Andrew J.

Newman, The Formative Period of Twelver Shism: Hadth as Discourse between Qum and Baghdad The Formative Period of Twelver Shism: Hadth as Discourse between Qum and Baghdad by AndrewJ. Newman Review by: Asma Afsaruddin Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 65, No. 1 (January 2006), pp. 62-64 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/504909 . Accessed: 13/03/2012 00:23
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add minha (following same MSS) before alhanan; at p. 67, n. 31, read lan nay for lam na; at p. 67, n. 34, add f ima before baynana; at p. 68, line 20, omit biha (following same MSS); at p. 68, line 20, read ilayhim for ilayhi; at p. 69, nn. 10 11, read ghalaba ala (codices) for ghalabat f i; at p. 69, line 4, read fa-sabiluka for wa-sabiluka; at p. 69, line 5, read tatanashshaqu for tastanshiqu; at p. 69, line 7, read fa-inna for fa-anna; at p. 69, n. 27, read fa-innaha for fa-li(?)-annaha (!); at p. 69, n. 31, read min (see Lane, Dozy, sub baraa) for an. Given this careless editorial work, it would be surprising if Taghis translation of the Tayr reected the original text in even a proximate manner. Stranger still, it seems as though Taghis translation relies either on Mehrens Arabic collation or his French paraphrase at certain points because while she often corrects his textual choices in her edition, she translates a given word following his text (for instance, compare her text at p. 67, nn. 7 and 10 with her translation). Further, Taghis lack of mastery of basic Arabic grammatical rules is evident in a variety of ways, such as the mishandling of hatta with the perfect (here until, not so that; p. 73), the ignorance of hal clauses and confusion of subjects and objects (see p. 71, beginning but the wonder . . .), and the unfamiliarity with verbs of surprise (p. 74, beginning The more they say . . .). A new translation, based on a trustworthy edition, will have to be undertaken. There is much more to this volume than the edition and translation of the Tayr, but little of it is worthy of comment. Taghi includes a biography of Avicenna that reects scholarship in the 1950s and a commentary of the text in which her own views are mingled with the medieval commentary of Ibn Sahlan al-Sawi (it is difcult to say what belongs to whom). Next come ve chapters of meandering narrative on the literary background of the text. The rst three of these take as their point of departure certain comments by Sarah Stroumsa in Avicennas Philosophical Stories: Aristotles Poetics Reinterpreted (Arabica 39 [1992]: 185 ff.) on the genre of allegorical writing before Avicenna, but without acknowledging them as such (Stroumsas article appears in the bibliography, but I could nd no direct reference to it in Taghis notes). The fourth

of these compares the Tayr to the (Pseudo-Avicennan) Mirajnamah, following Peter Heath. The last drives home again Taghis repeated indulgence in the mystical import of the Tayr. There is certainly a scholarly line of thought on this (mythical) mystical Avicenna, at least since Henri Corbin, but Taghi offers nothing new to this deservedly debunked aspect of Avicenna studies. She concludes with a modern Persian translation of the Tayr that reects her contaminated Arabic edition. There is no index, and the book is awash in typographical errors. The hurdles faced by Avicenna scholars remain enormous, as Taghis work clearly demonstrates. Those interested in the critical editing and translating of Avicenna must rst acquire the necessary scholarly skills to undertake their task; Taghi did not. Adding insult to the injury of that initial deciency is Taghis misguided interpretive treatment of the mystical Avicenna; this is a hurdle that serious Avicenna scholars will just have to go around.
David C. Reisman University of Illinois at Chicago

