Muhammad and The Jews — Page 22
of the material. Together they fo1:m an almost unassailable authority, subject indeed to criticism in details. . . "l My preference for the ~abibain is strictly confined to the study of the historical data concerning the Jews during the time of the Apostle. This would not necessarily apply to the discussion of other subjects, particularly to the origin of Shicism or controversies emanating from the Umayyad ano Abbasid claims and would certainly not apply to fiqh questions pertaining to non-Muslims. The Qur""an and the five works mentioned above exhaust our primary sources. Besides these sources I have also used the Sunan of Abu Da""iid and al-Samhiidi's Waj[i" al-Wafii? bi Akhbiir Diir al-Mu~fafa. Abii Da""iid (202/817-275/888) was a contemporary of al-Bukhari and a pupil of Al)mad b. ]:Ianbal. Abii Da""iid is less strict with his conditions (shuruf) and where a favourable verdict has been accorded by a lenient scholar he has "accepted the lf adith despite the weight of adverse criticism". 2 This does not mean that he did not exercise proper caution. "He wrote down half a million lf adith, from which he selected 4,800; he calls these authentic, those which seem to be authentic, and those which are nearly so". 3 Nur al-Din Abu al-l;Iasan "Ali b. eAbd Allah b. Al)mad al-Samhiidi (844/1440-911/1505) · studied in Cairo under the most renowned man of his time, the Sufi saint al-"Iraqi. In 860/1455 he went on pilgrimage and afterwards settled in Medina where he stayed for nearly six years. During this period he made extensive researches on the original state of the Mosque of the Apostle. In 886/1461 he went to pilgrimage and then returned to Egypt where he was admitted to the circle of Sultan al-Ashraf Qa""itbey. He returned to Medina in 890/1485 and remained there till his death. His principal work, which I have used, is Wafii"" al-Waj[/' bi Akhbiir Diir al-Mu~fafa. 4 This work is the main source of information for the history and the topography of Medinas. I have used the two above-mentioned works for supplementary information and supportive evidence but not as independent authorities. 1 Alfred Guillaume, The Traditions of Islam: An Introduction to the Study of the Hadith Literature (Oxford, 1924) pp 30-32. The italics are mine. 2 Guillaume, p. 34. . 3 Ibid. , p. 34. 4 It was published in Cairo in four volumes in 1955. 0 See for further details, l;Iajji Khalifah, Kash/ al-:?uniin, Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Literatur, Vol. G. II, p. 173 and the editor's introduction to the 1955 edition of Wafii 0 al-Wafii 0 mentioned above. 22