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Aside from Hisham b. 'Urwa (d. 146 AH), who was Aisha's great nephew and whose simple narration is the most widely transmitted, Muhammad b. 'Amr (d. 144 AH) is the other reconstructable Medinan common link, though like Hisham, he moved to Iraq and merely seems to append one of Hisham's versions of the hadith to another narration. The other early common links are three Kufans (in Iraq) who died 146-160 AH. Though it is possible that one or more other narrations go back to Aisha herself, this cannot be demonstrated on an ICMA basis.<ref>pp. 397-99 of Dr Little's thesis</ref> | Aside from Hisham b. 'Urwa (d. 146 AH), who was Aisha's great nephew and whose simple narration is the most widely transmitted, Muhammad b. 'Amr (d. 144 AH) is the other reconstructable Medinan common link, though like Hisham, he moved to Iraq and merely seems to append one of Hisham's versions of the hadith to another narration. The other early common links are three Kufans (in Iraq) who died 146-160 AH. Though it is possible that one or more other narrations go back to Aisha herself, this cannot be demonstrated on an ICMA basis.<ref>pp. 397-99 of Dr Little's thesis</ref> | ||
Little then analyzes in greater depth his reconstructed matns for these common links. Based on shared words, phrases and sequencing, he concludes that they all derive from a single, simple formulation, and are not independently transmitted memories of a common event. This original formulation seems to be the widely transmitted one of Hisham, who also transmitted a few versions with additional details. Hisham attributed all of these to his father 'Urwa b. al-Zubayr. | Little then analyzes in greater depth his reconstructed matns for these common links. Based on shared words, phrases and sequencing, he concludes that they all derive from a single, simple formulation, and are not independently transmitted memories of a common event. This original formulation seems to be the widely transmitted one of Hisham, who also transmitted a few versions with additional details. Hisham attributed all of these to his father 'Urwa b. al-Zubayr who was also Aisha's nephew. Hisham did so falsely, argues Little; however, in his thesis he does not notice that the distinctive content of 'Urwa's letter about Aisha's marriage reported by Hisham is also narrated by a Syrian partial common link who ascribed it via his own uncle to 'Urwa's student, al-Zuhri, who moved from Medina to Syria. The letter and al-Zuhri's narration alone share a very distinctive sequencing of seven elements, as well as some otherwise unique exact phrases and content.<ref>'Urwa wrote a number of letters on early Islamic history to the late Umayyad court. These letters were transmitted by his son Hisham and the traditions therein were often also transmitted by 'Urwa's Medinan student al-Zuhri. 'Urwa's letters are translated in full in Sean Anthony, ''Muhammad and the Empires of Faith: The making of the Prophet of Islam'', Oakland CA: University of California, 2020, Chapter 4. In 2012, the creators of the ICMA method, Andreas Görke, Harald Motzki and Gregor Schoeler, strongly argued that the traditions in the letters attributed to 'Urwa probably do in some way originate with him, especially when they are supported by parallel traditions going back to 'Urwa (Goerke, A, Motzki, H & Schoeler, G (2012) [https://www.pure.ed.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/12692843/First_Century_Sources_for_the_Life_of_Muhammad_a_debate.pdf First-Century Sources for the Life of Muhammad?] A Debate, Der Islam, vol. 89, no. 2, pp. 2-59. https://doi.org/10.1515/islam-2012-0002).<BR /> | ||
One of 'Urwa's letters is a short one about Aisha's marriage. It was reported in a couple of chains through Hisham and is quoted in the Relevant Quotations section above. Little contests a couple of arguments for the general authenticity of 'Urwa's letters but without wider engagement with Goerke et al. He also questions how we can in any case identify which words or elements thereof Hisham accurately transmitted (p. 314).<BR /> | One of 'Urwa's letters is a short one about Aisha's marriage. It was reported in a couple of chains through Hisham and is quoted in the Relevant Quotations section above. Little contests a couple of arguments for the general authenticity of 'Urwa's letters but without wider engagement with Goerke et al. He also questions how we can in any case identify which words or elements thereof Hisham accurately transmitted (p. 314).<BR /> | ||
