A Paradigm Shift in Assessing /Evaluating the Value and Significance of H adīth in Islamic Thought: From ʿulūmu-l-isnād/rijāl to ʾusūlu-l-fiqh

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1 Arab Law Quarterly (00) - Arab Law Quarterly A Paradigm Shift in Assessing /Evaluating the Value and Significance of H adīth in Islamic Thought: From ʿulūmu-l-isnād/rijāl to ʾusūlu-l-fiqh Adis Duderija School of Social and Cultural Studies, University of Western Australia Abstract This article proposes a new method for assessing and evaluating the function and value of H adīth literature in Islamic thought, especially in relation to ʾusūlu-l-fiqh sciences. It argues that the classical Islamic scholarships embodied either by methodologies developed by the Muh adīthūn with the primary focus on isnād- and rijāl-based H adīth analysis or the epistemological evaluation of H adīth in the hands of the ʾUsūliyyūn is inadequate in developing a systematic methodology that would be able to ultimately resolve the current impasse on the questions of Sunnah compliance of otherwise vast (Sunni and Shiʾa) H adīth bodies of knowledge. Instead, it argues that the ultimate assessment, evaluation and definitive value or significance of H adīth literature, especially in the areas of law theory, jurisprudence but also theology, rests upon the broader questions concerning issues pertaining to what the author refers to as Qurʾāno Sunnahic hermeneutics. The article draws upon a published article on the new methodology of the nature and the scope of the concept of Sunnah developed by the same author elsewhere in which a direct hermeneutic relationship between H adīth and the symbiotic nature of the Qurʾāno Sunnahic hermeneutic relationship is established in order to argue that the questions of H adīth authenticity and reliability take a secondary role in their overall assessment and evaluation, especially in ʾusūlu-l-fiqh theory. Instead (hermeneutic or exegetical) H adīth value, significance and role is primarily determined in relation to its position with regards to the delineating features and the epistemological and methodological assumptions of a particular Qurʾāno Sunnahic hermeneutic model. Keywords H adīth, ʾusūlu-l-fiqh theory 0 0. The Classical Concept of the Definition of the Concept of Sunnah Prior to entering the discussion of the assessment and evaluation of H adīth in Islamic thought, a brief description of the classical definition of the Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 00 DOI: 0./00X 0 ALQ, f_-.indd //00 ::0 AM

2 A. Duderija / Arab Law Quarterly (00) nature and the scope of the concept of Sunnah is necessary. This is so because, in both classical and contemporary Islamic scholarship, the H adīth body of knowledge is largely considered to be its only modus of transmission or perpetuation. Additionally, as it will be argued below, the conceptual conflation of the nature and the scope of the concept of Sunnah with that of authentic H adīth as defined by ʿulūmu-l-h adīth sciences has important implications in how its function, value and significance in the overall Islamic thought came to be determined. According to the classical Islamic scholarship as defined by the Muh adīthūn the concept of Sunnah in terms of its authenticity is defined as comprising of numerous narratives or H adīth documenting Prophet Muhammad s deeds (fi ʾl ), utterances (qawl ), and spoken approval (taqrīr) as embodied in various H adīth compendia considered as authentic according to the standards and criteria applied by the classical sciences of H adīth criticism (ʿulūmu-l-h adīth). The implications of this definition of the concept of Sunnah, which we here term H adīth-dependent Sunnah, are several. Firstly, it assumes that the epistemological scope of Sunnah is epistemologically dependent upon and constrained by H adīth, i.e. that its epistemological value is the same as that of each authentic H adīth and that H adīth is the sole depository and the sole vehicle of Sunnahic perpetuation. Secondly, it assumes that Sunnah is methodologically dependent upon H adīth. By methodologically dependent on H adīth it is meant that the Sunnah compliance (or otherwise) of certain (legal or theological) practices or principles, is and can only be determined by