Joseph Schacht Argument and Method What was unusual about Schacht's method? According to Schacht the rules and standards of Islamic law are derived from four primary sources: What is one of the sources of Islamic law? from the Qur`an, What other sources did he say Islamic law comes from? from the hadith comprising the sunna of the Prophet Muhammad and his Companions, from the consensus or ijma' of the Muslim community and from analogical reasoning or qiyas.
Was he a great influence on other scholars of Islam?
Was Schacht a great influence on other scholars of Islam law?
Schacht locates the origins of 'ilm al-hadith in the eight and ninth centuries CE, a moment in the development of Islamic legal reasoning coinciding with the professionalization of the traditionalist (muhaddith) and jurist (faqih) classes in the urban centers of the Middle East. According to Schacht the rules and standards of Islamic law are derived from four primary sources: from the Qur`an, from the hadith comprising the sunna of the Prophet Muhammad and his Companions, from the consensus or ijma' of the Muslim community and from analogical reasoning or qiyas. The essentials of this fourfold methodology were initially and perhaps most clearly articulated by Imam al-Shafi`i, a noted legal scholar of the eighth and ninth centuries CE and founder of an eponymous school of Islamic jurisprudence. Following the work of Goldziher before him, Schacht argues that it was al-Shafi`i who first elevated the sunna and its constituent traditions to great legal prominence. The material importance of the Qur`an and hadith thereafter enjoyed a status comparable to that of juristic consensus, though for al-Shafi`i traditions credibly attributed to the Prophet were to be considered more authoritative than those of his Companions, and indeed could supersede all other sources of legal authority. Moreover, an already-existing legal standard based on such a tradition could be overturned only upon the emergence of a hadith that could be more credibly attributable to the Prophet. Al-Shafi`i goes as far as to claim that such well-established traditions invite no debate as to their validity; their truth simply imposes itself upon the human mind, leaving no room for doubt or speculation. Schacht points out, however, that al-Shafi`i inconsistently applies this rule in his own work, alleging that in some cases the jurist favored 'ahadith transmitted from Companions that openly contradicted those attributable to the Prophet. These traditions usually included those which validated ritual practices that were either universally agreed upon or else independently verifiable (such as daily prayer), and those which disputed the legal positions of al-Shafi`i's opponents. Building on this lattermost point, Schacht contends that far from constructing the standards of a legitimate epistemic enterprise al-Shafi`i's science of hadith amounts to little more than an uncritical acceptance of Prophetic traditions which justified his own legal preferences. These same traditions, claims Schacht, could not survive a stronger program of investigation. Although the technical evaluation of traditions would continue to evolve across many generations of Muslim scholars, it seems to have largely proceeded along the lines of the deficient form of 'isnad criticism first articulated here by al-Shafi`i. Later in Origins Schacht presents evidence which in his estimation suggests that there was in fact a large scale fabrication of Prophetic 'isnads in the generation preceding the life of al-Shafi`i's own teacher, Malik ibn 'Anas (d. 795 CE). Even in Malik's esteemed golden narrative chain there are suspicious gaps and obvious substitutions, sowing significant doubts as to credibility of the relationships he was said to have had with certain key transmitters. For these reasons modern scholars cannot be nearly as optimistic about the historical-analytic value of hadith literature as were their medieval Muslim counterparts. CANNOTANSWER
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Joseph Franz Schacht (15 March 1902 – 1 August 1969) was a British-German professor of Arabic and Islam at Columbia University in New York.  He was the leading Western scholar on Islamic law, whose Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence (1950) is still considered a centrally important work on the subject.  The author of many articles in the first and second editions of the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Schacht also co-edited, with C. E. Bosworth, the second edition of The Legacy of Islam for the Legacy series of Oxford University Press and authored a textbook under the title An Introduction to Islamic Law (1964).

Life and career

Schacht was born into a Catholic family but, with a zeal for study, became at an early age a student in a Hebrew school. In Breslau and Leipzig he studied Semitic languages, Greek, and Latin, under professors including Gotthelf Bergsträßer.

In 1924 he published his Habilitations-Schrift, Das kitab al-hiial fil-fiqh (Buch d. Rechtskniffe) des abū Hātim Mahmūd ibn al-Hasan al-Qazuīnī, with translation and commentary.

