Abū Sulaimān al-Chattābī

Abū Sulaimān Hamd ibn Muhammad al-Chattābī ( Arabic ابو سليمان حمد بن محمد الخطابي, DMG Abū Sulaimān Ḥamd ibn Muḥammad al-Ḫaṭṭābī ; * July 931 in Bust ; † April 998 ibid) was a Shafiite hadith scholar who was also active as a writer, philologist and lexicographer, but became famous primarily for his traditional compendia. His ism name Hamd was disfigured during Ahmad's lifetime . Al-Chattābī was said to be a descendant of Zaid ibn al-Chattāb, a brother of the second caliph Umar ibn al-Chattab , but this genealogy was controversial.

Life

Al-Chattābī made his living as a trader. He traveled through various Islamic countries to acquire knowledge ( ṭalab al-ʿilm ). In addition to Baghdad , where he stayed for a long time, and Basra , he visited Mecca and Nishapur . He spent several years studying in Nishapur, but later began teaching himself. His scientific interest was mainly in hadith and fiqh . Towards the end of his life he showed inclinations for the Sufik and entered a ribat near Bust on the banks of the Hilmend . He died there too.

Works

Of the twelve works written by al-Chattābī, nine have survived in manuscripts. Six of them have now been edited:

• Ġarīb al-ḥadīṯ , collection of rare traditions that cannot be found in either Abū ʿUbaid al-Harawī or Ibn Qutaiba .
• Maʿālim as-sunan ("Guide to the Sunan "), the oldest and most important commentary on the Sunan by Abū Dāwūd as-Sidschistānī , which comprises four volumes in modern printed editions.
• Iʿlām as-sunan fī šarḥ Ṣaḥīḥ al-Buḫārī , the oldest commentary on the traditional collection of Sahīh al-Buchārī . Al-Chattābī makes it clear in his preface that he prefers the Sunan of Abū Dāwūd to the collections of al-Buchari and Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj .
• Iṣlāḥ ġalaṭ al-muḥaddiṯīn , a book that corrects erroneous expressions handed down by the hadith scholars.
• Kitāb Šaʾn ad-duʿāʾ , a book on supplication and its place in religion.
• Kitāb al-ʿUzla , a book on seclusion.
• Bayān iʿǧāz al-Qurʾān , Treatise on the inimitability of the Koran. The work shows great similarities in content with the work Taʾwīl muškil al-Qurʾān by Ibn Qutaiba .

All of these works have a preface ( ḫuṭba ) that is very similar in structure and style . In the opinion of Sebastian Günther, with their systematic design and relative cohesion, they mark the transition in academic Arabic literature from the “private record” to the “regular book” as “authorial lecture scripts”.

Positions

Al-Chattābī was traditionalist and was very critical of the Kalām and his followers. His negative attitude towards the Kalām can be seen, among other things, in the title of a work by him that has not been preserved: al-Ġunya ʿan al-kalām wa-ahli-hī ("The dispensability of the Kalām and his followers"). Al-Chattābī especially warned against those people who practice the kalām without having the necessary knowledge.

Tokatly has shown that al-Chattābī's commentary on Saheeh al-Buchārī is actually a polemic against the followers of the Kalām. In his preface to the work, al-Chattābī turns against the accusation of the Kalām scholars that the traditionalists only transmitted the hadith without understanding them, and thus practiced Taqlīd . He had reservations about al-Bukhari's collection of hadiths because, in his opinion, with their numerous hadiths, which dealt with the image of God, they played arguments into the hands of the followers of the Kalām in order to accuse the traditionalists of anthropomorphism ( tašbīh ) can. In his commentary on the collection, al-Chattābī specifically picked out those hadiths that supported anthropomorphic concepts and tried to refute their anthropomorphic content. With this intention his work is close to the Kitāb Taʾwīl muḫtalif al-ḥadīṯ of Ibn Qutaiba .

literature

• Claude-France Audebert: Al-Ḫaṭṭābī et l'inimitabilité du Coran: traduction et introduction au Bayān iʿǧāz al-Qurʾān . Damascus: Inst. Français de Damas 1996.
• Sebastian Günther: "The šafi`ite traditionalist Abū Sulaimān al-Ḫaṭṭābī and the situation of religious sciences in the 10th century," in the magazine of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft 146 (1996): 61–91. Available online here: http: // menadoc .bibliothek.uni-halle.de / dmg / periodical / titleinfo / 150686
• Sebastian Günther: "In our days, religion has once again become something alien: Al-Khattabi's Critique of the State of Religious Learning in Tenth-century Islam" in The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 25 (2008) 1-30. (English translation and revision of the previous article)
• Fuat Sezgin: History of Arabic Literature . Vol. 1. Leiden: Brill 1967. pp. 210-211.
• Vardit Tokatly: "The Alam al-ḥadīth of al-Khaṭṭābī: A Commentary on al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ or a Polemical Treatise?" in Studia Islamica 92 (2001) 53-91.
• Art. " Al- Kh aṭṭābī" in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition Vol. IV, pp. 1131b-1132a.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See the overview in Günther 1996, 67.
2. ↑ See Tokatly 58.
3. ↑ See Audebert 1996, 100-101.
4. ↑ See Günther 1995, 82.
5. ↑ See Günther 1996, 81.
6. ↑ See Tokatly 64-87.