The Formative Period of Twelver Shiism: Hadith as Discourse between Qum and Baghdad. By Andrew J. Newman. Culture and Civilization in the Middle East. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 2000. Pp. xxviii + 222. $45. This book is primarily a comparative analysis of the contents of three of the earliest Shii hadith compilations known to us set against their social and historical backdrops, al-Mahasin by Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Barqi (d. 27480/887 94); Basair al-darajat by Muhammad b. alHasan al-Saffar al-Qummi (d. 290/9023); and al-Kaf i f i ilm al-din by Muhammad b. Yaqub al-Kulayni (d. 329/940 41). Newman starts out by describing in detail the broad historical and political circumstances that led to the formation of two distinct Shii scholarly communities in Baghdad and Qum by the third/ninth century. The Baghdadi Shia, according to the author, were rationalist and accommodationist, mainly because they were in the political center, while the Qummis, on the periphery, residing in what Newman

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calls the city-state of Qum, were traditionalist and conservative. These specic circumstances left their imprint in the way these three collections were assembled and in the selection of the hadiths, whose contents and chains of transmission, upon examination, have much to tell us about the concerns of the Shia in the period between the Lesser and the Greater Occultations (874940). This is Newmans main thesis, and he succeeds to a large extent in making a persuasive case for these bold observations. As Newman points out, all three collections emanate from the Qummi environment and show the inuence of the prominent Ashari clan in the city. The Asharis were the main patronbenefactors of the city, and many of them were among the most important associates of the Shii Imams. Careful examination of the three hadith collections reveals that the concerns of the Qummis changed with and adapted to their historicopolitical circumstances. The Mahasin, for example, shows that the Shii community in the immediate aftermath of the Lesser Occultation was more concerned with the daily, practical aspects of community life, emphasizing the special status and role of the Imams, rather than with the doctrinal ramications of the cessation of the imamate, of which there appears to have been no awareness. It is also concerned with the consequent reordering of certain communal and religious obligations such a situation entailed. The author is correct in concluding that this collection would thereby suggest that at the time of its compilation there was no widespread consensus about the beginning of the period of Occultation or about the total number of Imams; rather, the work indicates that the imminent return of the Imam and the resumption of the imamate was expected. The Basair, chronologically the next work, documents the insecurities of the minority, beleaguered Imami community after about a quarter of a century into the period of the Occultation. The communitys defensiveness is reected, for example, in the emphasizing of traditions that testify to the miraculous nature of the knowledge possessed by the Imams. Aggrandizement of the personal attributes of the Imam in this manner, thus afrming the special status of both the Imam and the community that chose to fol-

low him, would have not only served to comfort the Imami Shia in a very difcult period, as Newman asserts, but would have also helped set it apart from the developing Zaydi and Ismaili movements. Al-Kulaynis al-Kaf i also reects a distinctly Qummi Ashari ethos and establishes that right at the end of the period of the Lesser Occultation, Shii, specically Qummi, traditionalism mainly appealed to reports from the Imams for authoritative rulings on doctrinal matters. Compared to the two earlier collections, it further displays a distinctive characteristic: owing to the fact that the compiler spent twenty years in residence in Baghdad, it disposed him to be sensitive to Sunni disdain for specically Shii proclivities, such as stressing the Imams extraordinary knowledge. In large measure, Newman explains, this would explain why traditions that attest to this phenomenon tend not to be emphasized in alKaf i; this is further evidence, he maintains, that the work challenged what is described as Nawbakhti Shii and Sunni rationalism in addition to Sunni traditionalism. These are the broad contours of this rich study that will remain the most thoroughgoing appraisal of these crucial compilations for some time. For those who wish to mine these works for the insights they provide into the political and theological milieu at the time of their composition, Newman has provided a great deal of information. The faint-hearted (myself included) who do not wish to count laboriously the traditions in these compilations and determine for themselves how many Qummi Ashari transmitters are represented in them, for example, will be indebted to the author for having undertaken such a daunting task. Two further observations need to be made. Firstly, the authors evocation of a sharp, epistemological divide along rationalist and traditionalist lines in the third/ninth century has a whiff of anachronism about it. The author is well aware that rigorous scrutiny of the isnads of traditions, a trademark practice of the rationalists, was not routine in the period under discussion; such a procedure would not become methodologically established until the thirteenth century by Ahmad Ibn Tawus (d. 1274) and then widely applied by al-Allama al-Hilli (d. 1326). The full-edged

