The following is a thread by scholar Joshua Little regarding Harald Motzki:
Thread App write-up
Harald Motzki (d. 2019) was an extremely influential scholar in secular Hadith Studies, best known for his criticisms of Joseph Schacht and Gautier Juynboll; his work on the Muṣannaf of ʿAbd al-Razzāq; and his defence of the isnād-cum-matn analysis.
Motzki is also one of the most misunderstood and miscited scholars in this field—usually in popular discourse, but sometimes even in scholarship. In particular, it is often said that Motzki reaffirmed the traditional reliability of Hadith, or something to that effect.
It may thus come as a surprise to discover that, in many ways, Motzki was actually quite skeptical and revisionist!
This thread will provide some notable examples thereof.
[This thread was requested by my colleague @DrJavadTHashmi, and is based on drafts of some material that I have been working on. Hopefully, it will eventually appear as a proper article!]
To be clear, this thread is about what Motzki said, rather than whether what he said is correct. In other words, even if we ultimately conclude that Motzki was wrong about everything, it is useful to know what he actually thought about Hadith, etc.!
To begin with, Motzki famously criticised Schacht’s model of the development of Hadith and Fiqh. However, his disagreements with Schacht have been exaggerated: in some key respects, he actually accepted the Schachtian model.
For example, Motzki’s conclusions about the concept of Sunnah in the usage of ʿ Aṭāʾ b. Abī Rabāḥ (d. 732-735), one of the greatest early Meccan jurists, is consistent with Schacht’s view thereon: general, communal good practice.
Motzki concluded that early Meccan Fiqh was “primarily” based upon Raʾy (juridical reasoning, opinion, or preference) rather than Hadith, which is similar to Schacht’s view. (They only differed on whose Raʾy it was!) Motzki himself acknowledged this:
Motzki also acknowledged that his own research confirmed Schacht’s observations and inferences that the jurists of the 8th Century overwhelmingly cited Follower and Companion hadiths, rather than hadiths of the Prophet:
Motzki also seemed to agree with some skeptics regarding there being evidence of the mass-retrojection of Prophetical Hadith unto Ibn ʿAbbās:
Finally, Schacht and Juynboll’s chronology on the rise of the regular use of isnāds (that it occurred around the early-to-mid 8th Century) is actually very similar to Motzki’s own findings:
In short, many of Motzki’s “findings” actually “support Schacht’s vision of the development of Islamic law,” as @GabrielSaidR observes.
This is not to say that Motzki did not disagree with Schacht et al. on many issues – he certainly did. But he also affirmed—or produced results that are consistent with—many of Schacht’s basic conclusions on early Hadith and Fiqh.
Moving on to the isnād-cum-matn analysis (henceforth, abbreviated as ICMA)!
To put it simply, the ICMA systematically identifies correlations between specific wordings and specific tradents, explaining the latter as being responsible for the former, and thereby reconstructing earlier redactions of the hadith in question.
Firstly, it should be noted that Motzki himself did not invent the ICMA, nor did his notable colleagues Andreas Görke and Gregor Schoeler.
We might actually identify a kind of forerunner to the ICMA already in classical Islamic scholarship, with the identification of idrāj (insertion or interpolation in hadiths) with specific tradents.
Certainly, @hasibmn has argued that the ICMA does in fact exist in classical Islamic Hadith scholarship:
I am personally not yet convinced of this (e.g., that intermittent identifications of idrāj = the ICMA), but I will continue to look into the matter. If anyone more familiar with traditional Hadith scholarship has input thereon, please let me know!
Regardless, Motzki himself seems to have identified Jan Kramers (wr. 1953) and Joseph van Ess (wr. 1975) is the pioneers of the ICMA.
Less known, or unappreciated, is the fact that Juynboll also seems to have practiced or at least advocated a version of the ICMA, often noting the recurring correlations between particular tradents and particular wordings, explaining the latter as the redactions of the former:
However, Juynboll did not systematically reconstruct earlier recensions thereby & mostly focused on isnāds in his published analyses. Also, he & Motzki famously debated the reliability of SSs & role of CLs. Thus, his support—at least in principle—of the ICMA has been overlooked.
Indeed, some scholars see a big methodological break between Juynboll and Motzki, whereas Kevin Reinhart sees the latter as a refinement of the former—correctly, in my view, especially given all of the above.
Moving on to Motzki’s implementation of the ICMA.
Firstly, some points on his view of “common links”, i.e., the recurring sources or bottlenecks collectively cited within the isnāds of given hadiths; or the first mass-transmitters of these hadiths.
Motzki actually agreed with Juynboll that the CL is at least the formulator of the underlying, common wording of the various redactions of their students; the hadith’s ur-form is their formulation, even if the CL is paraphrasing something earlier (as Motzki would have it).
This agreement on what was at minimum the role of the CL has been noted by Reinhart, again:
Motzki also conceded that it is plausible that CLs (here referred to as “first collectors”) simply guessed or inferred earlier names in their cited isnāds:
Moving on the utility of the ICMA: Motzki was famously quite pessimistic thereon, given that the method is usually only able to reconstruct a basic outline of elements back to 8th-Century CLs, and an even barer common “kernel” back into the 7th Century:
In other words, far from showing that hadiths are somehow straightforwardly ‘authentic’, Motzki’s ICMA actually shows that reports and memories underwent considerable mutation and legendary development in the course of transmission over the first two centuries of Islam. E.g.:
It is presumably for this reason, along with the belated emergence of isnāds (i.e. transmission was mostly undocumented until at least the end of the 7th C.), that Motzki concluded the ICMA can rarely if ever demonstrate that hadiths are accurate representations of the Prophet:
That is why Motzki was reluctant to push hadiths all the way back to the Prophet, despite the cheeky prodding of some colleagues!
For a recent discussion with some similar points about the limitations of the ICMA, see @shahanSean, Muhammad, pp. 6-7.
In short, Motzki was a very influential scholar in secular Hadith Studies, and a famous critic of Schacht and Juynboll. However, in many key respects, he held similar views to his forebears. Contrary to popular misconception, Motzki was actually quite skeptical and revisionist.