I. How typical was al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s Faḍā’il al-Ṣaḥāba?

Faḍā’il/religious merits literature on the Companions of the Prophet comprises largely non-legal ḥadı̄th that describe the favour Muḥammad bestowed on specific Companions or which enumerate various Companions’ meritorious qualities. Faḍā’il are typically linked to manāqib, and while the two categories/concepts overlap, classical definitions suggest that faḍı̄la or excellence tends to suggest a judgement that is externally conferred. It may be hierarchical (as in the merits of animals over vegetables, or of humans over animals, and of some people over others) or even accidental, as in the case of an act of grace or bounty or favour affecting an individual's status, wealth, rank, or power.Footnote ³ Manāqib is a category generally reserved for personal qualities that are the opposite of mathālib/vices, and indicates personal virtues or excellences that merit praise, such as generosity of action or conduct, a good disposition, or some other internal quality. Due to a certain conceptual slippage between these two sets of characteristics, medieval scholars sometimes used the terms interchangeably or in conjunction with one another.

The reason for the creation and circulation of Faḍā’il al-ṣaḥāba was, first and foremost, “pious partisanship”. The earliest narratives on Faḍā’il al-ṣaḥāba (as featured in chapters, for example, of the Ṣaḥı̄ḥayn) constructed a hierarchy of excellence in which the distinguishing character traits and pious deeds of exemplary figures were enumerated. These traditions were the byproduct of early religio-political succession disputes, and by the third/ninth century, Faḍā’il al-ṣaḥāba compilations served as repositories of traditions that refuted “Shı̄ʿite denigration of all the Companions who did not support ʿAlı̄'s claim to leadership”.Footnote ⁴ More elaborate compilations of Faḍā’il al-ṣaḥāba eventually developed, especially after the fourth/tenth century, into a full-fledged literary genre.Footnote ⁵

Third- and early fourth-century compilations dedicated exclusively to Faḍā’il al-ṣaḥāba were usually arranged according to the identity of the Companion or Companions whose merits were being elucidated in a given chapter or subsection of a work.Footnote ⁶ Two of the earliest stand-alone compilations in the genre are the Faḍā’il al-ṣaḥāba of al-Nasā’ı̄ (d. 303), and the much more extensive Faḍā’il al-ṣahāba by Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal (d. 241), the latter having been compiled and augmented by Ibn Ḥanbal's son ʿAbdallāh (d. 290). In these two works, the emphasis is on pronouncements by Muḥammad about his Companions. Merit or excellence was a matter of judgements made by the Prophet as he enumerated his preferences and expressed praise for this or that Companion's mercy, dutifulness, knowledge, or suchlike. A typical example from al-Nasā’ı̄'s Faḍā’il al-ṣaḥāba, in the section on the Companion Ubayy ibn Kaʿb, lists the following superlative qualities:

Al-Nasā’ı̄'s collection of 284 traditions was apparently compiled to allay suspicions about his alleged Shii sympathies, since he had previously transmitted a series of reports on the virtues of ʿAlı̄ and refused to narrate any Faḍā’il about Muʿāwiya.Footnote ⁸ In Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal's much more extensive (over 2,000 traditions) Faḍā’il al-ṣaḥāba, which includes both prophetic ḥadı̄th and non-prophetic traditions/āthār, there is one brief section entitled “On the saying of ʿAlı̄ and others that the best of this umma after its Messenger are Abū Bakr and ʿUmar”, but the vast majority of the text is divided into chapters arranged according to the names of the Companions whose merits are being described, much like al-Nasā’ı̄'s Faḍā’il al-ṣaḥāba.

In al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s Faḍā’il, the extant chapter of which comprises 84 traditions, there is one subheading that is similar to that in Ibn Ḥanbal's: “What was narrated by the family of Abı̄ Ṭālib and the descendants of ʿAlı̄ about Abū Bakr and ʿUmar”. Unlike Ibn Ḥanbal or al-Nasā’ı̄, however, al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s Faḍā’il is centred exclusively on the views and proclamations of later, non-prophetic figures. In addition to this structural departure – with respect to overall framing and narrative perspective – the anecdotes in al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s Faḍā’il differ from earlier compilations in that they are not overtly laudatory. While other Faḍā’il works enumerated the meritorious qualities of various Companions in terms of precedence in conversion, abstemiousness, prayerfulness, or other qualities like those in the report from al-Nasā’ı̄ cited above,Footnote ⁹ the majority of the reports in al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s chapter attest only indirectly, if at all, to the meritorious qualities of a given Companion or member of the ahl al-bayt (family of the Prophet). Rather, after the first 18 reports (on ʿAlı̄'s deference towards the first two caliphs), nearly all the subsequent anecdotes in the chapter describe varyingly confrontational scenes of second-century intra-Shii tension. Contemporary Shii biographical sources, such as the Rijāl of al-Kashshı̄ (d. 340/951–2), contain similar anecdotes depicting, for example, well-known Zaydı̄ figures in dispute with the fifth and sixth Imāms, with the former regularly failing to acknowledge the authority and knowledge of the latter.Footnote ¹⁰ The same tense Zaydı̄–Imāmı̄ relationship, this time geared towards Sunni audiences and drawn from a variety of disparate sources, is a notable feature of this portion of al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s Faḍā’il. The dominant affective register of these interactions is a mild sense of anger, if not irritation, which could also manifest as suspicion, exasperation, or frustration. An attentiveness to this range of negative emotions helps elucidate the variety of affective tendencies that animated partisan piety in the Būyid era, a period of Shii political and intellectual ascendancy.

