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Joseph Franz Schacht (, 15 March 1902 – 1 August 1969) was a British-German professor of
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
and Islam at
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
in New York. He was the leading Western scholar on
Islamic law Sharia (; ar, شريعة, sharīʿa ) is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam and is based on the sacred scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran and the ...
, whose ''Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence'' (1950) is still considered a centrally important work on the subject. The author of many articles in the first and second editions of the '' Encyclopaedia of Islam'', Schacht also co-edited, with C. E. Bosworth, the second edition of ''The Legacy of Islam'' for the ''Legacy'' series of
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
and authored a textbook under the title ''An Introduction to Islamic Law'' (1964).


Life and career

Schacht was born into a Catholic family but, with a zeal for study, became at an early age a student in a Hebrew school. In Breslau and Leipzig he studied Semitic languages,
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
, and
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, under professors including Gotthelf Bergsträßer. In 1924 he published his Habilitations-Schrift, ''Das kitab al-hiial fil-fiqh (Buch d. Rechtskniffe) des abū Hātim Mahmūd ibn al-Hasan al-Qazuīnī'', with translation and commentary. In 1925 he obtained his first academic position at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg in Breisgau. In 1927 he became there a professor extraordinarius, making him the youngest professor in all of Germany, and in 1929 a professor ordinarius of
Semitic language The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigrant a ...
s. In 1932 he was appointed a professor at the
University of Königsberg The University of Königsberg (german: Albertus-Universität Königsberg) was the university of Königsberg in East Prussia. It was founded in 1544 as the world's second Protestant academy (after the University of Marburg) by Duke Albert of Pruss ...
. But in 1934, without being directly threatened or persecuted, Schacht, as a strong opponent of the Nazi regime, went to
Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...
, where he taught until 1939 as a professor. At the outbreak of World War II in 1939, he happened to be in England, where he offered his services to the British government and worked for the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
. In 1947 he became a British citizen. Schacht taught at
Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...
from 1946. In 1954 he moved to the
Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
and taught at the
University of Leiden Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, as a reward to the city of Le ...
. In the academic year 1957–1958, he taught at
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, where, in 1959 he became a full professor of Arabic and
Islamic studies Islamic studies refers to the academic study of Islam, and generally to academic multidisciplinary "studies" programs—programs similar to others that focus on the history, texts and theologies of other religious traditions, such as Easter ...
. He remained at Columbia until his retirement in 1969 as professor emeritus. One of Schacht's major contributions to the history of early Islam is the recognition that
Hadith Ḥadīth ( or ; ar, حديث, , , , , , , literally "talk" or "discourse") or Athar ( ar, أثر, , literally "remnant"/"effect") refers to what the majority of Muslims believe to be a record of the words, actions, and the silent approva ...
probably stems from those in whom the different traditions of the past converge, and this convergence Schacht describes as "common link". This concept was later used productively by many other
orientalists In art history, literature and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world. These depictions are usually done by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. In particular, Orientalist p ...
.