However, Dr Little did not notice that another hadith he discusses which is ascribed to 'Urwa's Medinan student al-Zuhri contains the same core tradition as this letter, especially the otherwise unique sequence of elements, albeit not in the form of a letter. It is easy to imagine al-Zuhri learning it from 'Urwa directly or from the letter (though the isnad does not go that far back). Indeed, for much of this distinctive sequence they even share the same words and exact phrases, much of which would otherwise be unique to the letter. The content of the dream element is also highly distinctive to them, being very different in other narrations. The close relationship is obvious, as someone illustrated in [[Media:UrwaLetter-alZuhriComparison.png|this image]] which uses Dr Little's own isnad diagrams. See Dr Little's blog for the full diagrams, from which the distinctiveness is readily apparent. Little's transliteration of 'Urwa's reconstructed letter on pp. 310-11 of his thesis can also be compared with his reconstructed transmission from al-Zuhri of the same elemental sequence (through al-Hajjaj b. Abi Mani; pp. 204-5; see also 370-72 and 482).<BR /> | However, Dr Little did not notice that another hadith he discusses which is ascribed to 'Urwa's Medinan student al-Zuhri contains the same core tradition as this letter, especially the otherwise unique sequence of elements, albeit not in the form of a letter. It is easy to imagine al-Zuhri learning it from 'Urwa directly or from the letter (though the isnad does not go that far back). Indeed, for much of this distinctive sequence they even share the same words and exact phrases, much of which would otherwise be unique to the letter. The content of the dream element is also highly distinctive to them, being very different in other narrations. The close relationship is obvious, as someone illustrated in [[Media:UrwaLetter-alZuhriComparison.png|this image]] which uses Dr Little's own isnad diagrams. See Dr Little's blog for the full diagrams, from which the distinctiveness is readily apparent. Little's transliteration of 'Urwa's reconstructed letter on pp. 310-11 of his thesis can also be compared with his reconstructed transmission from al-Zuhri of the same elemental sequence (through al-Hajjaj b. Abi Mani; pp. 204-5; see also 370-72 and 482).<BR /> | ||
Al-Hajjaj, who lived in Aleppo, Syria, serves as a partial common link for the transmission and ascribed it via his uncle to al-Zuhri, who does not himself count as a common link but did move from Medina to Damascus and later Resafa, Syria, where he tutored the Caliph's sons.<BR />Given the very short chain, compatible geography of the transmitters, and closely matched and often uniquely shared wording and elemental sequence, this evidence cannot be lightly dismissed. The closest examples of similar content to the letter are cobbled together, clearly late, long single chained false ascriptions to Qatada and Ibn Abbas with far less similarity of elemental sequence and wording (these can be seen in the "Other Traditions" isnad diagram on his blog or see pp. 375 and 393 of his thesis).</ref>. | Al-Hajjaj, who lived in Aleppo, Syria, serves as a partial common link for the transmission and ascribed it via his uncle to al-Zuhri, who does not himself count as a common link but did move from Medina to Damascus and later Resafa, Syria, where he tutored the Caliph's sons.<BR />Given the very short chain, compatible geography of the transmitters, and closely matched and often uniquely shared wording and elemental sequence, this evidence cannot be lightly dismissed. The closest examples of similar content to the letter are cobbled together, clearly late, long single chained false ascriptions to Qatada and Ibn Abbas with far less similarity of elemental sequence and wording (these can be seen in the "Other Traditions" isnad diagram on his blog or see pp. 375 and 393 of his thesis).</ref> This apparent corroboration is potentially significant, since al-Zuhri's knowledge would most likely have come from his teacher, 'Urwa, in which case Little's thesis would essentially be wrong. | ||
There is some evidence that Hisham did not originally extend the isnad of most of his versions back to Aisha herself, but rather only to his father 'Urwa, Aisha's nephew, and that they were narrated in the 3rd person, not in her own voice.<ref>Ibid. p. 305 including footnote 996</ref> It is even clearer that such isnad "raising" occured for transmissions by others back to Aisha by other routes. | There is some evidence that Hisham did not originally extend the isnad of most of his versions back to Aisha herself, but rather only to his father 'Urwa, Aisha's nephew, and that they were narrated in the 3rd person, not in her own voice.<ref>Ibid. p. 305 including footnote 996</ref> It is even clearer that such isnad "raising" occured for transmissions by others back to Aisha by other routes. | ||