Insofar as modern scholars have considered al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s Faḍā’il, they have framed it as “a clear response to Shı̄ʿı̄ claims”, for the purpose of “demonstrating that the Companions held each other in high esteem”.Footnote ¹¹ This assessment is generally correct, though it stops short of explicating the intra-sectarian background that supplied the terms and imagined conditions in which that esteem was articulated. Al-Dāraquṭnı̄ capitalized on reports that filtered out of an earlier era of intra-Shii contestation that was absorbed into Sunni tradition.Footnote ¹² These included numerous reports that described Zaydı̄ interlocutors accusing the Imāms of harbouring animosity for Abū Bakr and ʿUmar; the fifth and sixth Imāms expressing anger or irritation when forced to articulate their views of succession; and contentious interactions featuring prominent ʿAlids who had been embroiled in various dissident movements or rebellions in the first half of the second/eighth century. Rather than the positive traits that elicited Muḥammad's praise or favour that we find in earlier Faḍā’il works, al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s fourth-century Faḍā’il makes its argument for the validity of caliphal succession by recapitulating the religio-political conflicts of the second/eighth century, using reports in which those whom we may categorize as Batrı̄ Zaydı̄s sought to distinguish themselves from their Imāmı̄ rivals.

By al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s day, in fourth-/tenth-century Būyid-controlled Baghdad,Footnote ¹³ increasingly polarized sectarian groups continued either to denigrate the first two caliphs or pejoratively characterize the fifth and sixth Imāms as rāfiḍı̄s, a catch-all derogatory term used to denigrate Imāmı̄ Shiis.Footnote ¹⁴ For most Sunnis, rafḍ was defined as the outright repudiation of Abū Bakr and ʿUmar as legitimate caliphs.Footnote ¹⁵ Al-Dāraquṭnı̄, facing the “same orthodox litmus test as other scholars of his time … ranking the rāshidūn caliphs”, espoused a view that the term also indicated a refusal to rank ʿUthmān over ʿAlı̄ in the order of succession.Footnote ¹⁶ When pressed to put forward his own views on succession, as reported by his student in As'ilat al-Sulamı̄, he said:

II. Al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s methodology

More will be said on the intellectual environment in which al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s Faḍā’il was compiled, but aside from its structure and tone, another way to assess a short text like the Faḍā’il is to consider it in light of the scholar's reputation and his other works. Al-Dāraquṭnı̄ was born in Baghdād and his early studies took place in Baṣra, Kūfa, and Wāsiṭ. He was a staunch Shāfiʿı̄ and an opponent of kalām. As a ḥadı̄th scholar, his towering contribution was his study of the Ṣaḥı̄ḥ̣ayn of al-Bukhārı̄ and Muslim, about which he composed numerous works.Footnote ¹⁸ These included but were not limited to a biographical compilation on the non-Companion transmitters in the Ṣaḥı̄ḥayn and a supplementary ḥadı̄th compilation of reports he thought should have been included in them. In addition to studies on Bukhārı̄ and Muslim, al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s most substantive works were his lengthy compilation of flawed traditions (collected by his student al-Barqānı̄ and entitled ʿIlal al-ḥadı̄th) and a similarly elaborate work on ḥadīth with a single isnād or rare narrations of better-known ḥadı̄th.Footnote ¹⁹ In terms of his methodology, Jonathan Brown has noted al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s “methodological sternness and demand for accuracy”,Footnote ²⁰ as he was “one of the most respected and critically stringent ḥadı̄th scholars of the fourth/tenth century”.Footnote ²¹ Brown also notes that al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s rigour ought to be seen in “the context of the changing science of ḥadı̄th evaluation and its religious and legal environment”, and concludes that above all else, al-Dāraquṭnı̄ was “a master of form” whose “approach to ḥadı̄th criticism centered solely on the processes and vagaries of transmission, to the exclusion of ideological content”.Footnote ²²

Brown's analysis of al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s method was aimed at explicating the scholar's approach to the Ṣaḥı̄ḥayn in order to demonstrate that while he suggested correctives for certain isnāds, he did not reject the validity of the traditions in those two collections. When we apply this understanding of al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s isnād-critical method to the Faḍā’il, it becomes clear that (even though we are dealing in that text with a set of non-prophetic, non-legal traditions, nearly all of which were transmitted with less-than-ṣaḥı̄h isnāds) al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s penchant for locating corroborating traditions and auxiliary (or bolstering) narrations very much applied. In his Faḍā’il, the vast majority (65/84) of the isnāds feature what ḥadı̄th critics would deem deficiencies (such as unknown or problematic transmitters). Yet more than half of these are corroborated by alternative, occasionally stronger, narrations.Footnote ²³ Doubtless it was al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s expertise in the study of flawed traditions (ʿilal), which he had applied to both the Ṣaḥı̄ḥayn and to the “corpus of ḥadı̄ths he received from his teacher Ibrāhı̄m b. al-Ḥusayn al-Karajı̄”Footnote ²⁴ that aided him as he sifted through variant narrations to compile his Faḍā’il.

