Embracing the Sunna in the Early 3rd/ 9th Century: “He Used to Dye His Hair and Beard!”

One comes across records about whether or not the rāwīs dye their hair and beard in the biographical works, which aim at determining the rāwīs’ qualification in terms the science of hadith. This article aims at defining in which period and under what influences these data were put into the biographical works, although they are not directly related with the transmitter criticism (jar？ and ta？dīl). The rise of such records in the 3rd century hijri necessitates to approach the question in the context of the social, political and intellectual debates of that period. Studying through this perspective, it is salient that there is a relationship between those records and the Mi？na, and A？mad b. ？anbal, who was exposed to pressure by the political power. Apparently, he located the dying of hair and beard, which he considered a rejuvenated sunna, as a way of non-violent resistance towards the government. Nevertheless, dyeing activities in early periods and those in the time of A？mad and later differ from each other in terms of style, objective and addressees. Consequently, this article both discusses the contextual influences on rijāl literature and follows the change in the meaning of the dying activity through the classical hadith collections