In 1925 he obtained his first academic position at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg in Breisgau. In 1927 he became there a professor extraordinarius, making him the youngest professor in all of Germany, and in 1929 a professor ordinarius of Semitic languages. In 1932 he was appointed a professor at the University of Königsberg. But in 1934, without being directly threatened or persecuted, Schacht, as a strong opponent of the Nazi regime, went to Cairo, where he taught until 1939 as a professor. At the outbreak of World War II in 1939, he happened to be in England, where he offered his services to the British government and worked for the BBC. In 1947 he became a British citizen.

Schacht taught at Oxford University from 1946. In 1954 he moved to the Netherlands and taught at the University of Leiden. In the academic year 1957–1958, he taught at Columbia University, where, in 1959 he became a full professor of Arabic and Islamic studies. He remained at Columbia until his retirement in 1969 as professor emeritus.

One of Schacht's major contributions to the history of early Islam is the recognition that Hadith probably stems from those in whom the different traditions of the past converge, and this convergence Schacht describes as "common link". This concept was later used productively by many other orientalists.

Thought

Theory of Islamic law
Schacht argued that Islamic law was not as classical Islamic jurisprudence taught,  
the product of an ordered following of four sources/components (which in order of importance/senority were):  
the Quran, 
the Sunnah (the body of traditional social and legal custom and practice of the Islamic community), 
Qiyas (the process of deductive analogy), and 
Ijma (the consensus/agreement of Muslim scholars); 
neither did its chronology  follow a direct path of Allah-> Muhammad-> Companions-> Followers-> Fiqh, 
nor was fiqh development centered shortly after Muhammad's death in the city (Medina) where he had established his state and where memory and traditions of him were the strongest. 
Rather the law arose from historical development of three different "sunnas" — bodies of custom, rules and law — operating in parallel during the period of the Umayyad Caliphate. 
The "pre-Islamic sunnah" of Arabia, 
the mixed custom-administrative law sunnah of the distant provinces" of the Umayyads, and later 
the "living traditions" of the newly formed Islamic schools. 
Unification of Islamic legal thought (so that only one sunnah remained) occurred under the legal scholar Al-Shafi‘i (767-820), when the ahadith of Muhammad became pre-eminent (except for the Quran).  The most important of the schools of Islamic law developed in Kufa in Mesopotamia, according to Schacht's research, and its legal precepts spread to other cities such as Medina.

Beginning around 100 A.H. (720 CE), ahadith of Muhammad "began to be fabricated", forming the Islamic Sunnah as it is known today. While scholars recognized that many ahadith were false and attempted to weed these out with ʻilm al-ḥadīth, this was in vain as most if not all are inauthentic.  According to Schacht, with the exception of "a few modifications dictated by the Qur'an", the Islamic "Sunna" is the same as the "sunna" of "pre-Mohammed Arabia". One  example of the power of traditional law was that under the caliphate, theft was punished by flogging, even though the Qur'an had prescribed maiming/amputation.

Schacht argues that in part the fabrication of ahadith came from "a literary convention, which found particular favor in Iraq", whereby authors/scholars would put their "own doctrine or work under the aegis of an ancient authority." The ultimate prestigious "ancient authority" in this context was Muhammad and "around 120 A.H." scholars in Kufa, "followed in a few years by the Medinese" began falsely ascribing "their new doctrines back to earlier jurists", and over time extended them back to Muhammad. Schacht also blames the religious fervor of those who "detested" use of Qiyas and Ijma. Providing suspicious justification for the "Traditionist" fabricators were ahadith such as, "sayings attributed to me which agree with the Qur'an go back to me, whether I actually said them or not." Though false, the forgeries could also be justified as recognizing the "final legitimacy of what the prophet Muhammad did and said.