Considering al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s rigorous approach to the Sunni ḥadı̄th canon and to isnād analysis in particular, it is reasonable to wonder why he felt compelled to assemble this collection of problematically attested traditions on the views of the Companions and the ahl al-bayt. Al-Dāraquṭnı̄ (like al-Nasā’ı̄ before him and like his student al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrı̄, d. 405) was accused of having ʿAlid sympathies/tashayyuʿ on the basis, according to al-Khaṭı̄b al-Baghdādı̄, of having memorized the dı̄wān of al-Sayyid al-Ḥimayrı̄, whose poetry included both condemnation of the salaf and praise of ʿAlı̄.Footnote ²⁵ While in itself, tashayyuʿ was not a negative characteristic, and could simply imply love or esteem for the family of the Prophet, al-Dāraquṭnı̄ had also exhibited a consistent level of tolerance for fellow muḥaddithūn who were more ambivalent than he in their judgements of the Companions’ behaviour during the crises that plagued the early community.Footnote ²⁶ He was known, for example, to have praised other scholars who were either accused of tashayyuʿ or who were Shiis themselves, including al-Nasā’ı̄ (d. 303) and Ibn ʿUqda (d. 332), respectively. In his Faḍā’il, therefore, al-Dāraquṭnı̄ was engaging in an effort to establish appropriate boundaries for Sunni reverence for the family of the Prophet within the purview of the consolidating Sunnism of his day, a process that entailed co-opting universally revered figures like Muḥammad al-Bāqir and Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq. This helps account for his reliance on later traditions that included portrayals of the fifth and sixth Imāms.Footnote ²⁷

There was, of course, no lack of pro-ʿAlid tradition in Sunni traditionist circles. Jonathan Brown has characterized pro-ʿAlid Sunni ḥadı̄th (many with isnāds that included Shii transmitters) as “generally innocuous, with no sectarian edge”, since they “urged goodly and pious behavior” and were “widely transmitted for pietistic purposes”.Footnote ²⁸ I would suggest, however, that in the heightened sectarian and intellectual context of the fourth/tenth century, al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s compilation was differently inflected, if not more explicitly polemical, than the work of his proto- and earlier Sunni predecessors in the Faḍā’il genre, coinciding as it did with a proliferation of Shii Faḍā’il literature. Al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s work came on the heels of heresiographical intra-sectarian treatises by proponents of Shiism, such as the Kitāb firaq al-Shı̄ʿa and Al-radd ʿalā al-ghulāt by al-Nawbakhtı̄ (d. between 300 and 310/912–22). Further, his contemporary Ibn Bābawayh al-Qummı̄ (d. 380) had produced a treatise entitled Faḍā’il al-Shı̄ʿa, among other similar hagiographical works, while Ibn Shādhān (d. 420) had compiled both a Faḍā’il amı̄r al-mu'minīn ʿAlı̄ ibn Abı̄ Ṭālib and Mi'at manqaba min manāqib amı̄r al-mu'minı̄n ʿAlı̄ ibn Abı̄ Ṭālib.Footnote ²⁹ Around the same period, Sunni-adjacent or Sunni scholars would compile still other works dedicated to enumerating the religious merits of ʿAlı̄, including Ibn ʿUqda (d. 332), the famous Zaydı̄ Shii traditionist from Kūfa who compiled a Faḍā’il amı̄r al-mu'minı̄n, and Ibn Mardawayh (d. 410), a “Sunni proponent of tafḍı̄l ʿAlı̄” who, like al-Nasā’ı̄ before him, compiled a work entitled Manāqib ʿAlı̄. Footnote ³⁰ Notably, Al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s representation of ʿAlı̄ and the ahl al-bayt in his Faḍā’il does not include (at least in the surviving portion) the most politicized traditions about ʿAlı̄ that were transmitted by either his predecessors or his contemporaries, including the ḥadı̄th al-munāshada, the ḥadı̄th al-ṭayr, and the ḥadı̄th al-manzila – three famous pro-ʿAlid traditions that extolled the virtues of ʿAlı̄ in terms of his unique relationship with the Prophet.Footnote ³¹ The transmission of these more politicized traditions could, as they had done in the case of al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrı̄, lead to accusations of being a “hardline Shı̄ʿı̄/rāfiḍı̄”.Footnote ³²

As contemporary scholarship on ḥadı̄th transmission has demonstrated, the weakness of the isnāds for the āthār which al-Dāraquṭnı̄ gathered in his Faḍā’il (relative to standards for the transmission of legal ḥadı̄th), while problematic for some later ḥadı̄th critics, would have been of little concern to others. When it came to non-legal matters such as etiquette/manners, matters of piety such as targhı̄b wa-tarhı̄b (exhortation and dissuasion), and Faḍā’il al-aʿmāl (the virtues of actions), many ḥadı̄th scholars reconciled themselves to a position of compromise. They accepted earlier generations’ transmission of such reports even if they had problems with their isnāds such as interruptions, confused or missing names, or transmission by sectaries with dubious reputations. As Brown notes, the Baṣran ḥadı̄th critic ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. al-Mahdı̄ (d. 198) was quoted by al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrı̄ (d. 405) as saying:

