“The difficulty was resolved by adopting the Custom or ‘Sunnat’ of Mahomet, that is, his sayings and his practice, as a supplement to the Coran. The recitals regarding the life of the Prophet now acquired an unlooked-for value. He had never held himself to be infallible, except when directly inspired of God; but this new doctrine assumed that a heavenly and unerring guidance pervaded every word and action of his prophetic life. Tradition was thus invested with the force of law, and with some of the authority of inspiration. It was in great measure owing to the rise of this theory, that, during the first century of Islam, the cumbrous recitals of tradition so far outstripped the dimensions of reality. The prerogative now claimed for Tradition stimulated the growth of fabricated evidence, and led to the preservation of every kind of story, spurious or real, touching the Prophet. Before the close of the century it had imparted an almost incredible impulse to the search for traditions, and had in fact given birth to the new profession of Collectors. Men devoted their lives to the business. They travelled from city to city, and from tribe to tribe, over the whole Mahometan world; sought out by personal inquiry every vestige of Mahomet’s biography yet lingering among the Companions, the Successors, and their descendants; and committed to writing the tales and reminiscences with which they used to edify their wondering and admiring auditors.
“The work, however, too closely affected the public interests, and the political aspect of the empire, to be left entirely to private and individual zeal. About a hundred years after Mahomet, the Caliph Omar II. issued circular orders for the formal collection of all extant traditions. [He committed to Abu Bacr ibn Muhammad the task of compiling all the traditions he could meet with. This traditionist died A.H. 120, aged 84. Sprenger’s Mohammed, p. 67.] The task thus begun continued to be vigorously prosecuted, but we possess no authentic remains of any compilation of an earlier date than the middle or end of the second century. Then, indeed, ample materials had been amassed, and they have been handed down to us both in the shape of Biographies and of general Collections, which bear upon every imaginable point of Mahomet’s character, and detail the minutest incidents of his life.
“It thus appears that the traditions we now possess remained generally in an unrecorded form for at least the greater part of a century. It is not indeed denied that some of Mahomet’s sayings may possibly have been noted down in writing during his life-time, and from that source copied and propagated afterwards. We say possibly, for the evidence in favour of any such record is meagre, suspicious, and contradictory. The few and uncertain statements of this nature may have owed their origin to the authority which a habit of the kind would impart to the name of a Companion, supposed to have practised it.… It is hardly possible that, if the custom had prevailed of writing down Mahomet’s sayings during his life, we should not have had frequent intimation of the fact, with notices of the writers, and special references to the nature, contents, and peculiar authority of their records. But no such references or quotations are anywhere to be found. It cannot be objected that the Arabs trusted so implicitly to their memory that they regarded oral to be as authoritative as recorded narratives, and therefore would take no note of the latter; for we see that Omar was afraid lest even the Coran, believed by him to be divine and itself the subject of heavenly care, should become defective if left to the memory of man. Just as little weight, on the other hand, should be allowed to the tradition that Mahomet prohibited his followers from noting down his words; though it is not easy to see how that tradition could have gained currency at all, had it been the regular and constant practice of any persons to record his sayings. The truth appears to be that there was in reality no such practice; and that the story of the prohibition, though spurious, embodies the after-thought of serious Mahometans as to what Mahomet would have said, had he foreseen the loose and fabricated stories that sprang up, and the real danger his people would fall into of allowing Tradition to supersede the Coran. The evils of Tradition were, in truth, as little thought of as its value was perceived, till many years after Mahomet’s death.
“But even were we to admit all that has been advanced, it would prove no more than that some of the Companions used to keep memoranda of the Prophet’s sayings. Now, unless it be possible to connect such memoranda with extant Tradition, the concession would be useless. But it is not, as far as I know, demonstrable of any single tradition or class of traditions now in existence, that they were copied from such memoranda, or have been derived in any way from them. To prove, therefore, that some traditions were at first recorded, will not help us to a knowledge of whether any of these still exist, or to a discrimination of them from others resting on a purely oral basis. The very most that could be urged from the premises is, that our present collections may contain some traditions founded upon a recorded original, and handed down in writing; but we are unable to single out any individual tradition and make such affirmation regarding it. The entire mass of extant tradition rests in this respect on the same uncertain ground, and the uncertainty of any one portion (apart from internal evidence of probability) attaches equally to the whole. We cannot with confidence, or even with the least show of likelihood, affirm of any tradition that it was recorded till nearly the end of the first century of the Hegira.
“We see, then, how entirely tradition, as now possessed by us, rests its authority on the memory of those who handed it down; and how dependent therefore it must have been upon their convictions and their prejudices. For, in addition to the common frailty of human recollection which renders traditional evidence notoriously infirm, and to the errors or exaggerations which always distort a narrative transmitted orally through many witnesses, there exist throughout Mahometan Tradition abundant indications of actual fabrication; and there may everywhere be traced the indirect but not less powerful and dangerous influence of a silently working bias, which insensibly gave its colour and its shape to all the stories of their Prophet treasured up in the memories of the believers.
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“That the Collectors of Tradition rendered an important service to Islam, and even to history, cannot be doubted. The vast flood of tradition, poured forth from every quarter of the Moslem empire, and daily gathering volume from innumerable tributaries, was composed of the most heterogeneous elements; without the labours of the traditionists it must soon have formed a chaotic sea, in which truth and error, fact and fable, would have mingled together in undistinguishable confusion. It is a legitimate inference from the foregoing sketch, that Tradition, in the second century, embraced a large element of truth. That even respectably derived traditions often contained much that was exaggerated and fabulous, is an equally fair conclusion. It is proved by the testimony of the Collectors themselves, that thousands and tens of thousands were current in their times, which possessed not even a shadow of authority. The mass may be likened to the image in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, formed by the unnatural union of gold, of silver, of the baser metals, and of clay; and here the more valuable parts were fast commingling hopelessly with the bad.” (Muir’s Life of Mahomet, vol. i., Intro. p. xxviii.)
TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS. [[TANASUKH].]
TREATY. Arabic ʿAhd (عهد). The observance of treaties is enjoined in the Qurʾān ([Sūrah viii. 58]; [ix. 4]); but if peace be made with aliens for a specified term (e.g. ten years), and afterwards the Muslim leader shall perceive that it is most advantageous for the Muslim interest to break it, he may in that case lawfully renew the war, after giving the enemy due notice. (Hidāyah, vol. ii. p. 151; Arabic edition, vol. ii. p. 423.)
The negotiations with John the Christian prince of Ailah, are an interesting incident in the life of Muḥammad, as indicating the spirit of Islām, in its early history, towards Christianity. In the first place, Muḥammad addressed to John the following letter:—