Thought


Theory of Islamic law

Schacht argued that Islamic law was not as classical Islamic jurisprudence taught, *the product of an ordered following of four sources/components (which in order of importance/senority were): #the
Quran The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , s ...
, #the Sunnah (the body of traditional social and legal custom and practice of the Islamic community), #'' Qiyas'' (the process of deductive analogy), and #''
Ijma ''Ijmāʿ'' ( ar, إجماع , " consensus") is an Arabic term referring to the consensus or agreement of the Islamic community on a point of Islamic law. Sunni Muslims regard ''ijmā as one of the secondary sources of Sharia law, after the Qur' ...
'' (the consensus/agreement of Muslim scholars); *neither did its chronology follow a direct path of Allah->
Muhammad Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد;  570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the mo ...
-> Companions-> Followers->
Fiqh ''Fiqh'' (; ar, فقه ) is Islamic jurisprudence. Muhammad-> Companions-> Followers-> Fiqh. The commands and prohibitions chosen by God were revealed through the agency of the Prophet in both the Quran and the Sunnah (words, deeds, and ...
, *nor was fiqh development centered shortly after Muhammad's death in the city (
Medina Medina,, ', "the radiant city"; or , ', (), "the city" officially Al Madinah Al Munawwarah (, , Turkish: Medine-i Münevvere) and also commonly simplified as Madīnah or Madinah (, ), is the second-holiest city in Islam, and the capital of the ...
) where he had established his state and where memory and traditions of him were the strongest. Rather the law arose from historical development of three different "sunnas" — bodies of custom, rules and law — operating in parallel during the period of the
Umayyad Caliphate The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by th ...
. #The "pre-Islamic sunnah" of Arabia, #the mixed custom-administrative law sunnah of the distant provinces" of the Umayyads, and later #the "living traditions" of the newly formed Islamic schools. Unification of Islamic legal thought (so that only one sunnah remained) occurred under the legal scholar
Al-Shafi‘i Abū ʿAbdillāh Muḥammad ibn Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī ( ar, أَبُو عَبْدِ ٱللهِ مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ إِدْرِيسَ ٱلشَّافِعِيُّ, 767–19 January 820 CE) was an Arab Muslim theologian, writer, and schola ...
(767-820), when the ahadith of Muhammad became pre-eminent (except for the Quran). The most important of the schools of Islamic law developed in
Kufa Kufa ( ar, الْكُوفَة ), also spelled Kufah, is a city in Iraq, about south of Baghdad, and northeast of Najaf. It is located on the banks of the Euphrates River. The estimated population in 2003 was 110,000. Currently, Kufa and Najaf a ...
in
Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
, according to Schacht's research, and its legal precepts spread to other cities such as Medina. Beginning around 100 A.H. (720 CE), ahadith of Muhammad "began to be fabricated", forming the Islamic Sunnah as it is known today. While scholars recognized that many ahadith were false and attempted to weed these out with ʻilm al-ḥadīth, this was in vain as most if not all are inauthentic. According to Schacht, with the exception of "a few modifications dictated by the Qur'an", the Islamic "Sunna" is the same as the "sunna" of "pre-Mohammed Arabia". One example of the power of traditional law was that under the caliphate, theft was punished by flogging, even though the Qur'an had prescribed maiming/amputation. Schacht argues that in part the fabrication of ahadith came from "a literary convention, which found particular favor in Iraq", whereby authors/scholars would put their "own doctrine or work under the aegis of an ancient authority." The ultimate prestigious "ancient authority" in this context was Muhammad and "around 120 A.H." scholars in Kufa, "followed in a few years by the Medinese" began falsely ascribing "their new doctrines back to earlier jurists", and over time extended them back to Muhammad. Schacht also blames the religious fervor of those who "detested" use of ''Qiyas'' and ''Ijma''. Providing suspicious justification for the "Traditionist" fabricators were ahadith such as, "sayings attributed to me which agree with the Qur'an go back to me, whether I actually said them or not." Though false, the forgeries could also be justified as recognizing the "final legitimacy of what the prophet Muhammad did and said.


Evidence of late creation

As evidence that most ahadith were created after 100 A.H., Schacht notes that: #all authentic early writings of Islamic law are virtually devoid of any mention of ahadith of Muhammad; #the early doctrines of the schools of law were "almost always traced" to an earlier jurist or to the '' Sahabah'' ("companions" of Muhammad) but "virtually never" to Muhammad; #but "the best way of proving that a tradition did not exist at a certain time" according to Schacht, was "to show that it is not used as a legal argument in a discussion which would have made reference to it imperative, if it had existed." In reply to the argument that jurists, etc. may not have used a legal argument in a discussion because they had not known about it, Schacht states: ::a. communications in the Islamic empire at that time were good enough for "doctrines and views" to "spread easily and quickly from one juristic center to another"; ::b. if the behavior and utterances of Muhammad were the basis of Islamic law from the beginning of Islamic society, it is unlikely those involved in matters of law — "among the most learned and pious men of Islam" — would not know them; ::c. there were not dozens but "hundreds of examples in which the disparity between an early decision and a later tradition took place". According to David F. Forte, "it goes beyond rational belief to think that these men would have been so consistently ignorant of contrary actions by the Prophet."


