Ghaibah.Script error: No such module "Unsubst".
However, the scholars Ahmad ibn Ubayda (d. 941) and Abu Abd Allah al-Ghadhanfari (d. 1020) considered the book to be unreliable on the basis of three factors: a segment in the book indicates there were thirteen Imams instead of the traditionally held twelve; another segment states that Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr rebuked his dying father Abu Bakr despite Muhammad being a three-year-old child; and the book was purportedly transmitted by Aban ibn Abi Ayyash at a time when the latter was only fourteen years old.[7]
Dating
Currently, several variant manuscripts of this book exist, and it has been suggested that content was added to it and altered in it over time.[8]
An analysis of a tafsir-related passage suggests that this passage dates to the early 9th century, or perhaps the late 8th century CE.[9]
Notes
References
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- ↑ Script error: No such module "Footnotes"., citing Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi.
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- ↑ Al-Fihrist, p. 275 in chapter titled, "Al-Fan Al-Khamis Min Al-Maqalaht Al-Saadesah".
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- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "Footnotes".: "The content of the first section of the tenth report appears, then, as a rather audacious attempt to attribute to ʿAlī knowledge and mastery of exegetical techniques and a level of hermeneutic sophistication which came into existence in the late eighth/early ninth century."
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Works cited
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- Template:Cite thesis
External links
- English Translation of Kitab al-Sulaym ibn Qays
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