sifting through numerous narratives reportedly going back to Prophet Muhammad via an authentic chain of narrators (isnād ). Thirdly, as a corollary to the second premise, coalescing and substituting 0 0 The precise meaning of this phrase is given in the main text below. Experts on the transmission of H adīth, their compilation, classification and authenticity/ criticism. A sound H adīth and therefore Sunnah, in its post-shafiʾi form (see our discussion in the main text below) consisted of a matn (text) and chain of transmitters (isnād), usually but not always going back to the Prophet. Some definitions also include the Prophet s sifat, that is, his features or physical appearance. M.M. Al-Aʾzami, Studies in H adīth Methodology and Literature, Islamic Book Trust, Kuala Lumpur, 00, p.. H.A.R. Gibb and J.H. Kramers, The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam, Brill, Leiden, 00, pp. -. For an overview of ʿulūmu-l-h adīth sciences, see, e.g., H.M. Kamali, H adīth Methodology-Authenticity, Compilation, Classification and Criticism of H adīth, Ilmiah Publ., KL, Malaysia, 00. ALQ, f_-.indd //00 :: AM

3 A. Duderija / Arab Law Quarterly (00) - the nature and the scope of the concept of Sunnah with that of H adīth breaks the symbiotic and organic relationship between the concept of Qurʾān and Sunnah as it existed during the first four generations of Muslim making the Qurʾān increasingly more hermeneutically dependent upon the H adīth compendia. Fourthly, as result of the above, Sunnah s organic and symbiotic relationship with the Qurʾān, termed by Graham the Prophetic-Revelatory event, was severed and Qurʾān s hermeneutic dependence upon H adīth body of knowledge entrenched. Fifthly, Sunnah s nature, function and purpose, rather than being conceptualised primarily in ethico-religious terms became increasingly legalistic. 0. H adīth Assessment and Evaluation in Classical Islamic Thought The assessment and evaluation of a particular H adīth in relation to the normative fountainheads of the Islamic Worldview, namely Qurʾān and Sunnah, according to both classical and contemporary Islamic scholarship, has been approached via three avenues. One method was developed by the specialists in H adīth s authenticity/criticism, transmission, compilation and classification, namely the Muh adīthūn, have predominantly focused on assessing H adīth authenticity and reliability by probing their isnād (chain of transmission) which, in essence, largely amounts to concerning themselves with the reliability of the rijāl (lit. men) that are responsible for its transition. To a lesser extent they also examined H adīth s body of text or matn. Based on this approach H adīth s overall authenticity/reliability was evaluated and their subsequent classification ranging from authentic to unreliable was developed. The main problem with this approach is not only the paucity of material from the first century of Islamic thought that fuels the ongoing debates among Muslim and non-muslim scholars alike on the historical authenticity of the isnād as a means of establishing H adīth authenticity 0 but also the subjective nature of the criteria used in H adīth 0 As shall be argued below. See A. Duderija, The evolution in the canonical Sunni H adīth body of literature and the concept of an authentic H adīth during the formative period of Islamic thought as based on recent Western scholarship, unpublished article. This included things such as when and where they lived, their piety/overall character, memory etc. For an excellent overview of this see Kamali, H adīth Methodology, op.cit. Ibid. 0 H. Berg, The Development of Exegesis in Early Islam, Curzon, 000, or ibid. (ed.), Method and Theory in the Study of Islamic Origins, Brill, Leiden, ALQ, f_-.indd //00 :: AM