Al-Khaṭı̄b al-Baghdādı̄ (d. 463) also justified transmission of these traditions by appealing to the practice of Ibn Ḥanbal, in a chapter of the former's Al-Kifāya fı̄ maʿrifat uṣūl ʿilm al-riwāya entitled “Strictness in legal ḥadı̄th and laxity in the virtues of actions”. In terms very similar to Ibn al-Mahdı̄'s, Ibn Ḥanbal cites the permissibility of laxity with isnāds for those traditions which “do not create a rule or remove one”.Footnote ³⁴ Christopher Melchert's assessment on the issue of laxity with non-legal ḥadı̄th and strictness with legal ones is more nuanced. In his analysis of the Musnad of Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, he notes that Ibn Ḥanbal “presumably saw fit to include most of [the ḥadı̄th deemed weak in the Musnad] because they had parallels elsewhere…Aḥmad accepted as sound what was corroborated, rejected as dubious what was not”.Footnote ³⁵ As we have seen, for many of the problematically attested reports in the extant chapter of the Faḍā’il, al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s method was rather similar to Ibn Ḥanbal's in this regard. A final way ḥadı̄th critics accounted for this practice was to “look the other way” if a transmitter held problematic beliefs but was known to have refrained from proselytizing about them.Footnote ³⁶ While it was not a unanimously held position among Sunni scholars,Footnote ³⁷ approval for the transmission of dubious non-legal ḥadı̄th and āthār was more common for traditions on Faḍā’il than for other genres or topics.Footnote ³⁸ Much like Faḍā’il al-aʿmāl and targhı̄b wa-tarhı̄b, Faḍā’il literature was aimed at cultivating piety.Footnote ³⁹ In one contemporary study of al-Dāraquṭni's life and work, in which the Faḍā’il is briefly catalogued, the preponderance of weak isnāds attached to the traditions in the text is attributed to the probability that al-Dāraquṭnı̄ “was of the school of thought that considered it permissible to work with weak ḥadı̄th on matters of Faḍā’il”.Footnote ⁴⁰

III. The contents of Al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s Faḍā’il al-ṣaḥāba

The extant chapter of al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s Faḍā’il consists of 84 reports describing a series of interactions between two sets of figures. On the one hand are ʿAlı̄ ibn Abı̄ Ṭālib and ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (the first 18 reports of the chapter). On the other hand are a number of second/eigth-century Zaydı̄s interacting with the fifth and sixth Shii Imāms, Muḥammad al-Bāqir (d. 114) and Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 148) or other prominent ʿAlids such as Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafiyya (the remaining 66 reports). Following a brief description of the first, shorter portion, I will focus this analysis on several of the more confrontational encounters in the second, lengthier portion of the extant text.

The chapter begins with a series of 18 anecdotes that describe ʿAlı̄'s fondness for a certain garment that had belonged to ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb. These reports, some of which describe ʿAlı̄'s praise of ʿUmar as nāṣiḥ Allāh,Footnote ⁴¹ have a clear sectarian purpose. They serve as a rejoinder to numerous Shii traditions that describe ʿAlı̄ behaving more justly than ʿUmar during the reign of the latter, and to others which portray ʿAlı̄ as more knowledgeable than ʿUmar about the sunna of the Prophet.Footnote ⁴² The Zaydı̄ Ibn ʿUqda's (d. 332/3) Faḍā’il amı̄r al-mu'minı̄n is an obvious counterpoint, as it contains chapters expressly aimed at exalting ʿAlı̄ as the “most knowledgeable”, the “soundest in judgment”, and the “closest of all people to the Messenger of God”.Footnote ⁴³ A number of repetitive anecdotes appear in succession, describing ʿAlı̄'s tendency to wear a garment described as “the cloak of my bosom companion (khalı̄lı̄) ʿUmar, may God be pleased with him”.Footnote ⁴⁴ This purported friendship between ʿAlı̄ and ʿUmar stands in sharp contrast, however, to other narratives embedded in this section that describe less conciliatory interactions between ʿAlı̄ or other members of the Ahl al-Bayt and ʿUmar. In one tense incident that took place during the caliphate of ʿUmar, ʿAlı̄'s son al-Ḥusayn insults the caliph while the latter is on the minbar of the Prophet's mosque and tells him to “get down from my father's minbar”.Footnote ⁴⁵ ʿAlı̄ quickly interjects with the disavowal, “By God, I did not tell him to say that”, to which ʿUmar replies, “By God, I did not accuse you of doing so”.Footnote ⁴⁶ While ʿAlı̄ is portrayed as having stepped in quickly, the incident is hardly construed as a harmonious one. ʿUmar's response is fairly curt and the other main character in the scenario, al-Ḥusayn, is likewise only briefly mentioned. A second awkward incident occurs in another report relayed by Jaʿfar al-Ṣāḍiq from his father, Muḥammad al-Bāqir, about a conversation that took place after ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb had been stabbed, but before he had succumbed to his fatal wounds. The injured ʿUmar sent an unnamed messenger to question a group of Companions who had participated in the Battle of Badr and who were gathered together to discuss what had happened. The messenger asked, “By God, are you pleased by this act?” The group, presumably supporters of ʿAlı̄, is said to have hesitated, remaining silent until ʿAlı̄ interjected, “[Tell him] I swear we are not, our love for you is such that we would extend your life with our own”.Footnote ⁴⁷

The second set of anecdotes, making up the bulk of the chapter, refrains from enumerating even superficial niceties and instead manifests the well-documented phenomenon of persistent inquiries put to prominent ʿAlids by impertinent interrogators. Scholars of Shiism have described the atmosphere in which such interrogations took place as one of “severe hostility and mistrust”, characterizing it as typical of a period of speculation [the second/eighth century] about the beliefs of the Imāms.Footnote ⁴⁸  In these reports, we find representations of prominent ʿAlids espousing Sunni-compliant views of the early succession disputes, a trope which would become more common in later Sunni literature. As Michael Dann has noted, texts like Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānı̄'s Ḥilyat al-awlı̄yā’, Ibn ʿAsākir's Tārı̄kh Madı̄nat Dimashq, and al-Dhahabı̄'s Siyar aʿlām al-nubalā’ “almost universally” portray the Imāms “as distancing themselves from or condemning positions associated with rafḍ”.Footnote ⁴⁹ This literature includes accounts of activist Zaydı̄s who “spared no effort in condemning the so-called ‘Rāfiḍı̄s’ who were their chief competitors for legitimacy among the various pro-ʿAlid factions of the 8^th century”.Footnote ⁵⁰ This intra-Shii competition was a major determinant in the formation of early sectarianism, leading some to argue that the defining feature of activist Zaydı̄ Imāms was not their support for, or participation in, the revolt of Zayd ibn ʿAlı̄, but their opposition to the so-called Rāfiḍa “as an object of hostility”.Footnote ⁵¹

