John Burton An Introduction To The Hadit

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An Introduction to the Hadith by John Burton

Review by: Daniel Brown


International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 31, No. 2 (May, 1999), pp. 275-276
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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Reviews 275

what they felt was importantto Islamic society itself. This book will be of crucial interest not
only to students of Jewish history underIslam and the history of biblical exegesis, translations,
and midrash, but to all students of this period of Islamic history, and, indeed, to all with
interests in Islamic cultural and intellectual history and historiography.

JOHNBURTON,An Introduction to the Hadith, Islamic Surveys (Edinburgh:EdinburghUni-


versity Press, 1994). Pp. 236.

REVIEWEDBY DANIEL BROWN, Five Colleges, Inc., Amherst, Mass.

An Introduction to the Hadith is an important but disappointing book: important because it


presents the mature scholarly views of a major contributorto modern studies of hadith; dis-
appointingbecause it pretends to be something it is not, a comprehensive introductionto the
field of hadith studies.
Burton'sprincipal argumentelaborates a thesis he proposed earlier, in a 1984 article (Brit-
ish Society for Middle Eastern Studies Bulletin 11 [1984]: 3-17). In that article, and again in
the present work, Burton argues that the origins of the hadith literature-indeed, the whole of
the fiqh tradition-are exegetical. The hadith literaturerepresents, "the documentaryprecip-
itation of ... an 'academic exercise,' a paper war whose raw materials had been supplied by
the exegesis of a document, the Holy Qur'an"(p. xxiii). Hence "Fiqh is not law. It is exegesis
aspiring to become law" (p. xix) and, pace Goldziher and Schacht, the origins of hadith "had
nothing to do with real life." In Burton'sview, this argumentshould rendermuch of the debate
over the "authenticity"of hadith moot, for, as he concludes, "the wholesale rejection of ha-
diths as mere invention and fabricationmisses the point that many of the hadiths can be shown
to spring from an ancient source in the primitive exegesis." Thus, although hadith may not be
strictly "historical"in the sense of preserving actual information about the Prophet, it does at
least "preserve some material on the thinking of Muslims, if not precisely in the age of the
Prophet, then very soon after, in what might be called the age of the Qur'an" (p. 181).
Burton's thesis, although not presented for the first time in this book, is nevertheless im-
portantand compelling. His position offers a useful corrective to the theories of Goldziher and
Schacht, and the most valuable chapters of his work are his Introductionand Conclusion, in
which he engages these scholars in extended debate. (Curiously, Burton completely ignores
the work of Juynboll, one of the few other modern scholars to attempt a serious revision of
Goldziher and Schacht.) The major flaw that Burton'swork exposes in most hadith scholarship
is the tendency to take hadith too seriously as history. Both Muslim defenders of hadith and
Western hadith critics have been far too concerned about mining hadith literatureas a source
of historical data to give sufficient attention to the literary origins and context of hadith. For
Goldziher, as Burton points out, this resulted in a naive acceptance of the hadith literature's
negative portrayal of the Umayyad regime. In a similar way, Schacht believed that legal
hadiths must have had their origins in actual legal practice; hence, his hypothesis that Islamic
law originated with Umayyad administrativepractice. Goldziher, Schacht, and most scholars
since have assumed that there must be some "historical reality"behind hadith, and if that "re-
ality" is not the practice of Muhammad,then it must be found somewhere else. But as Burton
shows, the assumption that hadith must have something to do with "real life" is unwarranted,
and the "reality"that best explains the origins of hadith is not a historical but a literaryreality.
This is an importantargument that deserves full treatment.Unfortunately,Burton gives it
much less than this. Most of the book has nothing to do with the author'sprimarythesis. Con-
sequently, the form of the book fits ratherbadly with its most useful and importantfunction.
By pressing his argumentinto the form of an "Introductionto the Hadith,"Burton undermines
276 Int. J. Middle East Stud. 31 (1999)

both of his apparentaims for the book: he weakens and distracts from his importantmain ar-
gument, yet he fails to offer us the "clear introduction"to hadith studies promised by the dust
jacket. Both a comprehensive introductionto hadith and a systematic presentationof Burton's
views on hadith are called for; by attempting to combine these in a single work, Burton fails
completely at the first and weakens the second.
The limitations of the book are best illustrated by those chapters which are most clearly
introductory in intent. After a promising Introduction, in which he engages Goldziher and
Schacht and outlines his own thesis, Burton squandersthe whole first chapteron an uncritical
rehashingof the prophetic sira. It is remarkableand strangethat a book that offers an important
critical reading of the origins of hadith would begin with an entirely uncritical account of the
life of Muhammad.To add culpability to strangeness, Burton is disingenous about the sources
of his account, citing only the Qur'an, as if the Qur'an alone could supply all of the details
necessary to build the sort of full and coherent account of Muhammad'slife that Burton out-
lines. This first chapter is really no more than a crumb thrown to the publisher and unwary
readerto satisfy their expectation that any book on Islam with the word "introduction"in the
title must at some point offer a biography of the Prophet, no matterhow redundantand point-
less the exercise may be.
Other introductorychapters are more useful, although still disappointing. Among the best
is a chapteron the Hadith Collections, which offers a coherent summaryof the maturescience
of hadith and the major hadith collections. Other chapters are far from coherent. A chapteron
the political dimensions of hadith, for example, launches the reader on a dizzying survey of
early Muslim political intrigue, without a word to explain what any of these strange events
have to do with the hadith or why we should be interested in them at all. Quotations from
primary sources often appear abruptly in the text, without anticipation, explanation, or con-
text. Topics are suddenly introducedthat seem to have little to do with what came before, or
with the apparentfocus of the chapter.The whole chapteris a muddled morass that no teacher
would be likely to ask a student to read, except as an example of the very worst in academic
writing.The impressiongiven is of a ratherhasty emptying of files, the results cobbled together
without any significant attempt to develop a coherent structureor argument.We see the same
tendencies in other chapters, although with less disastrous results. So, for example, in his
chapteron the theological dimension of hadith Burton simply offers an abbreviatedcollection
of theological hadith sorted into different subject areas, with hardly a word of explanation or
exposition.
The flaws in this book are serious, almost fatal. But to be fair, the weaknesses in Burton's
work are hardlyunique. In many respects, his work is reminiscent of that of Joseph Schacht-
a man of remarkablescholarly insight with an equally remarkableinability to communicate
that insight with any degree of clarity.An Introductionto the Hadith should be read and taken
seriously by scholars concerned with the hadith and with early Islamic law-as no doubt it
will. But those who have wished for a true introductionto the hadith literaturemust continue
to wish. A book worthy of the title remains to be written.

HEINZ HALM, Shica Islam: From Religion to Revolution, trans. ALLISON BROWN (Princeton,
N.J.: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1997). Pp. 188.

REVIEWED BY SAYDAMIRARJOMAND,
Department of Sociology, State University of New
York, Stony Brook

In this slim volume, which is a translation by Allison Brown of the 1994 German original,
Professor Heinz Halm, a leading scholar of early Shi'ism, offers his interpretation of the

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