Evidence of late creation
As evidence that most ahadith were created after 100 A.H., Schacht notes that: 
all authentic early writings of Islamic law are virtually devoid of any mention of ahadith of Muhammad;
the early doctrines of the schools of law were "almost always traced" to an earlier jurist or to the Sahabah ("companions" of Muhammad) but "virtually never" to Muhammad;
but "the best way of proving that a tradition did not exist at a certain time" according to Schacht, was "to show that it is not used as a legal argument in a discussion which would have made reference to it imperative, if it had existed."  In reply to the argument that jurists, etc. may not have used a legal argument in a discussion because they had not known about it, Schacht states:
a. communications in the Islamic empire at that time were good enough for "doctrines and views" to "spread easily and quickly from one juristic center to another";
b. if the behavior and utterances of Muhammad were the basis of Islamic law from the beginning of Islamic society, it is unlikely those involved in matters of law — "among the most learned and pious men of Islam" — would not know them;
c. there were not dozens but "hundreds of examples in which the disparity between an early decision and a later tradition took place". According to David F. Forte, "it goes beyond rational belief to think that these men would have been so consistently ignorant of contrary actions by the Prophet."

The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence (book)

As a whole, Origins critiques the methods and standards of ḥadīth verification as they were first articulated by Al-Shafi‘i and subsequently developed by his students in the eighth and ninth centuries CE, an early and centrally important stage in the formation of Islamic jurisprudence. His research builds upon the work of important figures in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century study of Islamic law in Europe, such as Gustav Weil and Ignác Goldziher. In particular, Schacht advocates a skeptical approach to medieval forms of 'isnād criticism, which he views as fabricated and comprising the greater part of Sunni approaches to verifying Prophetic traditions of a legal nature.

Argument and Method 

Schacht locates the origins of 'ilm al-ḥadīth in the eighth and ninth centuries CE, a moment in the development of Islamic legal reasoning coinciding with the professionalization of the traditionalist (muḥaddith) and jurist (faqīh) classes in the urban centers of the Middle East.

Schacht credits Imām al-Shāfiʻī, the founder of an eponymous school of Islamic jurisprudence, with "creating" "the essentials" of the theory of fiqh (the system of Islamic jurisprudence), made up of four principles/sources/components mentioned above: the Qurʾān, the ḥadīth of the Prophet Muḥammad and his Companions, scholarly consensus (ijmāʿ), analogical reasoning (qiyās).<ref>Snouck Hurgronje, C. Verspreide Geschriften. v.ii. 1923-7, page 286-315</ref>Margoliouth, D.S., The Early Development of Mohammedanism, 1914, page 65ff

Because the Quran has relatively few verses pertaining to fiqh, Al-Shafi‘i's system meant that "the great bulk" of the rules of the Islamic law were derived from ahadith.   
Schacht states that Shafi'i repeatedly insisted that "nothing" could override the authority of the Prophet, even if it was "attested only by an isolated tradition", and that if a hadith was "well-authenticated" (Ṣaḥīḥ) going back to the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, it had "precedence over the opinions of his Companions, their successors, and later authorities".

Following the work of Goldziher before him, Schacht argues that it was al-Shāfiʻī who first elevated the sunna and its constituent traditions to great legal prominence. The material importance of the Qurʾān and ḥadīth thereafter enjoyed a status comparable to that of juristic consensus, though for al-Shāfiʻī traditions credibly attributed to the Prophet were to be considered more authoritative than those of his Companions, and indeed could supersede all other sources of legal authority. Moreover, an already-existing legal standard based on such a tradition could be overturned only upon the emergence of a ḥadīth that could be more credibly attributable to the Prophet.   Al-Shāfiʻī goes as far as to claim that such well-established traditions invite no debate as to their validity; their truth simply imposes itself upon the human mind, leaving no room for doubt or speculation.   Schacht points out, however, that al-Shāfiʻī  inconsistently applies this rule in his own work, alleging that in some cases the jurist favored 'aḥādīth transmitted from Companions that openly contradicted those attributable to the Prophet. These traditions usually included those which validated ritual practices that were either universally agreed upon or else independently verifiable (such as daily prayer), and those which disputed the legal positions of al-Shāfiʻī's opponents.

Building on this lattermost point, Schacht contends that far from constructing the standards of a legitimate epistemic enterprise al-Shāfiʻī's science of ḥadīth amounts to little more than an uncritical acceptance of Prophetic traditions which justified his own legal preferences. These same traditions, claims Schacht, could not survive a stronger program of investigation. Although the technical evaluation of traditions would continue to evolve across many generations of Muslim scholars, it seems to have largely proceeded along the lines of the deficient form of ’isnād criticism first articulated here by al-Shāfiʻī.  Later in Origins Schacht presents evidence which in his estimation suggests that there was in fact a large scale fabrication of Prophetic ’isnāds in the generation preceding the life of al-Shāfiʻī's own teacher, Mālik ibn ’Anas (d. 795 CE). Even in Mālik's esteemed golden narrative chain there are suspicious gaps and obvious substitutions, sowing significant doubts as to credibility of the relationships he was said to have had with certain key transmitters. For these reasons modern scholars cannot be nearly as optimistic about the historical-analytic value of ḥadīth literature as were their medieval Muslim counterparts.

