What is it about?
This paper examines how the chapter on Paradise (Kitab al-Janna wa-sifat na'imiha wa-ahliha) in the well-known hadith collection, the _Sahih Muslim_, "works" as a literary whole. It demonstrates that (1) this chapter takes the reader or audience on a virtual "tour" of the afterlife, and (2) the vision of the afterlife that this chapter presents also has a great deal to say about earthly matters (e.g. disputes among and within religious communities, social order), and that gendered bodies play a important role in the ways that it addresses such issues. This paper then analyzes several key aspects of the ways that this chapter is interpreted in three medieval commentaries--by al-Qadi 'Iyad (d. 1149 CE), al-Nawawi (d. 1277), and al-Suyuti (d. 1505)--as well as in the abridgment authored by al-Mundhiri (d. 1258).
Featured Image
Why is it important?
This article breaks new ground in Hadith Studies: *While some important work has already been done by others on reading individual hadiths as literary texts, this is the first academic study of a chapter in a classical hadith collection as a literary whole. *This is also the first academic study of a hadith chapter focusing on gender that analyzes the concepts of gender which the text reflects (instead of simply presuming that classical Muslim hadith scholars' understandings of gender were quite similar to contemporary commonsensical assumptions about it). This article also deals with some aspects of the long-standing textual tradition of hadith commentary--which is a very under-researched topic.
Perspectives
Until fairly recently, critical academic approaches to Hadith Studies have tended to be overly focused on questions related to the historical origins and initial writing down of hadiths, while over a millennium of Muslim intellectual and pious interactions with hadiths has received comparatively short shrift. This article makes a contribution to the growing focus in hadith scholarship on examining the various roles that hadiths play once they have been compiled. It does this in its methodological approach as well as its content. This article combines several things that Hadith Studies would benefit from more of in my view: (1) new literary approaches, (2) more attention to classical interpretive trajectories, (3) using gender as a lens for reading hadiths, and (4) approaching gender analytically.
Dr Aisha Geissinger
Carleton University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: “Are Men the Majority in Paradise, or Women?” Constructing Gender and Communal Boundaries in Muslim b. al-Ḥajjāj’s (d. 261/875) Kitāb al-Janna, January 2017, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004333154_015.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