''The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence'' (book)

As a whole, ''Origins'' critiques the methods and standards of ḥadīth verification as they were first articulated by
Al-Shafi‘i Abū ʿAbdillāh Muḥammad ibn Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī ( ar, أَبُو عَبْدِ ٱللهِ مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ إِدْرِيسَ ٱلشَّافِعِيُّ, 767–19 January 820 CE) was an Arab Muslim theologian, writer, and schola ...
and subsequently developed by his students in the eighth and ninth centuries CE, an early and centrally important stage in the formation of Islamic jurisprudence. His research builds upon the work of important figures in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century study of Islamic law in Europe, such as Gustav Weil and
Ignác Goldziher Ignác (Yitzhaq Yehuda) Goldziher (22 June 1850 – 13 November 1921), often credited as Ignaz Goldziher, was a Hungarian scholar of Islam. Along with the German Theodor Nöldeke and the Dutch Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, he is considered the ...
. In particular, Schacht advocates a skeptical approach to medieval forms of 'isnād criticism, which he views as fabricated and comprising the greater part of Sunni approaches to verifying Prophetic traditions of a legal nature.


Argument and Method

Schacht locates the origins of ilm al-ḥadīth'' in the eighth and ninth centuries CE, a moment in the development of Islamic legal reasoning coinciding with the professionalization of the traditionalist (''muḥaddith'') and jurist (''
faqīh A faqīh (plural ''fuqahā'', ar, فقيه, pl. ‏‎) is an Islamic jurist, an expert in ''fiqh'', or Islamic jurisprudence and Islamic Law. Definition Islamic jurisprudence or ''fiqh'' is the human understanding of the Sharia ( ...
'') classes in the urban centers of the
Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...
. Schacht credits Imām al-Shāfiʻī, the founder of an eponymous school of Islamic jurisprudence, with "creating" "the essentials" of the theory of
fiqh ''Fiqh'' (; ar, فقه ) is Islamic jurisprudence. Muhammad-> Companions-> Followers-> Fiqh. The commands and prohibitions chosen by God were revealed through the agency of the Prophet in both the Quran and the Sunnah (words, deeds, and ...
(the system of Islamic jurisprudence), made up of four principles/sources/components mentioned above: the
Qurʾān The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God in Islam, God. It is organized in 114 surah, cha ...
, the ḥadīth of the Prophet Muḥammad and his Companions, scholarly consensus ( ijmāʿ), analogical reasoning ( qiyās). Because the Quran has relatively few verses pertaining to fiqh, Al-Shafi‘i's system meant that "the great bulk" of the rules of the Islamic law were derived from ahadith. Schacht states that Shafi'i repeatedly insisted that "nothing" could override the authority of the Prophet, even if it was "attested only by an isolated tradition", and that if a hadith was "well-authenticated" ('' Ṣaḥīḥ'') going back to the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, it had "precedence over the opinions of his Companions, their successors, and later authorities". Following the work of Goldziher before him, Schacht argues that it was al-Shāfiʻī who first elevated the sunna and its constituent traditions to great legal prominence. The material importance of the Qurʾān and ḥadīth thereafter enjoyed a status comparable to that of juristic consensus, though for al-Shāfiʻī traditions credibly attributed to the Prophet were to be considered more authoritative than those of his Companions, and indeed could supersede all other sources of legal authority. Moreover, an already-existing legal standard based on such a tradition could be overturned only upon the emergence of a ḥadīth that could be more credibly attributable to the Prophet. Al-Shāfiʻī goes as far as to claim that such well-established traditions invite no debate as to their validity; their truth simply imposes itself upon the human mind, leaving no room for doubt or speculation. Schacht points out, however, that al-Shāfiʻī inconsistently applies this rule in his own work, alleging that in some cases the jurist favored 'aḥādīth transmitted from Companions that openly contradicted those attributable to the Prophet. These traditions usually included those which validated ritual practices that were either universally agreed upon or else independently verifiable (such as daily prayer), and those which disputed the legal positions of al-Shāfiʻī's opponents. Building on this lattermost point, Schacht contends that far from constructing the standards of a legitimate epistemic enterprise al-Shāfiʻī's science of ḥadīth amounts to little more than an uncritical acceptance of Prophetic traditions which justified his own legal preferences. These same traditions, claims Schacht, could not survive a stronger program of investigation. Although the technical evaluation of traditions would continue to evolve across many generations of Muslim scholars, it seems to have largely proceeded along the lines of the deficient form of ’isnād criticism first articulated here by al-Shāfiʻī. Later in Origins Schacht presents evidence which in his estimation suggests that there was in fact a large scale fabrication of Prophetic ’isnāds in the generation preceding the life of al-Shāfiʻī's own teacher, Mālik ibn ’Anas (d. 795 CE). Even in Mālik's esteemed golden narrative chain there are suspicious gaps and obvious substitutions, sowing significant doubts as to credibility of the relationships he was said to have had with certain key transmitters. For these reasons modern scholars cannot be nearly as optimistic about the historical-analytic value of ḥadīth literature as were their medieval Muslim counterparts.


