Compiling a Tradition: The History and Development of the Early Imāmī Hadith Corpora

Date: February 12-13, 2024

Venue: Online & Al-Mahdi Institute (AMI), Birmingham, UK

Al-Mahdi Institute will hold a two-day conference, running from Monday, 12 February until Tuesday, 13 February 2024, titled: ‘Compiling a Tradition: The History and Development of the Early Imāmī Hadith Corpora,‘ convened by Dr Haidar Hobbollah.

Whilst the study of the Qurʾan has rightly received increased attention in contemporary scholarship, the study of the second most important scriptural source in the Islamic tradition – the hadith corpora – has received comparatively little attention. Although an increasing number of studies on the Sunnī hadith tradition have emerged, the Imāmī Shīʿī tradition remains on the periphery. The hadith corpora of the Imāmīs include not only traditions ascribed to the Prophet Muḥammad, but also to the twelve Imams and other important figures in the Imāmī tradition. For this reason, the Imāmī hadith corpora is much larger than those of other Muslim traditions and contain a wealth of information for reconstructing early Islamic – and specifically Shīʿī – history, doctrine, and law which has still not been taken full advantage of.

Amongst the wide range of Imāmī literature which emerged during the formative period from the first/seventh to the fifth/eleventh centuries, those works which became known as ‘the Four Books’ (al-kutub al-arbaʿa) came to be deemed the most authoritative sources of Imāmī hadith by later scholars. This raises the question, however, of what became of the other works in the Imāmī corpora which emerged during this period. Why were other compilations not afforded the same attention and status by later scholars? Were alternative works perceived to be more authoritative prior to the ‘canonisation’ of the ‘Four Books’? Several studies have shown how geography and ideology played a significant role in influencing the style and substance of certain compilations and led to the emergence of ‘schools’ of hadith, specifically in Kufa and Qom. Further work is required, however, to understand the extent of the influence of such schools on the development of the corpora more broadly. The study of the narrators featured in the Imāmī compilations remains almost untouched in contemporary scholarship. What can these narrators tell us about the development of the early Imāmī hadith corpora? And finally, as the ‘Four Books’ in the main concentrated on legal issues, what can alternative sources tell us about the history and development of Imāmism in general?

This conference provides a platform to address these and many more issues surrounding the history and development of the early Imāmī hadith corpora from the first/seventh to the fifth/eleventh centuries, considering works such as the ‘Four Books’ and those which did not achieve the same level of popularity in the tradition. The proceedings from this conference shall be published in an edited volume with AMI Press.

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