that the collection was made in a spirit of mockery; and as to the fact that with the songs collected are given the names of those through whom the songs are handed down, that was the common method adopted in all historical writings and collections of the time, as may be readily seen by reference to the historical writings of Ibn Sa‘d, or Ibn Jarīr; and it was chosen not to insult the method of transmission of Ḥadīth but simply on account of its historical value. Guillaume, the European critic, has also mentioned the names of two great Muslim thinkers, Ibn Qutaibah and Ibn Khaldūn, in this connection, but they neither rejected the Ḥadīth system as a whole nor ever mocked or derided that system or the persons and matters mentioned therein. Ibn Qutaibah rather defended the Holy Qur’ān and Ḥadīth against scepticism, and Guillaume has himself quoted with approval Dr. Nicholson’s remarks that “every impartial student will admit the justice of Ibn Qutaybah’s claim that no religion has such historical attestations as Islam.”47 The Arabic word asnād used in the original, and translated as historical attestations, is the plural of sanad which means an authority, and refers especially to the reporters on whose authority Ḥadīth is accepted. Thus Ibn Qutaibah claims for Ḥadīth a higher authority than that claimed in any other historical work of the time, and the claim is admitted by both Nicholson and Guillaume. In the Encyclopaedia of Islām, it is plainly stated that Ibn Qutaibah “defended the Holy Qur’ān and Ḥadīth against the attacks of philosophic scepticism.” Ibn Khaldūn, too, never attacked Ḥadīth itself, and his strictures are applicable only to stories which have generally been rejected by the collectors.
There is no doubt that the collectors of Ḥadīth attached the utmost importance to the trustworthiness of the narrators. As Guillaume says: “Inquiries were made as to the character of the guarantors, whether they were morally and religiously satisfactory, whether they were tainted with heretical doctrines, whether they had a reputation for truthfulness, and had the ability to transmit what they had themselves heard. Finally, it was necessary that they should be competent witnesses whose testimony would be accepted in a court
47 Tr. Is., p. 77.