4 A. Duderija / Arab Law Quarterly (00) evaluation and lack of standardisation of terminology in classical ʿulūmul-h adīth sciences. Another approach to evaluating H adīth was from a purely epistemological vantage point. This practice was adopted by Islamic legal scholars (ʾUsūliyyūn) as part of their overall approach to Islamic Law as, to borrow Zysow terminology, the economy of certainty. This method focused first and foremost on developing criteria relating to the quantitative transmission of knowledge based on probability. Questions such as at what point in time and at what evidentiary level would human faculty of reason accept transmitted knowledge as either inducing certainty ( yaqin), thus yielding immediate knowledge (daruri) or amounting to less then that (zann/probable and acquired knowledge) were decisive. Classification of H adīth according to this technique ranged from isolated (ahad ) H adīth that yielded zann knowledge only to that of mutawatir or successive H adīth that, according to the majority of ʾUsūliyyūn, reached daruri knowledge. The problem with this method in relation to Sunnah is that only very few H adīth, not amounting to more then a dozen or according to some none can be considered to have fulfilled the criteria of mutawatir level of transmission. Another approach to evaluation of H adīth developed by the ʾUsūliyyūn relates more closely to Islamic legal methodology or ʾusūlu-l-fiqh. Professor M.H. Kamali defines ʾusūlu-l-fiqh as a science concerned with the sources of [Islamic] law, their order of priority, and methods by which legal rules 0 0 E.g., evaluating the nature of the character of a person or his memory differed from one scholar to another, affecting the level of authenticity of the H adīth in question. See S. Guenther, Assessing the Sources of Classical Arabic Compilations: The Issues of Categories and Methodologies, Br. J. Middle Eastern Studies, / (00) -. This also holds true for the epistemological evaluation of H adīth discussed next. See footnote. A. Zysow, The Economy of Certainty: An Introduction to the Typology of Islamic Legal Theory, Harvard University (Ph.D. Dissertation),. See ibid. As in the case of divergences inherent in the muh addīth-based methodology there is range of differences between various schools of thoughts pertaining to their epistemological value that are in turn based on differences stemming from the very criteria that these methodologies are based on Guenther points. W. Hallaq The Authenticity of Prophetic H adīth: a Pseudo Problem, Studia Islamica,, pp. -0. S. Guenther, Assessing the Sources of Classical Arabic Compilations, op.cit. Here again problems with the standardization of terminology resurface as the definition of a mutawatir H adīth reached a consensus some time in the ninth century Hijri. See ibid. ALQ, f_-.indd //00 :: AM

5 A. Duderija / Arab Law Quarterly (00) - may be deduced from the source materials of Sharʾīah. Ahmed offers a more elaborate definition of ʾusūlu-l-fiqh as consisting of three components: () a theory of practical legal determinations (ah kām) which are considered the fruits of legal thinking; () the sources of the law, both textual and extra-textual; () principles of legal reasoning that link the sources of the law to practical legal determinations. For the purposes of this article, it is important to point out that the textual and extra-textual sources, methods and their priorities and the principles of legal reasoning that link the sources of the law to practical legal determinations have undergone significant changes in particular during the pre-classical period before they became more or less fixed in the later classical scholarship. The first modifications relate to the conceptual and hermeneutic relationship between Qurʾān Sunnah, Sunnah H adīth, (and therefore Qurʾān H adīth) and that of the role of reason vis-à-vis Qurʾān, Sunnah, H adīth and the concept of the consensus of the jurist community (ijmāʿ ). As I have shown elsewhere a symbiotic hermeneutical relationship between Qurʾān and Sunnah was severed once the nature and the concept of Sunnah was epistemologically and methodologically conflated with that of H adīth thus hermeneutically constraining the Qurʾān and its exegesis with that of the H adīth body of literature. 0 Subsequently, once a fixed, textually based and hierarchical ʾusūlu-l-fiqh model was put in place with hermeneutically H adīth-dependent Qurʾān and Sunnah occupying the first two sources followed by the principles of ijmāʿ (the consensus of scholars), the non-textual sources such as pure reason or the objectively based nature of ethical value that had considerable presence in the very conceptualization of the concepts of Qurʾān and Sunnah during the earlier stages of the formative period of Islamic thought were hermeneutically marginalized or considered illegitimate. 