Al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s text demonstrates the utility of these second/eighth-century, usually intra-Shii accounts, for the co-optation of revered Imāms in his Faḍā’il. In one account, a man named Ḥabı̄b al-Asadı̄ reports that he saw a group of people from Kūfa and the Jazı̄ra approach the fifth Imām to inquire about his views on Abū Bakr and ʿUmar. Al-Bāqir is said to have turned to Ḥabı̄b and said, “Look at the people of my country, asking me about Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, may God be pleased with them both. As far as I am concerned, they have precedence over (afḍal min) ʿAlı̄”.Footnote ⁵² In another case, ʿAlı̄'s son, Muḥammad ibn al-ḤanafiyyahFootnote ⁵³ (d. 81), is reported to have answered in a similar vein:

The expression “the best of those who remained” was a standard one in Faḍā’il-based disputes regarding precedence of conversion.Footnote ⁵⁶ What I wish to note here is less the content of the actual dialogue than the representation of interiority with respect to Sālim ibn Abı̄ Jaʿd, who expresses his doubt about the ʿAlid's views with the phrase “there was something in my heart”, which I have interpreted as an expression of misgiving or doubt.Footnote ⁵⁷ This expression of misgiving sets the stage for a similar interaction, this time featuring Sālim ibn Abı̄ Ḥafsa, a well-known Batrı̄ Zaydı̄ from Kūfa who died in 137 or 140 ah. Ibn Abı̄ Ḥafṣa visits Jaʿfar al-Ṣāḍiq on the latter's sickbed, and hears him say, “I swear that I affiliate with Abū Bakr and ʿUmar/atawallāhumā.Footnote ⁵⁸ I swear, if I should hold in my [heart] any belief other than this, then I should be deprived of the intercession of Muḥammad on the Day of Resurrection”.Footnote ⁵⁹ In a second encounter with the same Sālim Ibn Abı̄ Ḥafṣa, we find a brief glimpse into the Batrı̄ Zaydı̄ interlocutor's interior monologue, as well as al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s gloss on Sālim himself:

In this last account, suspicion regarding the Imām's allegiance is not voiced to the figure on the receiving end of the interrogation, though the audience receiving the report does have the benefit of the interlocutor's unspoken scepticism as well as the characterization of Sālim ibn Abı̄ Ḥafṣa as a “leader among those who disparaged/criticized Abū Bakr and ʿUmar.Footnote ⁶¹ The phrase here is min ru'ūs man yantaqiṣ Abā Bakr wa-ʿUmar.Footnote ⁶² Al-Dāraquṭnı̄ cited another more emotive report detailing the same incident, in which the context is the Imām's increasing frustration with Sālim, where the Imām exclaims, “Oh Sālim! Would a man curse his own grandfather? Abū Bakr is my grandfather. May I be deprived of the intercession of Muḥammad on the Day of Resurrection [if I believe otherwise]. I am innocent of the enemies of them both [Abū Bakr and ʿUmar]”.Footnote ⁶³

The Batrı̄ Zaydı̄ position is generally characterized as a moderate one in which ʿAlı̄ was deemed more meritorious (afḍal) than Abū Bakr and ʿUmar even as the caliphates of Abū Bakr and ʿUmar were deemed legitimate, a position that could put them at odds with proto- or early Imāmı̄s. Najam Haider has actually described Sālim Ibn Abı̄ Ḥafṣa as an “ambiguous” figure who “hover[ed] at the edges of multiple communal identities”.Footnote ⁶⁴ Similarly, Dann notes that “although [Ibn Abı̄ Ḥafṣa] was counted as a companion of Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq in Imāmī sources, there was clearly a great deal of friction between him and members of the Imāmī community in Kūfa, who counted him among the Batrīs”.Footnote ⁶⁵ In keeping with one hypothesis as noted above, Ibn Abı̄ Ḥafṣa's categorization as a Batrı̄ (by Imāmı̄ Shiis) seemed to stem less from his position on caliphal legitimacy and more from his “criticism of Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq for the equivocating practice of precautionary dissimulation (taqiyya), claiming that he [Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq] spoke in seventy different ways and always had a way out”.Footnote ⁶⁶ Hossein Modarressi has also described Sālim as someone who “quoted ḥadı̄th from Muḥammad al-Bāqir but was not on good terms with Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and his followers”.Footnote ⁶⁷ He was known to badger, annoy, or otherwise provoke the Imām under the pretence of sincere interaction.Footnote ⁶⁸ One incident that highlights Sālim's reputation is reported, for example, in the Amālı̄ of al-Mufı̄d (d. 413), where Ibn Abı̄ Ḥafṣa visits Jaʿfar, this time after the latter's father (al-Bāqir) has died:

