Reading the Change in Thought through Hadith Commentaries (Sharh): The Case of Change in the Perception of Privacy Düşüncedeki Değişimi Hadis Şerhleri Üzerinden Okumak: Mahremiyet Algısındaki Değişim Örneği
Hitit Theology Journal, vol.23, no.2, pp.1090-1113, 2024 (ESCI, Scopus, TRDizin)
- Publication Type: Article / Article
- Volume: 23 Issue: 2
- Publication Date: 2024
- Doi Number: 10.14395/hid.1525179
- Journal Name: Hitit Theology Journal
- Journal Indexes: Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), Scopus, Academic Search Premier, TR DİZİN (ULAKBİM)
- Page Numbers: pp.1090-1113
- Keywords: Hadith, Hadith Commentaries, Ibn Hajar, Ikhtilāṭ, Intellectual History, Nawawī, Privacy
- Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University Affiliated: Yes
Abstract
As a result of the centuries-long activity of commenting on the hadith and its wide geographical spread, a rich literature has emerged. As a witness to a period of almost a thousand years of Islamic history, this literature offers a rich content that allows today's researcher to make different readings. The testimony of hadith commentaries to history is twofold: On the one hand, they provide data that allow a better understanding of the period and society in which they were produced, and on the other hand, they offer insight into the transformation that has taken place in the mindset of Muslims throughout history. The fact that they shed light on the change in the world of thought is related to the fact that hadith commentaries are written on the basis of the commentaries written before them. Based on this feature of them, this study argues that the changes in thought can be identified through the hadith commentaries. To support this thesis, the concept traced through these works is privacy. The aim of this article is to identify the change in Muslim perceptions of privacy through the sharhs of a certain narration. There is an increasing number of studies based on the idea that hadith sharhs are rich sources of historical data. In essence, these studies seek to identify in the commentaries the reflection of the events that took place in the period(s) in which the book was written. In this way it is possible both to look at history from a new perspective and to understand the extent to which this literature was influenced by developments. The focus of this article is to determine the change in thought through the commentaries. This is because these books are sources that both assimilate and reflect the change in thought and carry this change into subsequent periods. In this article, the hadith of Abdullah b. 'Umar (d. 73/693), in which it is narrated that foreign men and women performed ablution together in the time of the Prophet, is taken as the centrepiece in an attempt to reveal the transformation of thought through the perception of privacy. In the next stage, hadith sources that included the narration were found (takhrīj al-hadith), the related narrations were identified, and it was determined under which chapter heading the narration(s) was (were) included in the hadith works. Without going into how the narration was treated in the hadith commentaries, it was revealed how it was understood by the schools of fiqh and what kind of judgements were based on it. This is related to the fact that the sectarian affiliation of the commentators has an effect on the interpretation of the narrations. Subsequently, the adventure of the narrations in the commentaries is analysed through the jurisprudential commentaries written in the 4th-6th Hijrī centuries and the rich commentaries of the so-called classical period (7th-10th Hijrī centuries). While the change in the understanding of narration is revealed through the commentaries, an attempt is also made to shed light on the historical and intellectual background of this change. One of the main findings of the study is that the emphasis on privacy in the interpretation of the hadith has increased significantly since the 7th century Hijrī. In the jurisprudential commentaries written between the 4th and 6th centuries Hijrī, the narration is discussed in the context of ablution ghusl with the water used by women. With the 7th century scholar al-Nawawī (d. 676/1277), there is a break in the commentary of the narrations including the one we have analysed-concerning the ablution of men and women together from the same vessel: Al-Nawawī relates these narrations to the pre-hijab period. The commentator who developed and popularised this interpretation was Ibn Hajar al-Asqalānī (d. 852/1449). Until the 9th century Hijrī, when Ibn Hajar lived, the Hanafi commentators in particular did not see any problem in the content of the narrative in terms of privacy, while most of the Mālikī and Shāfi'ī commentators did not directly relate the narrative to privacy, although there was a concern for it in their works. After the 9th century, hadith commentators, regardless of their sect, associated the relevant hadith(s) with privacy, and most of them adopted the interpretation of the pre-hijāb with reference to Ibn Hajar. We believe that the emphasis on privacy from al-Nawawī's commentary on the hadith is closely related to the visibility of women in society during the Mamlūk period. This visibility, to which the people of the region were not previously accustomed, was strange and appeared in the works of the period, including the hadith commentaries, as an increased emphasis on privacy.