“The People of my Generation are Best”: Conceptualizing Testimony in Early Islam (9th and 10th Centuries

Abstract

This article is about the development of testimony in the
early years of Islam within the Muslim theology. It argues
that the tradition of isnad (chain of transmitters) forms the
basis of testimony during this period. To know the accurate
way of Muslim life, Muslim scholars engaged themselves in
a very sophisticated way of judging testimony. To extract
accurate knowledge, they evolved a concept of golden past
and undermined the later method of testimony. That’s why
the tradition of testimony became somewhat more
challenging for the latter scholars, who after the 12th and
13th centuries almost gave up the idea of knowing the
sayings of Prophet Muhammad through testimony. This
article also highlights the problems and controversies
associated with the classification of Islamic testimony (with
particular reference to hadith—the sayings and deeds of
Muhammad, the prophet of Islam). It suggests that the high
standards of testimony led various scholars to contest the
principles of testimony.