The Abu Hurayra literature - part 1

[dklei...@gmail.com]

One of the key facts about Abu Hurayra is the identification and
separation, if possible, of the different chains of tradition going to
back to him. In the isnads this would be represented, possibly, by the
names of the second narrators - those who are said to have narrated
directly from Abu Hurayra.

There are 133 second narrators in the data base. Exactly how this fact
should be interpreted is still a puzzle. The names of the 18 second
narrators that occur most often are, with the number of times they
occur

OBD ALRHMN ABN ERMZ ALAORG - 170
ABW SLMEh BN OBD ALRHMN - 159
SOYD BN ALMSYB - 137
ABW CALH ALSMAD - 90
SOYD BN ABW SOYD ALMQBRY - 76
EMAM BN MNBE - 55
MHMD BN SYRYN - 41
HMYD BN OBD ALRHMN BN OWF - 33
ABW ZROEh BN OMRW BN GRYR - 30
OBYD ALLE BN OBD ALLE BN OTBEh BN MSOWD - 30
ABW HAZM ALAShGOY - 27
MHMD BN ZYAD - 23
OXAO BN YSAR - 23
XAWS - 16
ABW ALGhYTh m ABN MXYO - 14
HFC BN OACM - 13
OBD ALRHMN BN ABW OMREh ALANCARY - 12
OKRMEh - 12

Azami edited a collection of 48 hadiths from Abu Huryara that carried
the name of SEYL BN ABW CALH from ABW CALH (meaning ABW CALH, the
fourth name on our list was the second narrator). But al-Bukhari does
not mention SEYL anywhere in his isnads going back to Abu Hurayra.
Hamidullah has studied and published a collection of 138 hadiths where
the second narrator is said to be EMAM BN MNBE. I will start my
analysis of the pericopes with this collection.

It is hard to imagine MHMD BN SYRYN (the seventh name on the list)
actually hearing Abu Hurayra. Azami quotes a story that Ibn Sirin had
a book from Abu Hurayra. Assuming he did, I must ask who the second
narrator actually was - the man who wrote the book from which Ibn
Sirin quoted.

The traditions of Abu Salamah and Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib are intangled,
probably hopelessly, and may never have actually been two different
strands. Both are report through al-Zuhri and many times both names
are given as the second narrator. Ibn al-Musayyib is the well-known
fiqh of Madinat whose death is reported in AH 94. Abu Salamah ia also
reported to have died in 94 although other dates are circulated.
According to Ibn Sa'd Abu Salamah was the qadi of Madinat for a time
during Mu'awiya's reign. It is easy to believe that Ibn al-Musayyib
and Abu Salamah were both passing on the same material. It is also
easy to believe that their joint tradition was verbal and only written
down by al-Zuhri.

Azami reports a story about a book written by Sa'id al-Maqburi. He
also mentions five other books that claim to have come from Abu
Hurayra, but none of the names involved with these occur in the
database from al-Bukhari.

Hence I will initially limit my study to the first seven names
expecting to uncover six threads of tradition -

1. OBD ALRHMN ABN ERMZ ALAORG
2. ABW SLMEh BN OBD ALRHMN / SOYD BN ALMSYB
3. ABW CALH ALSMAD
4. SOYD BN ABW SOYD ALMQBRY
5. EMAM BN MNBE
6. MHMD BN SYRYN

Now I must start analyzing the pericopes. I will start with thread 5
because it is easily available in Hamidullah's book which I will
compare with al-Bukhari (as Hamidullah has already done in large
part).