0 0 M.H. Kamali, Methodological Issues in Islamic Jurisprudence, ALQ, / () pp. -, p.. A. Ahmad, The Structural Interrelations of Theory and Practice in Islamic Law: A Study of Takhrij al-furu ʿala al-ʾusūl Literature, Ph.D. Thesis, Harvard University, 00, p.. 0 See A. Duderija, The evolution in the canonical Sunni H adīth body of literature. As in the case of pure reason functioning in its derivative analogical form of qiyās which, in terms sources priority/hierarchy occupied the fourth position being placed after the principle of ijmāʿ. As in the shift from ethical objectivism in Mutazilah thought to that of ethical subjectivism embodied by classical Ashʾari Sunni thought. 0 ALQ, f_-.indd //00 :: AM

6 A. Duderija / Arab Law Quarterly (00) As I argued elsewhere writing about this epistemologico-methodological shift, Rahman comments that while in earlier times of the Companions the use of ijtihād slowly crystallised in consensus, giving rise to as-sunnah al-maʾrifa (well-known Sunnah), only to be again abolished and re-formulated in the light of new circumstances, the epistemological value of ijtihād was reversed in the post-shafiʾi period so that ijtihād was significantly constrained by the ijmāʿ principle. All this contributed to the conviction becom[ing] absolute that law is justified only if it can be related hermeneutically to Prophetic example, and not if it is presented discursively as emanating from an ongoing juristic tradition. It also inaugurated a paradigm shift in Islamic thought, and that of ʾusūlu-l-fiqh sciences in particular, that Calder describes as a transition from a discursive tradition to a hermeneutic tradition (purporting to derive the law exegetically from the Prophetic sources). Moreover, during the transmission from the pre-classical to classical Islamic thought changes in the manner the notion of the nature and the scope of the Qurʾān and Sunnah were conceptualized took place. By this we mean that the concepts were understood more in ethico-moral and religious rather then legal positivist terms. For example certain actions that had no direct precedent in the reified, textually based Qurʾān and Sunnah were considered permissible on the basis of the concept of justice or fairness, contextualizing and considering the broader implications such as the concept of the benefit of the community or alleviating of hardship, i.e. on quasi- natural law considerations. Additionally, the concept of Sunnah was not solely linked to the persona of the Prophet but included the judgments and actions of the first caliphs such as Abu Bakr and ʿUmar or even that of the Muslim community (ʿamal-based Sunnah in Medina or Sunnah al-maʾrufa in Iraq). These hermeneutic and conceptual changes had very important implications pertaining to how certain Qurʾānic and 0 Rahman, Living Sunna, pp. -. cf. A. Duderija, The Evolution. Calder, The Origins, p.. Ibid., p.. He also suggests, in the same sentence, that this process was a lengthy and complex one. A.M. Emon, Towards a Natural Law Theory in Islamic Law: Muslim Juristic Debates on Reason as a Source of Obligation, JINEL, Vol. /, 00, pp. -. cf. A. Duderija, The Evolution, op.cit. W. Hallaq, The Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 00. cf. A. Duderija, The Evolution, op. cit. A. Duderija, The importance of recognising textual assumptions in the Qurʾānic text in the development of a Qur ānic hermeneutic and Islamic legal theory, unpublished article. ALQ, f_-.indd //00 :: AM

7 A. Duderija / Arab Law Quarterly (00) - Sunnahic teachings were conceptualized, interpreted or derived. For example, since pre-classical concept of Sunnah, apart from its ʿamal component, was primarily conceived in form of abstract ethico-moral and/or theological terms, was reason inclusive and was conceptualised in terms of the broader Qurʾānic objectives and purposes (maqasid ), it permitted a wider interpretational playing field/framework than that based on classical definition of H adīth -dependent Sunnah outlined above. 