Reception

Schacht's views on this matter have come under criticism from scholars in recent decades. His notable critics include M. Muṣṭafā al-Aʻẓamī and
Wael Hallaq Wael B. Hallaq is the Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, where he has been teaching ethics, law, and political thought since 2009. He is considered a leading scholar in the field of Islamic legal studies, and has ...
. Al-A'zami's work ''On Schacht's Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence'' is a systematic response to Schacht's thesis. Hallaq argues that Schacht mistakenly assumes that medieval Muslims scholars held ḥadīth to be apodictically true. According to Hallaq, it is more likely the case — and indeed apparent to the careful reader upon inspecting the literature — that at least where matters of law were concerned medieval Muslim scholars judged the majority of ḥadīth as only probabilistically true. It was the epistemic sum of probable traditions, and not the assured truth of any one tradition in particular, upon which they built their legal rulings.


Legacy

Scholarly reaction to Schacht's work has produced "three camps of scholars" according to Mohsen Haredy citing
Wael Hallaq Wael B. Hallaq is the Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, where he has been teaching ethics, law, and political thought since 2009. He is considered a leading scholar in the field of Islamic legal studies, and has ...
. Those (such as
John Wansbrough John Edward Wansbrough (February 19, 1928 – June 10, 2002) was an American historian who taught at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), where he was vice chancellor from 1985 to 1992. Wansbrough is credit ...
, and Michael Cook) who seek to "reconfirm his conclusions", and at times going beyond them; those who endeavor to refute them (Nabia Abbott, F. Sezgin, M. Azami, Gregor Schoeler and Johann Fück) and a those "seeking to create a middle, perhaps synthesized, position between the two" (Motzki, D. Santillana, G.H. Juynboll, Fazlur Rahman and James Robson). According to David Forte, "nearly all Western Islamic scholars agree that Schacht's evidence against the authenticity of the traditions is virtually unassailable." Some of the supporters of his these include Maurice Gaudefroy-Demombynes, who writes that many ahadith, "are apocryphal and were invented in the 8th century in order to justify innovations and tendencies which were very foreign to the intentions of the Prophet." J. N. D. Anderson, who states most ahadith were, "beyond question, fabricated," Herbert Liebesny Seymour Vesey-Fitzgerald, who states "there was deliberate forgery of traditions by responsible lawyers on such a scale that no purely legal tradition of the Prophet himself can be regarded as above suspicion."Vesey-Fitzgerald, "Nature and Sources of the Shari'a", in 1 ''Law In The Middle East'' 85-94 (M. Khadduri and H. Liebesny eds. 1955).


Works

* Bergsträsser, Gotthelf: ''Grundzüge des islamischen Rechts''. Editor: Joseph Schacht. Berlin-Leipzig 1935. * ''Islam in Northern Nigeria.'' In: ''Studia Islamica'' 8 (1957) 123–146. * Schacht, Joseph: ''An Introduction to Islamic Law''. Oxford 1964. * Schacht, Joseph: ''The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence''. Oxford University Press 1950, (1967 with corrections and Additions).


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Schacht, Joseph 1902 births 1969 deaths People from Racibórz People from the Province of Silesia American Arabists American Islamic studies scholars Scholars of medieval Islamic history Emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United Kingdom Leipzig University alumni University of Breslau alumni University of Freiburg faculty University of Königsberg faculty Jurisprudence academics 20th-century German historians Non-Muslim scholars of Islamic jurisprudence Columbia University faculty