Did ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib Pay his Muslim Troops with Alcohol? & how later muḥaddiths suppressed this notion.

A thread 🧵[1/15] 1st some background:
ṭilāʾ = cooked grape juice (a drink debated by early Muslim jurists; some forms of it were intoxicating)

dann (pl. dinān) = a type of jar/amphora, its insides covered with tar (muzaffat), it was controversial (drinks in it were often intoxicating) [2/15]

[1/7] Hadith: A Muslim k!lled his slave-concubine -his kids' mom- because she'd curse the Prophet. The Prophet okayed this

On its own, this hadith, transmitted by Isra'il (Kufa) from al-Shahham (Basra), may seem ruthless, but it actually represents a relatively tolerant view... [2/7] When we compare Isra'il’s variant of al-Shahham’s hadith with other variants of this hadith, Isra'il's variant stands out in offering more details that serve as mitigating circumstances...

A HADITH implies that ‘A’isha🧕 sent a mawla named ‘Asim Ibn Sa‘d to Fatima daughter of ‘Umar to breastfeed him so that he’ll be able to visit ‘A’isha without a veil💁‍♀️.

But ‘A’isha & Fatima are unrelated so how would this make ‘Asim ‘A’isha’s “relative”? [1/6] @KaraSeyfeddin suggests a creative solution: ‘A’isha’s sister Umm Kulthum was married to ‘Umar so Umm Kulthum was Fatima’s stepmother & ‘A’isha was Fatima’s step-aunt. This would allegedly make ‘A’isha “umarriageable” for ‘Asim.

But there’s a better solution [2/6]

🧵The story about Abraham & his guests who announce the birth of his son Isaac👶appears 3 times in the Qur'an: in Q 11, Q 15 , & Q 51.

Q 51 appears to combine elements of Q 11 & Q 15. Does this mean that Q 51 (or a part of it) was composed after the other two?
In my experience, many hadiths were composed by splicing together two different hadiths to form a new one. Parts of the Qur'an were conceivably composed similarly.

https://x.com/hadithworks/status/1711320733161234514

🧵Ibn Mas'ud said:
The longest suras = the Torah;
The suras with 100+ verses (minus the longest) = the Gospels;
The medium length suras = the Psalms
The remaining suras = exclusive bonus material (for Islam)
⬇️
The Qur'an > The Torah + the Gospels + the Psalms [2/3] This tradition may be traced back to the common link, the Kufan ‘Asim b. Abi l-Najud (d. ca. 127/744) who may have heard it from the Kufan al-Musayyab b. Rafi’ (d. 105/723).

@RandomHuma11601 @IslamicOrigins I think you're right to identify al-Zuhri as the common link of this tradition & its likely originator [1/x]

https://x.com/RandomHuma11601/status/1837202166211117533

@RandomHuma11601 Originally al-Zuhri probably didn't attribute this tradition to the Prophet [2/x]
archive.org/details/980000…

How exegesis can influence the contents of Hadith 🧵

In a Sunni hadith, the Prophet warns against a hellbound group of women who are “kāsiyāt ͑āriyāt” (clothed & naked). This seemingly contradictory phrase troubled exegetes: how can one be clothed & naked at the same time? [1/8] An exegete al-Nawawī (d. 676/1277) listed 4 competing views: these women were...
1️⃣clothed in God’s grace, devoid (= naked) of gratitude for it
2️⃣clothed but devoid of good deeds etc.
3️⃣clothed in partly revealing clothing
4️⃣clothed in clothes showing their bodies’ contours [2/8]

Rijal critics often say things like “so-&-so’s memory became bad when he became older.”

Here’s why such claims are not very helpful when assessing the reliability of hadiths. [1/8]🧵 1st, it’s a generic claim. Hadith transmitters tended to be old (as old age offers a shorter path to the Prophet). Old people commonly experience memory loss, so it’s not really saying much that so-&-so had memory issues (would be a surprise if he didn't)[2/8]

“The beginning of wisdom is fear of God” (raʾsu l-ḥikmati makhāfatu Llāh)

This famous Islamic saying ultimately originates in Psalms 111:10 (reshit ḥokma yirʾat YHWH).