0 With the hermeneutic and conceptual delinking of Qurʾān and Sunnah, the development of the methodologically, epistemologically and hermeneutically dependent concept of the scope and the nature of Sunnah and the above-described hierarchy of sources of classical ʾusūlu-l-fiqh theory, the H adīth body of literature came to hermeneutically occupy centre stage. With time the H adīth-independent Sunnah formulations of the early schools of thought had to increasingly accommodate and accept this new H adīth-centred ʾusūlu-l-fiqh theory. 0. New Methodology of Sunnah and the Assessment/Evaluation of H adīth Hermeneutic Value and Significance As argued above, during the pre-classical period of Islamic thought the Qurʾān and Sunnah discourse was considered to be organically intertwined or symbiotically interdependent as these two sources were conceptualized as a single, coherent hermeneutic unity. Furthermore, they were not textually fixed and were often understood as more abstract ethico-religious concepts whose purpose was to facilitate the benefit of the community and alleviation of hardship based on principles of ethically objective values such as maʿruf (that which is commonly good) and ʿadl (justice). Based on these considerations, I have elsewhere proposed a new methodology of Sunnah that is in agreement with this overall approach to conceptualising and interpreting Qurʾān and Sunnah. 0 A. Duderija, Toward a New Methodology, op. cit. 0 See ibid. With some exceptions such as Al-Ghalazi s, Shatibi s and Tusi s theories which advocated a maqasid or objective or purpose-based ʾusūlu-l-fiqh theory. These development, however, happened centuries after the main foundations of the classical ʾusūlu -l-fiqh theory was formulated and as such affected it only marginally. See A. Duderija, The Evolution, op.cit. 0 ALQ, f_-.indd //00 :: AM

8 A. Duderija / Arab Law Quarterly (00) According to this new approach, I first argued that, based on the uniformly acknowledged need of the Qurʾān to be interpreted, i.e. its Deutungsbeduerftigkeit, and the subsequent premise that Prophet s embodiment of the Qurʾānic message as one of its most authoritative (if not the most authoritative) interpreters, this interpretational vacuum was filled by taking recourse to the concept of Sunnah that appears in the Qurʾān in the oft repeated form of Obey Allah and His Messenger. Sunnah was a wellknown pre-qurʾānic concept existing among Arabs of the region, connoting an authoritative source of knowledge/practice or a normative example to be followed. The usage of the term Sunnah of the Prophet (Sunnah an-nabi) existed early on most likely at the time of the Prophet himself. Furthermore, I contended that the Qurʾān and Sunnah existed in a conceptually unified and symbiotic hermeneutical relationship. Thus their scope and nature were considered to be the same. Put differently, they were considered as two sides of the same coin. By scope I mean that they accommodated extra-textual sources of knowledge to the same extent and by the term nature I mean that they concern themselves with a number of dimensions of human existence including belief, ethics, law and ritual. As such I also argued that Sunnah consisted of four elements reflecting the nature and the elements of the Qurʾānic discourse, namely: Sunnah aqidiyyah (belief-based Sunnah), Sunnah akhlaqiyyah (ethics-based Sunnah), Sunnah fiqhiyyah (law-based Sunnah) and Sunnah ʿibadiyya/ ʿamaliyyah (ritual and/or practiced-based Sunnah). According to this approach, all of the components of Sunnah, apart from its ʿibadiyya/ ʿamaliyya dimension which is in essence in actu and requires no interpretation and which is not dependent on written transmission of knowledge but is practically perpetuated, are hermeneutically 0 Like many other key words in Islamic thought (ijtihād, raʾy, bidaʾah or h adīth), the word Sunnah underwent a number of semantic changes. See Ansari, Z.I., Islamic Juristic Terminology before Shafiʾi : A Semantical Analysis with Special Reference to Kufa, Arabica, xix,. Ibid., pp. -. The difference between Sunnah ʿibadiyyah and Sunnah ʿamaliyyah is that the former deals with practices relating to Islamic rituals such as salat, hajj, adhan, or circumcision whilst that of Sunnah ʿamaliyya is broader and includes the early Muslim community s embodiment of these practices as well as civil/communal transactions considered to be in accordance with the spirit and the essence of the Prophet s Sunnah. For more on this dimension of ʿamal, see Dutton, Yasin. The Origins of Islamic Law The Qurʾān, the Muwatta and Madinian ʿAmal, Routledge, Curzon, 00. ALQ, f_-.indd //00 :: AM