Sālim ibn Ḥafṣa is not the only prominent Zaydı̄ figure to appear in al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s text. In another report, we find the following confrontation between Muḥammad al-Bāqir and Kathı̄r al-Nawwā’ “al-Abtar”Footnote ⁷¹ (the derogatory appellation by which the Batrı̄ Zaydı̄s were named).Footnote ⁷²

Kathı̄r, like Sālim ibn Abı̄ Ḥafṣa, is described in Imāmı̄ sources as not “recognizing [al-Bāqir's] full rank as imām and sole authority in religion and as criticizing him for ambiguities in his teaching”.Footnote ⁷⁴ Michael Dann has posited that “although the intricacies of such intra-Shīʿite debates left few traces in Sunnī literature, some proto-Sunnī figures seem to have been aware of them”.Footnote ⁷⁵ Al-Dāraquṭnı̄, indeed, seems to have been acutely aware of the polemical value of these traces. When the antagonist in an anecdote is a figure like Sālim ibn Abı̄ Ḥafṣa or Kathı̄r al-Nawwā’, it is clear that it is at Zaydı̄ expense that the fifth or sixth Imām's reputation is being rehabilitated and co-opted for a Sunni audience.Footnote ⁷⁶

Turning back to questions about the genre of faḍā’il itself, it becomes clear that by limiting his framework to what later figures said about one another, al-Dāraquṭnı̄ kept his faḍā’il compilation firmly rooted in the soil of reports that were less likely to extol the merits of the early caliphs themselves, and more likely to reflect arguments and confrontations that were the byproduct of earlier intra-Shii tension. In other words, the negative tenor of these encounters stems from the context in which they were likely produced: the second/eighth-century environment in which strands of anti-authoritarian Zaydism and proto-Imāmı̄ quietism vied with one another. Zaydı̄ Imāms and leaders, including Muḥammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya and his father ʿAbdallāh b. Al-Ḥasan (both d. 145) are depicted as expressing marked displeasure and hastening to distinguish themselves from the so-called rāfiḍa. In another report, Ibrāhı̄m b. ʿAbdallāh ibn al-Ḥasan al-Muthanna categorizes the rāfiḍa as “those who have betrayed us, just as the Ḥarūriya (a Khārijite group) betrayed ʿAlı̄”.Footnote ⁷⁷ Picking up on these tensions, al-Dāraqutnı̄ selected and capitalized on reports that included representations of conflict between Zaydı̄s and early Imāmı̄s, some of which were more attenuated than others. Occasionally, it is simply the use of the vocative that is meant to indicate incredulity or displeasure, as in al-Ṣādiq's exclamation “Oh Sālim!” when Ibn Abı̄ Ḥafṣa expresses scepticism about the Imām's use of the appellation “al-Ṣiddı̄q” to describe Abū Bakr.Footnote ⁷⁸ The same vocative appeared when Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq asked Ibn Abı̄ Ḥafṣa, “Oh Sālim! Would a man curse his own grandfather?”Footnote ⁷⁹ At other times, florid protestations that an Imām would rather “forego the intercession of the Prophet on the Day of Judgment” than criticize the first two caliphs depict exasperation on the part of al-Bāqir or al-Ṣādiq, sometimes resulting in blanket accusations of heresy against “anyone who criticized Abū Bakr and ʿUmar”.Footnote ⁸⁰ In one particularly tense scene, Muḥammad al-Bāqir relays a conversation in which a man approaches his father, ʿAlı̄ Zayn al-ʿĀbidı̄n, demanding his opinion of Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, and is cursed by the Imām, who begins his reply with the oath, “May your mother be bereft of you!/Thakilatka ummuka! Footnote ⁸¹

As I have mentioned, the misrepresentation and co-optation of the fifth and sixth Imāms in later medieval Sunni articulations of legitimate leadership and communal unity has been noted by modern scholars. However, most discussions of this phenomenon reference sources much later than al-Dāraquṭnı̄, such as Ibn ʿAsākir's (d. 571) Tārı̄kh madı̄nat Dimashq, Muḥibb al-Dı̄n al-Ṭabarı̄’s (d. 694) Al-Riyāḍ al-naḍira fı̄ manāqib al-ʿAshara, or al-Dhahabı̄'s (d. 748) Siyar Aʿlām al-nubalā’.Footnote ⁸² In a discussion of the term tawallā, for example, Hamid Algar has argued that the appearance of the word in al-Ṭabarı̄'s Al-Riyāḍ al-naḍira demonstrates “the use of Shii terminology [such as tawallā and tabarra'a] to subvert Shii doctrines while promoting their Sunnı̄ counterparts”, suggesting “a deliberate manipulation, at a time and by hands unknown, of Shii concepts and beliefs with the aim of presenting a central figure of Shı̄ʿism as fundamentally opposed to its main tendencies”.Footnote ⁸³

This brief compilation of reports gathered by al-Dāraquṭnı̄, therefore, represents an early instantiation of what would become an enduring polemical trend. In al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s text, the precise meaning of the complex concept of tawallā (love, affiliation) is not explored, but the affect with which it is asserted is decidedly negative. Rather than an expression of fealty, the use of tawallā or tabarra'a is more in the form of an oath.Footnote ⁸⁴ What comes across most strongly in these incidents is not love for or devotion to the first two caliphs so much as the anger or irritation of al-Bāqir and al-Ṣādiq in particular, who use tawallā as a perfunctory corollary to tabarra'a as they argue with impertinent Zaydı̄ figures who seem intent on catching them out in acts of mere dissimulation, and are made to declare their dissociation from broad swaths of people who persist in denying the legitimacy of the first two caliphs.Footnote ⁸⁵

