robert spencer-did muhammad exist__ an inquiry into islams obscure origins-intercollegiate studies institute (2012) (1)

One would think, given such references, that the sunna of the prophet was by that period a recognized
corpus of laws. But just as Umayyad rulers charged their opponents with departing from the prophet's
example, those same opponents invoked the sunna of the prophet to justify their own, competing
perspectives and rulings. 13 The historians Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds conclude that in the early
decades of the Arab Empire, the sunna of the prophet did not refer to a specific set of rulings at all: “To
say that someone had followed the sunna of the Prophet was to say that he was a good man, not to specify
what he had done in concrete terms…. In concrete terms, the ‘sunna of the Prophet’ meant nothing.” 14
But Abd al-Malik and his successors emphasized Muhammad's example: They presented the words and
deeds of the prophet as normative for Islamic faith and practice. The necessity for every Muslim to obey
Muhammad became a central and oft-repeated doctrine of the Qur'an. Consequently, the hunger for them
became so intense that some Muslims traversed the entire Islamic world searching for the prophet's
solution to a disputed question. An eighth-century Egyptian Muslim named Makhul, a freed slave,
recounted how he searched for what Muhammad might have decreed about the particulars of distributing
the spoils of war:
I did not leave Egypt until I had acquired all the knowledge that seemed to me to exist there. I then came to al-Hijaz and I did not
leave it until I had acquired all the knowledge that seemed to be available. Then I came to al-Iraq, and I did not leave it until I had
acquired all the knowledge that seemed to be available. I then came to Syria, and besieged it. I asked everyone about giving rewards
from the booty. I did not find anyone who could tell me anything about it.
Finally, he found what he was looking for: “I then met an old man called Ziyad ibn Jariyah at-Tamimi. I
asked him: Have you heard anything about giving rewards from the booty? He replied: Yes. I heard
Maslama al-Fihri say: I was present with the Prophet (peace be upon him). He gave a quarter of the
spoils on the outward journey and a third on the return journey.” 15
That settled that—for Makhul, anyway. Not every Muslim could travel the world in search of answers.
In the face of commands to obey Allah's messenger, there was an immense need for a collection of the
prophetic word on various disputed issues. Islamic tradition generally identifies the second Abbasid
caliph, al-Mansur, who reigned from 754 to 775, as the first to commission a legal manual: the Muwatta.
Because Islamic law is based to such a tremendous degree on the words and example of Muhammad, this
manual of Islamic law records a great many hadiths of the prophet of Islam. The imam who wrote the
Muwatta, Malik ibn Anas (715–795), died a mere sixteen decades after Muhammad, making him the
nearest in time of all the collectors of hadiths to the life of the man whose every action and every
utterance is the focus of the Hadith.
Various editions of Malik's Muwatta differ from one another so widely as to raise the question of
whether they are the same book at all. Different versions (riwayat) of Malik's teachings were written
down and transmitted by different students of his. On one occasion a man approached the imam and
showed him a manuscript. “This is your Muwatta, O Abu Abd Allah,” the man said to Malik, “which I
have copied and collated; please grant me your permission to hand it down.” Without looking at the
manuscript, Malik responded, “This permission is granted, and when handing down the text you may use
the formula: Malik has told me, Malik has reported to me.” 16 Some of the variant manuscripts were
probably compiled after Malik died. In any case, the variations hardly inspire confidence regarding the
authenticity of the Muwatta's material about Muhammad.