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Usuli-Akhbari dispute, which is foreshadowed in this earlier period, would erupt in the sixteenth century. Drawing such sharp lines in the third/ ninth century perhaps oversimplies what was a uid, and highly complex, situation. Secondly, the selection of specic hadiths and the signicance of their texts are explained more in terms of the internal development of the Imami community and their relationship with other Shii factions and not so much in terms of the overall communitys dialectical engagements with the Sunni majority. And there were many of these Sunni-Shii engagements, particularly in the third/ ninth century, as each community struggled to dene the parameters of communal identity, in large measure in conscious opposition to the other. The issue of legitimate leadership loomed large in these dialectics, particularly in the anxious period of the Lesser Occultation. Thus the Basairs emphasis on the thaumaturgic knowledge of the Imam could be read as a conscious attempt at one-upmanship with regard to the extensive knowledge, albeit of a more pedestrian variety, attributed particularly to Abu Bakr and Umar, the rst two caliphs of the Sunnis. Since miraculous knowledge was restricted to the Imams, these reports also emphasize their kinship with the Prophet through Ali and the special nature of this kinship, thus seeking to erode the legitimacy of the rst three Rashidun caliphs, who could at best claim only close companionship to Muhammad (suhba). These debates would continue well through the late Middle Ages, as our sources show, since the question of legitimate leadership continued to occupy the minds of scholars. These observations only highlight the fruitful nature of Newmans line of inquiry, since it offers many new insights and encourages further scholarly investigation along the same lines. Close, highly contextualized reading of hadith literature is widely acknowledged as a very effective way to decipher the past meaningfully; Newman convinces us that this is true.
Asma Afsaruddin University of Notre Dame

The Early Muslim Tradition of Dream Interpretation. By John C. Lamoreaux. SUNY Series in Islam. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. Pp. vii + 247. $21.95. In this book John Lamoreaux intends to put dream interpretation on the Islamicists map, and he does. Despite increasing interest in the phenomenon of dreams in the Islamic tradition in recent years, dream interpretation per se has received relatively little attention. This is presumably due, in part, to the stultifying nature of most (but not all) of the content of the standard works on dream interpretation (tabir); lists running to hundreds of pages of statements such as If you speak to a frog [in a dream], you will obtain dominion pall quickly, no matter how cleverly organized. But this science was no minor or marginal phenomenon in classical Islamic culture, as Lamoreaux shows elegantly and convincingly in this investigation of its birth and evolution through the rst four Islamic centuries. The book is tightly structured, and both information and arguments are lucidly presented. After an introduction posing the major questions to be answered, the rst chapter charts the development of an indigenous Arabic-Islamic tradition of dream interpretation, relying on a later bibliographical reference to select four authors (or authorities) for special consideration. The rst of these is the famous Ibn Sirin (d. 110/728), who in subsequent centuries came to be regarded as the authority on dreams and whose name was attached to large numbers of pseudepigraphs. While dismissing the notion that Ibn Sirin actually wrote a book on dreams, Lamoreaux argues with some cogency that his reputation as an authority developed early, probably with some basis in actual reality. The second author, alKirmani (late second/eighth century?) is obscure and his book is lost, and it is the third, Ibn Qutayba (d. 276/889), who offers us our rst extant treatise; the fourth, from a century later, was composed by the amir of Sijistan, Khalaf b. Ahmad al-Sijistani (d. 399/1008). Lamoreaux nds no evidence in any of these works of foreign inuence or, more specically, that of the Arabic translation of Artemidorus, the premier Greek interpreter of dreams, by Hunayn b. Ishaq (d. 264/877). On this basis, he pictures the initial growth of the Arabic tradi-