IV. Emotional communities, al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s Faḍā’il, and genre

In light of its distinguishing structure and tone, it is worth asking whether al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s compilation was, in spite of its title, really much of a faḍā’il text at all. Though it has some unique characteristics, I would ultimately argue that it remains within the broader genre, even as it shifts the boundaries of faḍā’il literature itself. Primarily, al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s Faḍā’il unequivocally shares the polemical motivation of other Sunni Faḍā’il al-ṣaḥāba compilations: to justify the hierarchy of early caliphal succession as a matter of relative merit. The surviving portion of the compilation is devoid of the prophetic ḥadı̄th typical of other Faḍā’il al-ṣaḥāba compilations, yet in spite of having been mostly lost to us, we know that the text was nevertheless received as a work centred on praising early figures. In his Minhāj al-sunna, for example, Ibn Taymiyya (d. 653) mentioned the ninth, now lost chapter of the work, referring to it as “Thanā’ al-ṣaḥāba ʿalā al-qarāba wa thanā’ al-qarāba ʿalā al-ṣaḥāba”, additionally confirming that the compilation was limited to explicating the views of the Companions about the family members of the Prophet and vice versa.

Further, while some of the narratives in the brief compilation are unusual, al-Dāraquṭnı̄ was not the first to relate them. He lived at a time in which the stand-alone genre of Faḍā’il al-ṣaḥāba was still being formed, and there were thousands of Faḍā’il al-ṣaḥāba traditions of varying quality to sift through. A number of the reports al-Dāraquṭnı̄ selected for his faḍā’il text had appeared interspersed among several earlier faḍā’il and non-faḍā’il compilations, including the Muṣannaf of Ibn Abı̄ Shayba (d. 235), the Faḍā’il al-ṣaḥāba of Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal (d. 241), Ibn Saʿd's (d. 230) Ṭabaqāt, and the Kitāb al-Sharı̄ʿa by al-Ājurrı̄ (d. 320). Al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s primary innovation, then, was to gather these earlier traditions under the unique framing rubric of “Sayings of the Companions and Ahl al-Bayt about one another”, thereby extending the narrative purview of Faḍā’il al-ṣaḥāba from one in which the Companions were the objects of a primarily Prophet-centric discourse into one in which Companions and later figures (including tābiʿı̄s/Successors and the Imāms themselves) became discursive agents as well.

One reason to consider the text a somewhat transitional faḍā’il work, leaning away from mere praise and veering towards a kind of soft polemic aimed at reconciling (rather than simply ranking or comparing) the Companions and the ahl al-bayt is its apparent impact on the genre of faḍā’il-inflected polemic. Al-Dāraquṭnı̄ may have been the first to employ later figures’ “Sayings” as his over-arching framing device, but other scholars followed suit. Al-Lālikā’ı̄'s (d. 418) Sharḥ uṣūl iʿtiqād ahl al-sunna wa-l-jamāʿa would adapt the “they said/they said” rubric as a chapter subheading, containing one entitled Mā ruwiya ʿan ʿAlı̄ wa-ahl al-bayt fı̄ faḍl Abı̄ Bakr, concluding with a substantial section on religious merits interspersed with other chapters condemning ghuluww/Shii extremismFootnote ⁸⁶ and elaborating on the Sunni tradition of the ḥadı̄th al-ʿashara/the “Ten Promised Paradise”.Footnote ⁸⁷ In his Al-Riyāḍ al-naḍira fı̄ manāqib al-ʿashara, Aḥmad al-Muḥibb al-Ṭabarı̄ cites a similarly structured, slightly later work entitled Ma rawāhu kullu farı̄q fı̄-l-ākhar by Abū Saʿı̄d Ismāʿı̄l ibn ʿAlı̄ ibn Ḥasan al-Sammān (d. 445).Footnote ⁸⁸ That title is a variation, based on a reference in a mukhtaṣar of al-Sammān's work by al-Zamakhsharı̄. Al-Sammān's tract was likely entitled Kitāb al-muwāfaqa bayna ahl al-bayt wa-l-ṣaḥāba. The Muwāfaqa is the closest early corollary to al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s Faḍā’il, and 13 of the 84 reports in al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s Faḍā’il correspond to narratives in al-Sammān's Muwāfaqa.Footnote ⁸⁹ Much later, even more explicitly polemical works would continue employing the “Sayings about One Another” structure, such as Abū Ḥāmīd al-Maqdisı̄'s (d. 888) Al-Radd ʿalā al-rāfiḍa, a polemical tract with numerous subsections that follow the same structure, with a chapter entitled, for example, Mā ruwiya ʿan ʿAlı̄ wa-ahl al-bayt fı̄ faḍl Abı̄ Bakr. Footnote ⁹⁰ The well-worn disputative strategy of using the pronouncements of one's rivals to bolster one's own views was not exclusive to Sunni faḍā’il or polemical literature, and Shii scholars also co-opted Sunni figures (e.g. the Companion Abū Dharr al-Ghifārı̄) to amplify the faḍā’il of ʿAlı̄.Footnote ⁹¹

While the text clearly advocates for a partisan position on the issue of succession, as did nearly all Faḍā’il al-ṣaḥāba compilations, the rubric and tone chosen by al-Dāraquṭnı̄ for his Faḍā’il emphasizes the polemical rather than the edifying or laudatory tradition. In an era of consolidating Sunnism, put into sharp relief in Būyid Baghdād, intra-Shii tensions from an earlier era were thus enfolded into the faḍā’il corpus writ large. Put differently, al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s text demonstrates how the parameters of faḍā’il expanded beyond enumeration of expressions of Muḥammad's favour for positive virtues to accommodate the negative emotions of later figures, including their suspicion, incredulity, anger, or frustration.