Some notes on Its history in Hadith literature… [1/5]🧵

In an early Basran report, Khālid al-Rabaʿī notes that this saying is found in “the Psalms of David” (though he wrongly asserts that it is in the book's "opening") [2/5]

🧵 [1/6] On the RHYMES of sūrat AL-IKHLĀṢ

Considerations about the rhyme (-ad) play a crucial part in the formation of each of this short sūra’s 4 āyas… [2/6] The 1st āya describes God as "one," strangely using the word “aḥad.” But usually the Qur’an refers to God as "one" using “wāḥid.” Wāḥid’s rhyme is -id, but aḥad’s rhyme is -ad.

[1/6] 🧵Two people are crossing a desert. They have one water bottle that can sustain only one of them. What do they do? Rabbi Akiva says: one of them should drink, while the other dies of dehydration.

There's an Arabic parallel for this hypothetical scenario... [2/6] The famed freethinker Abu Bakr al-Razi (d. 925AD) writes: Two people are crossing a desert. They have one water bottle that can sustain only one of them. What do they do? Al-Razi says: the one who most benefits society should drink, while the other dies of dehydration.

1/7 Why did Sarah Laugh? 🤣 Genesis tells us that she laughed after being told she’ll give birth in old age. But in Q 11 (Hud):71 she laughs before she’s told that she’ll give birth. So what triggered her laughter in the Qur’an?

2/7 Tabari lists some solutions by Muslim exegetes, e.g.:
💠Sarah didn’t “laugh” she “ovulated.”
💠She laughed at Lot’s people because they were oblivious to their fate (Tabari’s preferred solution) [Lot’s people are mentioned in the previous verse]

Hadith vs. Mishnah:
🟡"Who is rich? The one who is content with his lot."🟡

Note also the question 🟢"who is wise?"🟢 that is found in both texts though the answer is different...

As is common, a saying that is attributed to a Rabbi, in this case Ben Zoma, in the Jewish source is attributed to a Biblical Prophet in the Muslim source.

Compare a slightly different example of this practice in a recent tweet

https://twitter.com/hadithworks/status/1729464036218036564

[1/10] Editing/Emending a Hadith’s Text🧵
In Ibn Rāhawayh’s Musnad, we read that at al-Aswad b. Yazīd’s wedding, they wanted to serve nabīdh🍷 in vessels named الجراي (sic). He refused to serve his guests from vessels from which he doesn’t drink 🍷. So they got حباب jars instead. [2/10] What are الجراي the vessels from which al-Aswad (Kufan, d. 75/694) refused to drink? The word has no meaning that makes sense here. Unfortunately Ibn Rāhawayh’s Musnad survives in a unique manuscript so the reading cannot be checked against others.

HADITH ORIGIN 🧵[1/9]: Ismāʿīl b. Zakariyyā ⬅️ʿĀṣim ⬅️Muḥammad b. Sīrīn (d. 110/728) who said:
[After the fitna they began asking about isnāds so that they may carefully consider who the ahl al-sunna were & learn their ḥadīth; & who the ahl al-bidaʿ were & avoid their ḥadīth]

[2/9] P. Pavlovitch @muha_akhusiyya convincingly identified Ismāʿīl b. Zakariyyā (Kufa, Baghdad, d. 173/789) as the likely disseminator of this important tradition. He also noted that the mention of ahl-sunna & ahl al-bidaʿ probably do not go back to Ibn Sīrīn (Basra, d. 110/728)

1/7 Jars, like this Iraqi jar, were used daily by people living in the Umayyad & Early Abbasid eras. Archeologists call them “𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐩𝐞𝐝𝐨 𝐣𝐚𝐫𝐬” but what did the Arabic speakers who used them call them? 🧵 2/7 some background: “torpedo jars” were made in the Persian Gulf from ca. 200 to 1000 AD. Their numbers declined after the early Abbasid era. They're long (ca. 1 meter), unglazed, covered with tar on their insides, handleless, & have a pointy foot & can't stand on their own

Prophet Joseph’s 2 fellow inmates (Qurʾān 12:35) are often said to be Pharaoh’s chief baker & cupbearer, as in Genesis 40. What are their names? Muqātil b. Sulaymān (d. 150/767) calls them شرهم أقم (ShRHM ʾQM) & شرهم أشم (ShRHM AShM). Why these names? An answer @ end of🧵 The odd names mentioned by Muqātil perplexed later transmitters. Al-Qurṭubī (Cordova, d. 671/1272) wrote that one inmate was called شرهم (ShRHM) & the other سرهم (SRHM). Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī (Egypt, d. 852/1449) wrote that one was شَرهم (Sharham) & the other شُرهم (Shurham).