9 A. Duderija / Arab Law Quarterly (00) - directly linked to that of the Qurʾān. This, in turn, implies that the Sunnah compliance or otherwise of certain principles, beliefs or actions is entirely dependent on the way Qurʾān is interpreted. Therefore, the most crucial and decisive factor in establishing Sunnah is linked to methodologies pertaining Qurʾānic interpretation, i.e. the questions pertaining to Qurʾānic hermeneutics even if the Qurʾānic literal text itself is silent on the issue under consideration and not an automatic default deferral to H adīth body of literature as either authenticated by the Muh adīthūn or ʾUsūliyyūn. As such this method restores Sunnah s conceptual and hermeneutical link with the Qurʾān that was evident in the pre-classical Islamic scholarship. Importantly, this approach to Sunnah/H adīth dynamic and their role in the overall ʾusūlu-l-fiqh theory is also not constrained with the hierarchical classical ʾusūlu-l-fiqh theory described above as it dislocates and displaces the central role of H adīth body of literature which, alongside the principle of ijmāʿ, largely determines the hermeneutic playing field within which Qurʾān and Sunnah could be interpreted. New interpretational possibilities of Qurʾān and Sunnah could be developed by putting in place new Qurʾānic hermeneutic models that, for example, give more scope to non-textual sources such as reason or which are based on objective-based nature of ethical value or which permit a more contextual-based approaches to Qurʾāno Sunnahic interpretation or which are based on the notion of giving hermeneutic primacy to ethicomoral or objective-based (maqasid ) approaches to ʾusūlu-l-fiqh theory. 0 0 Indeed such models have already been developed by a number of Muslim scholars. See, e.g., Kh. Abou Eld-Fadl, Speaking in God s Name: Islamic Law, Authority and Women, Oxford, 00; A. Wadud, Qurʾān and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman s Perspective, nd edn., Oxford, ; A. Saeed, Interpreting the Qurʾān Towards a Contemporary Approach, Routledge, 00; H.N. Abu Zayd, Re-thinking the Qurʾān Towards a Humanistic Hermeneutic, Humanities University Press, 00; F. Rahman, Islam and Modernity: The Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition, Chicago, ; H. Hanafi, Islam in the Modern World, Vol. II, Cairo, 000; A. Barlas, Believing Women in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qurʾān, Austin, 00. However, they did not pay sufficient attention to the question of working out a more systematic relationship between Qurʾān Sunnah Hadīth bodies of knowledge and in particular in hermeneutically and conceptually delinking Sunnah from H adīth bodies of knowledge thus largely still operate within the classical ʾusūlu-l-fiqh theory. 0 ALQ, f_-.indd //00 :: AM

10 0 A. Duderija / Arab Law Quarterly (00) New Criteria in Establishing the Function and Value of H adīth in Islamic Thought Where do the above insights lead us in relation to the function and the significance of Hadīth in Islamic thought and in ʾusūlu-l-fiqh in particular? In the second section it was argued that isnad- and rijāl-based approach to evaluation of H adīth authenticity and reliability as espoused by Muh adīthūn as well as the epistemological evaluation of H adīth by the ʾUsūliyyūn do not systematically and sufficiently well solve the conundrums associated with the Deutuhngsbedueftigkeit of the Qurʾān and the nature of the Sunnah H adīth (and for that matter Sunnah Qurʾān and Qurʾān H adīth) hermeneutic relationship due to the inherent methodological weaknesses in the underlying premises governing these approaches. Indeed, throughout the entire history of the Islamic thought there have been cases of propounding contradictory or even mutually exclusive views based on unsystematic use of H adīth (and Qurʾānic verses/ayāt) all claiming to be in accordance with the Qurʾān and Sunnah or the accusation of the Muslim Other of not following the true Qurʾān and Sunnah teachings, especially among the more literally oriented communities of interpretation as, for example, espoused by ʾAhl-h adīth or to lesser extern Hanbali