This article examines Muhammadan jurisprudence as a way to reevaluate Islamic traditions.  Building on Goldziher’s scrutiny of early Islamic traditions in general, and traditions of the Prophet and his companions in particular, the author uses law as a method of approach for two reasons: “Firstly, our literary sources carry us back in law further than, say, in history, and for the crucial second century they are much more abundant in law than on any other subject.  Secondly, our judgement on the formal and abstract problems of law … is less likely to be distorted by preconceived ideas … than if we had to judge directly on issues of political and religious history of Islam” (p. 144).  Some of the problems associated with traditions, according to Schacht, are: pressure from groups to imbue traditions with authority; tribal disputes over authenticity of traditions, credibility of isnads (chains of transmission); and canonization of hadiths.

The article also suggests the malleability of hadiths, that critical and historical readings insist that, “we must therefore abandon the gratuitous assumptions that there existed originally an authentic core of information going back to the time of the Prophet, that spurious and tendentious additions were made to it in every succeeding generation …” (pp. 146-7).  The author also revisits the issue of Quran vs. Hadith, and the importance of one relative to the other.  He cites the tendency of isnads to “grow backwards” (p. 147) so that hadiths eventually date back to the Prophet himself (rather than a Companion or Successor).

Although the author is primarily concerned with traditions and Islamic law, “as regards the biography of the Prophet, traditions of legal and historical interest cannot possibly be divided from one another” (p. 150).  Schacht praises the soundness of his methodology and posits that, “a truly historical and critical study of Islamic traditions is not only destructive but constructive, that it helps us not only to demolish the one-sided traditional sham-castle, but to use its materials for building a truer, more adequate, and more satisfactory model of the past” (p. 153).

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