The dating of the tradition "al-Nisā' Nawāqisu al-uqūl" in the 80th sermon of Nahj al-Balāgha

The importance of re-reading Nahj al-Balāgha's view in the sermon 80, which is the final word in disapproval women in Shia traditions and has incepted one of the greatest challenges of anti-feminist approach of the traditions, requires scientific investigation and analysis of the origin of these words via novel methodology of hadith studies.Historiography seeks to find out whether such words were actually spoken by Imam Ali (as), or the background of it in the second and third centuries of Muslim society is the source of its attribution to Imam Ali (as), or might there be other hidden reasons that lie within the lower layers of this tradition? This paper seeks to determine the date of appearance of this tradition by analyzing the Isnad and the text of the 80th sermon of Nahj al-Balāgha and to analyze the sanity of the Muslims thoughts at the beginning of Islam and particularly that of Imam Ali (as) regarding females.

The dating of traditions is one of the novel methods of hadith studies, based on which, in addition to determining the approximate time of the inception of the tradition, it might be possible to identify the course and the reasons for its appearance and the opinions of a period of the history of Muslims thoughts.In Iran since the last two decades, this method of hadith studies has been favored by Muslim researchers and gradually examined in various traditions. One of the examples in which this method has been widely used in identifying the date of the appearance of those traditions is the narrations of condemning women, many of which have been widely used in Iran's master's theses and doctoral theses. Applying various analysis methods and dating of the hadith, the publication of their texts has been determined beyond the first and second centuries.In this paper, which was conducted via analytical-descriptive method by applying library resources, the authors first focused on the text of the tradition of Nahj al-Balāgha, analyzed its terms and collected similar texts from all Shia and Sunni sources and evaluated the differences by comparing with each other. Then, the Isnads of the hadiths were visually drawn and the sanads of the hadiths were analyzed by determining the main and secondary common links. (Of course, in the writing of the article, first the analysis of the sanads and then the analysis of the text have been written so that the course of analysis would remain logical). In the third stage, the texts and Isnad of the traditions have been analyzed together, and by dating the origin of the tradition for the very first time, most of the traditions belonging to Sunni books have been dated and documented. Regarding the texts that did not include any sanad, merely the text has been relied on and its sources have been investigated. This procedure is more apparent in Shia books. In addition, in order to localize this method, in some parts, we have used the method of Muslim researchers in the analysis of sanad people by referring to the science of Rijal of hadith.

According to the analysis of the text and Isnad and the sources of traditions on deficiency in female’s intellect, the following results were obtained:Two different traditionals from Shia and Sunni have been transmitted in the discussion of those suffering from deficiency of sanity, in both deficiency of intellect and religion in females exist. However, their issuance context is different. The reason behind the issuance of Sunni traditions lies within different terms such as Eid al-Fitr or Eid-al_Aḍḥā, etc., which have a Muḍṭarib text and have developed from the first half of the second century until the fifth century.Aḥmad Ibn Ḥanbal is the first source of transmission of this tradition, and before him, Malik did not mentioned it in Muwaṭa'. The common link of the tradition on deficiency in female’s sanity are Ibn al-Ḥād (AD: 139), Sufyān Thurī (AD: 161), 'Abdul 'Aziz Darāvardī (AD: 186) and Saīd Ibn Maryam (AD: 224), all of which belong to the first half of the second century till the first half of the third century.The second text of this tradition belongs to Shia, which has been issued in two ways:The first Shia text has been mentioned in a commentary attributed to Imam Hasan 'Askarī (as) from Ali (as) and is quoted by Imam Sadiq (as) in Usūl al-Kāfī and al-Faqīh Man La yaḥḍuruhu al-Faqīh. The interpretation attributed to Imam Hasan 'Askari (as), which was popular in the 3rd century, is not accepted by the Shia, and documents by al-Kulaynī in Usūl al-Kāfī and Isnad of Sadūq in Man La yaḥḍuruhu al-Faqīh are sufficient. Sheikh Sadūq's text seems to have been influenced by al-Kāfī and the commentary of Imam Hasan Askari (as). He has cut the text of the tradition from those books and put it under a single chapter in his book. The second Shia text is attributed to Imam Ali (as) and is firstly found in the al-Mustarshid of the Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Ţabarī Shiee, in the 4th century, then in the Khaṣāiṣ al-A'immah, later in Nahj al-Balāgha, and later on in the al-Rasā'il by Sayyid Murṭaḍa. Sayyid Ibn Ţāwūs has reported the text in Kashf al-Muhajah as in the book al-Mustarashid, but different interpretations of Nahj al-Balāgha have played a greater role in its expansion.

Conclusion   :

The traditional on deficiency of female’s sanity in Nahj al-Balāgha is one of the controversial issues in traditionals on females, which is worth reconsideration via the new methods of hadith studies. The following paper has been conducted via analyticdescriptive method according to determination of the date of the documents and their texts and distinction of the common alliance and design of the documents’ net. According to the findings of the paper, the traditional already existed widely in traditional references of the Sunni before its embedment in Nahj al-Balāgha. It appeared in Madinah since the first half of the second century by Yazid ibn Abdollah, one of the Sunni traditionals and it has been spread in Kufa, Baghdad and Egypt with slightly different wordings until the third century. The same context found its way to Shia traditional resources without Isnad with two different wordings. The first one reminds of the text by the Sunni and the second one, is the text in Nahj al-Balāgha, which was accompanied by the name of 'Ayisha. The text appeared Before Nahj al-Balāgha in the third century in Almustarshid by Ţabari after battle of Nahravan in insertion form. It seems that the text of Nahj al-Balāgha is a dissection by Seyyed Raḍī from the text of Almustarshid, which is known as an independent sermon in disapproval of 'Ayisha after battle of Camel. Therefore, the traditio was never mentioned in the books written before the battle of Camel between the first and third centuries and thus it only recently appeared in Shia texts in the third century.