school of thought. Based on the newly proposed methodology outlined in the third section, it becomes clear that the function and the significance of H adīth body of literature in Islamic thought, and in ʾusūlu-l-fiqh disciplines in particular, needs to be established on new criteria that: a. acknowledge the hermeneutically symbiotic and inter-dependent relationship between Qurʾān and Sunnah that existed during the early formative period of Islamic thought; b. take into account the conceptually and hermeneutically independent relationship between Sunnah and H adīth and by implication that of Qurʾān and Sunnah that was evident during the early formative period of Islamic thought; c. recognize that the classical formulation of ʾusūlu-l-fiqh theory did not make the above distinction engendering a largely H adīth-centered Qurʾāno Sunnahic ʾusūlu-l-fiqh theory; See Y. Wahyudi, The Slogan Back to the Qur ān and Sunnah A Comperative Study of the Responses of Hasan Hanafi, Muhammad Abid Al-Jabiri and Nurcholish Madjid. Ph.D. Thesis, McGill University, Canada, 00. ALQ, f_-.indd 0 //00 :: AM

11 A. Duderija / Arab Law Quarterly (00) - d. acknowledge that in the final analysis, contemporary debates on the assessment and evaluation of the function and the significance of H adīth body of knowledge in Islamic thought are not to remain solely within the theoretico-epistemological framework of the classical ʿulūmu-l-h adīth sciences under the purview of the classically trained Muh adīthūn (or the western Muslim and non-muslim scholars operating within the same) but that these scholarly discourses need to be closely linked to the questions relating to the development of Qurʾānic (or more precisely Qurʾāno Sunnahic) hermeneutic models, i.e. ʾusūlu-l-fiqh sciences. In this context the most fruitful assessment and evaluation of the value and the significance of each H adīth will not solely be conceptualized a priori in terms of its authenticity/reliability or its epistemological value but how its message/text fits into an overall broader hierarchically structured Qurʾāno Sunnahic hermeneutic model. So the crucial question or questions, in this context, is/are not just whether or not a particular H adīth has an impeccable isnad or if is it a mutawatir H adīth, but what are the delineating features and underlying methodological and epistemological assumptions governing the interpretational processes of a certain scholar pertaining to conceptualization and interpretation of the nature and the scope of the Qurʾānic and Sunnahic bodies of knowledge who uses this particular H adīth in order to argue a particular point of view and where does, according to his/her hermeneutic, H adīth fit into it Conclusion This article argued for a paradigm shift in which the question of the value and significance (rather then just authenticity and reliability) of the H adīth body of knowledge in Islamic thought and in particular in Islamic legal theory. It was further contended that classical methods of assessing and evaluating the role of H adīth in Islamic thought and practice are unable to offer a systematic methodology that would define and delineate a clear role and function of H adīth body of knowledge in relation to Islamic sciences, and particularly those pertaining to Islamic law and Islamic legal theory (but also theology/philosophy/mysticism). Based on a new methodology of conceptualizing the nature and the scope of the Qurʾān and Sunnah discourse and their hermeneutical inter-relationship vis-à-vis each other as 0 ALQ, f_-.indd //00 :: AM

12 A. Duderija / Arab Law Quarterly (00) - well as that of H adīth, the author maintained that the questions pertaining to H adīth s authenticity and reliability become of secondary importance in relation to their function and significance and that the questions relating to their hermeneutic position in the broader Qurʾāno Sunnahic hermeneutic structure (that is inclusive of H adīth) and its underlying epistemological and methodological assumptions are much more important and revealing. Thus, this new methodology of assessing and evaluating the hermeneutical value and significance of H adīth call for and highlights a need for a syntheses of ʿulūmu-l-h adīth and ʾusūlu-l-fiqh fields of knowledge. ALQ, f_-.indd //00 :: AM