In addition to the reasons for inclusivity with regard to non-legal traditions or traditions with weak isnāds discussed above, a final rationale for accepting such ḥadı̄th or āthār was that it allowed for the collection of “more colorful and affective reports” that had “pedagogical utility”.Footnote ⁹² The nature of what counted as pedagogically efficacious, however, is generally left unexplained. Studies centred on faḍā’il have (aptly, due to the generally positive nature of the early faḍā’il tradition) tended to emphasize their hagiographical nature, highlighting the genre's representation of positive character traits deemed worthy of reverence or emulation. The premier example of such a work is Asma Afsaruddin's Excellence and Precedence, a comprehensive study on sābiqa/precedence and faḍā’il with respect to leadership and succession that analyses competitive tropes such as generosity, abstemiousness, valour, and service to Islam.Footnote ⁹³ Afsaruddin has probed the complex theological and political dimensions of how Abū Bakr and ʿAlı̄ were construed in terms of their religious excellence and precedence as criteria for leadership, in order to argue against the early emergence of an emphasis on biological kinship with Muḥammad as a factor in Shii claims to legitimate authority.Footnote ⁹⁴ Later, more elaborate, faḍā’il works on the “Ten Promised Paradise” are even more explicitly pietistic, though they also served an anti-Shii polemical purpose.Footnote ⁹⁵ In short, faḍā’il literature is often treated as implicitly hagiographical,Footnote ⁹⁶ and in spite of the Faḍā’il al-ṣaḥāba genre's decidedly political origins, constructions of pious partisanship are seen as the purview of faḍā’il traditions and texts that valorized positive emotions. Al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s contribution to the genre does not fit neatly into such conceptions.

Negative affective representations in pious tradition-based literature have not, however, gone entirely unnoticed. Taking a broader view of the positive and negative emotive potential in adab and ḥadı̄th (two fields of knowledge which were interconnected), studies on the renunciant tradition emphasize a wide range of emotions in zuhd literature, as do works on Sufism.Footnote ⁹⁷ In fact, according to Christopher Melchert, to the category of ḥadı̄th-based tradition:

Zuhd literature, targhı̄b wa-tarhı̄b, and faḍā’il are related in terms of their content (all are aimed at edification or pious instruction or exhortation) and in their consistent reliance on non-legal, generally “weaker” or more dubious ḥadı̄th and āthār. Each of these genres of edifying or exhortatory literature contains its own range of affective possibilities, which display the various emotional moods with which piety could be construed.

To conclude this analysis of al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s Faḍā’il, I would like to suggest that we appreciate the work as a faḍā’il text precisely because of its representation of negative affects. Appreciating the range of emotive possibilities (positive and negative) in faḍā’il literature is especially relevant considering the genre's relationship to the cultivation of sectarian partisanship in different ways over time. Attention to affective variety in the faḍā’il texts will shed light on how emotion was central to the formation of sectarianism, since the shared stakes and communal aspects of sectarianism itself hinged on the formation of what Barbara Rosenwein has called “emotional communities”:

The history of emotion is a developed field of study for the medieval west, and has been applied to select sources on medieval Islam, especially (but not only) the Quran.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ In addition to Christopher Melchert's study of fear in the renunciant tradition, which addresses the emotive qualities of ascetic literature, Zouhair Ghazal has highlighted tropes of ghaḍab/anger displayed by the Prophet in the Ṣaḥı̄ḥayn and in the Musnad of Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal.Footnote ¹⁰¹ Most recently, a monograph on childhood, emotion, and visual culture in Islamic societies by Jamal Elias devotes an entire chapter to reviewing affect theory and the history of emotions and their relevance to Islamic culture.Footnote ¹⁰² These works represent a new theoretical infusion into the study of different types of Islamic sources, with enormous potential for historians of religion as well, since, as Julia Bray has suggested:

When it comes to faḍā’il, it has been noted that their focus shifted, after the fourth/tenth century, from particular groups to the “Qur’ānically guided vision of a righteous polity led by its most morally excellent members”.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ The contents and tenor of al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s Faḍā’il suggest that in assessing how that morality was construed, we ought to pay attention to negative affective aspects of this literature in addition to the valorized positive traits embodied by revered figures or pious exemplars. The suspiciousness of Sālim ibn Jaʿd, the insolence of Sālim ibn Abı̄ Ḥafṣa, the exasperation and frustration of al-Bāqir and al-Ṣādiq: these too were among the affective dimensions of the faḍā’il tradition, and contributed to the formation of an increasingly sectarian faḍā’il discourse peopled by figures who were neither the Prophet nor even his Companions, whose imagined loyalties pushed the boundaries of the genre beyond an exclusively laudatory purview.

The extant chapter of al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s contribution to Faḍā’il al-ṣaḥāba is just one brief text, and it is a somewhat idiosyncratic text at that, but it emerged from a specific intra-Shii context. Containing contentious interactions rather than idealized pietistic themes, a compilation like al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s Faḍā’il reveals the workings of an evolving competitive discourse in which the representation of negative affects was considered an instructive and persuasive narrative device. What al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s compilation teaches us, as brief and fragmentary as it may be, is that the cultivation of pious partisanship through the collection and dissemination of faḍā’il was not necessarily a straightforwardly hagiographical endeavour.