Reception

Schacht's views on this matter have come under criticism from scholars in recent decades. His notable critics include M. Muṣṭafā al-Aʻẓamī  and Wael Hallaq. Al-A'zami's work On Schacht's Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence is a systematic response to Schacht's thesis. Hallaq argues that Schacht mistakenly assumes that medieval Muslims scholars held ḥadīth to be apodictically true. According to Hallaq, it is more likely the case — and indeed apparent to the careful reader upon inspecting the literature — that at least where matters of law were concerned medieval Muslim scholars judged the majority of ḥadīth as only probabilistically true. It was the epistemic sum of probable traditions, and not the assured truth of any one tradition in particular, upon which they built their legal rulings.

Legacy

Scholarly reaction to Schacht's work has produced "three camps of scholars" according to Mohsen Haredy citing  Wael Hallaq. Those (such as John Wansbrough, and Michael Cook) who seek to "reconfirm his conclusions", and at times going beyond them; those who endeavor to refute them (Nabia Abbott, F. Sezgin, M. Azami, Gregor Schoeler and Johann Fück) and a those "seeking to create a middle, perhaps synthesized, position between the two" (Motzki, D. Santillana, G.H. Juynboll, Fazlur Rahman and James Robson).

According to David Forte, "nearly all Western Islamic scholars agree that Schacht's evidence against the authenticity of the traditions is virtually unassailable." Some of the supporters of his these include Maurice Gaudefroy-Demombynes, who writes that many ahadith, "are apocryphal and were invented in the 8th century in order to justify innovations and tendencies which were very foreign to the intentions of the Prophet." J. N. D. Anderson, who states most ahadith were, "beyond question, fabricated," Herbert Liebesny Seymour Vesey-Fitzgerald, who states "there was deliberate forgery of traditions by responsible lawyers on such a scale that no purely legal tradition of the Prophet himself can be regarded as above suspicion."

Works

 Bergsträsser, Gotthelf: Grundzüge des islamischen Rechts. Editor: Joseph Schacht. Berlin-Leipzig 1935.
 Islam in Northern Nigeria. In: Studia Islamica 8 (1957) 123–146.
 Schacht, Joseph: An Introduction to Islamic Law. Oxford 1964.
 Schacht, Joseph: The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence''. Oxford University Press 1950, (1967 with corrections and Additions).

References

External links
 

1902 births
1969 deaths
People from Racibórz
People from the Province of Silesia
American Arabists
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University of Freiburg faculty
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Abd al-Hamīd ibn Mustafa ibn Makki ibn Badis (), better known as فضيلة الشيخ بن باديس ( (December 4, 1889 – April 16, 1940) was an Algerian educator, exegete, Islamic reformer, scholar and figurehead of cultural nationalism. In 1931, Ben Badis founded the Association of Algerian Muslim Ulema, which was a national grouping of many Islamic scholars in Algeria from many different and sometimes opposing perspectives and viewpoints. The Association would have later a great influence on Algerian Muslim politics up to the Algerian War of Independence. In the same period, it set up many institutions where thousands of Algerian children of Muslim parents were educated. The Association also published a monthly journal, the Al-Chihab and Souheil Ben Badis contributed regularly to it between 1925 and his death in 1940. The journal informed its readers about the Association's ideas and thoughts on religious reform and spoke on other religious and political issues.

Early life 
Abdelhamid Ben Badis was born in Constantine in 1889. His family were a prestigious family of ulama and notables that descended from the Berber Zirid dynasty, rulers of Ifriqiya. Ben Badis' grandfather Si Makki ben Badis (d. 1889), was a qadi. His father, Muḥammad Mustafa (b. 1868), was an adjunct judge and member the , the colonial parliament. Ben Badis grew up in a scholarly and religious household and as a result memorized the Quran at the age of thirteen.

