Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

Addendum

The effort made by the Sunnis in correcting and explaining a tradition

Here in bringing our discussion to an end, it would be fitting to pause for a while and make a survey of the tradition quoted in previous pages, and evaluate the efforts made by Sunni scholars in explaining and interpreting it and comparing it with true facts.

It is narrated in Muslim’s book of Sahih that the Prophet said:“My sanctity is in Medina in the land situated between the mountains of Thawr and ‘Ayr or ‘A’ir.” (403)

The narrators of this quotation have intended to create boundaries of sanctity for Medina, as it has been done for Mecca. But they have erred in choosing Thawr mountain as a boundary since this mountain is situated in Mecca. It is the spot where the Prophet went into hiding in a cave on his emigration from Mecca to Medina,(404) and Medina does not possess a mountain named Thawr, as it is testified by the following great scholars.

1-Mus‘ab az-Zubayri of Medina, who is a great scholar of that city and died in 236 of the Hijrah, says about this tradition:“Thawr mountain is not in Medina.” (405)

2-Famous scholar Abu ‘Ubayd al-Qasim ibn Salam, who died in 224 of the Hijrah, writes:“This is an Iraqi narration. The people of Medina know of no mountain in Medina called Thawr. This mountain is in Mecca. My belief is that the tradition was related to the mountain of Uhud, which was mistaken for Thawr.” (406) What Abu ‘Ubayd means is that the said narration has been quoted by the people of Iraq who had no knowledge of Medina and was not aware that Thawr is not a Medinan mountain.

3-Qadi ‘Ayyad, who died in 544 of the Hijrah, author of Description of Muslim’s book of Sahih.

4-Bakri, a geographer who died in 478 of the Hijrah, in the book of Mu‘jam ma ista‘jam.

5-Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Musa Hazimi, memorizer of the Qur’an and tradition scholar who died in the year 548 of the Hijrah.(407)

6-Great scholar Ibn al-Athir Jaziri, who died in 606 of the Hijrah, in the book of an-Nihayat al-lughah, on the word“Thawr” .(408)

7-Yaqut al-Hamawi, who died in 626 of the Hijrah, a geographer and writer of the geographical encyclopedia of Mu‘jam al-buldan, in the same book on the word“Thawr” .(409)

All the above scholars assert that no such mountain named Thawr exists in Medina. Therefore to correct and compensate this error, Sunni tradition scholars have made the following efforts:

The leader of their tradition scholars, al-Bukhari, who died in 256 of the Hijrah, abstain from mentioning the name of Thawr mountain in his book of Sahih, and says in one place:“Medina is a sanctity from the mountain of ‘Ayr to so-and-so mountain” (410) , while in Muslim’s book of Sahih the word Thawr is mentioned in the place of so-and-so.

Beside al-Bukhari other scholars, too, have in one way or other spoken of the incorrectness of this tradition. One of them says:“Maybe the holy Prophet himself has given names to two mountains of Medina.”

Another scholar says: Maybe the Prophet intended to fix the limits of the sanctity of Medina, and he has compared its boundaries to the space which lies between the two mountains of Mecca, since Thawr is in Mecca, not in Medina.

A third scholar writes: The narrator mistakenly uses the name of Thawr mountain, and he should have said“Uhud” , since Uhud is in Medina, not Thawr.

A fourth writer has left a blank space for the name of the mountain in the narration so as to avoid probable difficulties.

Still others make different suggestions as a way of correcting the above tradition.(411)

These successive efforts, some of which we have mentioned, continued until the first half of the 7th century, until ‘Abd as-Salam ibn Muhammad ibn Mazru‘, a Hanbalite tradition scholar of Basra, who died in 669 of the Hijrah, ably corrected the above error with his constructive hand in the second half of the same century, and created a mountain named Throw next to Uhud mountain, and to prevent the negation of his claim by others, he stated that the people of Medina are familiar with this mountain!

Next to him ‘Abd Allah Matri, who died in 765 of the Hijrah, quotes the same point from his late father Muhammad Matri, and adds:“The people of Medina have for many generations been familiar with a mountain called Thawr alongside Uhud mountain. It is a small and red mountain!”

Thus Ibn Mazru‘ was the first person to discover this mountain, and after him ‘Abd Allah Matri used his particular method confirm that discovery! But the great memorizer of the Qur’an and tradition scholar Yahya an-Nawawi, who died in 676 of the Hijrah, has made no reference to this great discovery in his famous description of Muslim’s book of Sahih. But he describes the efforts of great scholars of the past for correcting and explaining the tradition, which subject we have already mentioned. After him scholar Ibn Manzur, a great philologist who died in 711 of the Hijrah, in discussing the word Thawr in his book of“Lisan al-‘Arab” , confirms the non-existence of such a mountain in Medina. Thus these two great experts of tradition and philology have either been ignorant of the above so-called great geographical discovery, or they have mistrusted it, even though they lived at a time after Ibn Mazru‘. But the following scholars have made a reference to it:

1) Muhibb ad-Din at-Tabari, who died in 694, in his book of al-Ahkam.

2) al-Firuzabadi, who died in 817 of the Hijrah, in his book of al-Qamus on the word Thawr.

3) Ibn Hajar ‘Asqalani, who died in 852 of the Hijrah, in his description of the said tradition in the book of Fath al-bari.

4) az-Zabidi, who died in 1205 of the Hijrah in his book of Taj al-‘arus on the word Thawr.

But the order of our contemporary scholars has been greater in this field, and they have even registered the mountain of Thawr on the geographical map of Medina! For example Professor ‘Abd al-Quddus, author of“The Monuments of Medina” on page 139 of his book draws the map of the mountain, and Dr. Muhammad Hassanein Heikal produces this map on page 512 of the book of“Manzil al-wahy” , and on page 440 he says that he has used the former book as a reference.(412)

Thus the mountain of Thawr was first discovered in the second half of the 7th century, and then after another seven centuries, namely in the 14th century, it was registered on a geographical map!