A New Look at Sunnī-Shī？īte Sectarianism: Reinvented Contexts of Prophetic Traditions

The separation of the Shī？īte community from the mainstream Sunnis is not solely relevant to the process of a sect’s identity-creation and systematization. Rather, this separation also influenced the study of ？adīth during the second/eighth century. Throughout the second century, ？adīth transmitters from the group of Ahl al-？adīth (People of tradition) and those from the Shī？īte tradition participated within the same scholarly circles and attended classes taught by the same scholars. However, by the end of the second century and the beginning of the third century, Shī？īte students were only able to continue their studies in Shī？īte scholarly circles. Certain scholar-leaders, such as Ja？far al-？ādiq and Mūsā al-Kā？im, contributed significantly to the identity creation of the community. During this process of separation, critics from Ahl al-？adīth reviewed the Shī？īte-inclined transmitters in an increasingly negative tone. Further, every group that fell outside of the mainstream Muslim community participated, in one way or another, in fabricating traditions in order to legitimize their own positions. In addition to fabrications, alterations in contexts and alternative interpretations emerged in this period. Particularly, certain alterations occurred to the contexts of the transmissions by the Shī？īte-inclined transmitters from Ahl al-？adīth circles to Shī？īte circles. Although this article includes discussions on Sunnī-Shī？īte narrative transitivity, it aims in particular to identify alterations to contexts during narrative transmissions or later stages. It seems that reinvention or alteration to the contexts of prophetic traditions played a significant role in influencing sectarian principles, even if they cannot be compared with fabrications or ungrounded interpretations. When one examines in detail the traditions under the headings of virtues or defects, “reinvention of contexts” or “alterations of contexts” occur in three notable ways: 1- A tradition from a Sunnī source is transmitted to a Sunnī source or more generally to a Shī？īte source with completely different background information; 2- A lengthy tradition in a Sunnī source is transmitted partially to a Shī？īte source and that part is placed beside multiple transmission of the same narrative; 3- A tradition from both Sunnī and Shī？īte sources is transmitted with a new meaning and loses its original sense, thereby supporting the sectarian position. Identifying the period in which context alterations occurred and the actors responsible for the alterations is important to tracing Sunnī-Shī？īte