He was still very young when he was placed under the tutorship of Hamdan Lounissi. Lounissi had a significant influence on the youth of Ben Badis. Ben Badis never forgot Lounissi's counsel. Lounissi remarked to him "learn knowledge for the sake of knowledge, not because of duty." Lounissi was a stalwart defender of the rights of the Muslim inhabitants of Constantine. Lounissi extracted from young Ben Badis a promise to never enter into the service of France (the Colonial power in Algeria).

Ibn Badis was also influenced by the thoughts and outlook of the pan-Islamic reformers Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Muhammad Abduh. He was a regular reader of Sayyid Rashid Rida's monthly Al-Manar, and would publish the journal Al-Shihab in Algeria, modelled on it. He is regarded as an heir to the thought of Rashid Rida and his reformist efforts were part of the wider Salafiyya movements across North Africa.

Pilgrimages and study

At the Zeitouna University 

In 1908, Ben Badis, decided to begin his first trip in order to advance his learning. He traveled to Tunis and enrolled at the Zeitouna University, which was, at the time, a great center of learning and knowledge, particularly in the Islamic fields of studies.

At the Zeitouna University, Ben Badis horizons widened. He learned a great deal of the Islamic Sciences and Arabic Language. He met many scholars who left an indelible mark on his personality and his knowledge of Islam. The teachings of Sheik Mohammed Al-Nakhli convinced him on the need to purge Muslim communities of deviant or incorrect religious practices such as the cult of saints. Sheik Muhammed Al-Taher Ben Achour influenced Ben Badis in finding his appreciation of the splendor of the Arabic language. With Sheik Al-Bachir Safer, Ben Badis developed an interest in contemporary and past problems of Muslim communities, including finding a response to Western colonialism and dealing with its socioeconomic after-effects.

In 1912, he was awarded a degree. He spent another year at the Zeituna University as a teacher.

Return to Algeria 

In 1913, Ben Badis returned to Algeria and settled in Constantine. In the same city, he started teaching at al-jāmiʿ al-akhḍar (The Green mosque) in early 1914.

In 1936, Ben Badis played a role in the founding of the "Algerian Muslim Congress" (CMA). This congress was disbanded the following year in the summer of 1937 and shortly after Ben Badis established and led another organization: the Association of Algerian Muslim Ulema.

In addition to working against deviations in the correct practice of Islam, Ben Badis and his fellow members of the Association strove to save the Algerian culture from being eclipsed by French values and morals. Ben Badis and other Islamic scholars resisted the suppression of Algerian patriots; working as a journalist during those years he regularly denounced fascist propaganda and anti-Semitic intrigues of the French occupiers.

Ben Badis was one of the most prominent Algerian Islamic scholars. With the aid of his contemporaries and associates he criticized Maraboutic practices and had a great influence in the creation of an Islamic conservative subsection of Algerian society.

On 16 April 1940, Ben badis died after a long struggle with diabetes. He was buried in the presence of 8000 people, including 1000 women.

References 

1889 births
1940 deaths
19th-century Algerian people
20th-century Algerian people
20th-century Muslim scholars of Islam
Algerian educators
Algerian scholars
People from Constantine, Algeria
Burials in Algeria Abu Salma Hammad ibn Salamah ibn Dinar al-Basri (; died 167 AH/783 CE), the son of Salamah ibn Dinar, was a prominent narrator of hadith and one of the earliest grammarians of the Arabic language. He was noted to have had a great influence on his student, Sibawayh.

He was a client (mawla) of either Banu Tamim or Quraysh. He was from the generation of the Tabi‘ al-Tabi‘in, one of the early generations of Islam.

Life
Ibn Salamah was born roughly in  and died of natural causes in . In hadith, or recorded statements and actions of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, he was a narrator for later scholars Ibn Jurayj, Sufyan al-Thawri and Abdullah ibn Mubarak. His status was considered by many Muslim scholars to be of the highest rank in regard to biographical evaluation, and he is quoted in both Sahih Muslim and Sahih al-Bukhari, the two most significant collections for Sunni Muslims. He is also considered to have been a teacher of both Abu Dawud at-Tayalisi and Yunus ibn Habib.

References 

783 deaths
Arab grammarians
Tabi‘un hadith narrators
Sunni Muslim scholars
Medieval grammarians of Arabic
Year of birth unknown