Ahmed Bin Hanbal Zuhd

Ahmad Ibn Hanbal’s Book of Renunciation 345

Ahmad Ibn Hanbal’s Book of Renunciation

by C h r i s t o p h e r M e l c h e r tUniversity of Oxford

Abstract

Ahmad ibn Hanbal’s book al-Zuhd (‘renunciation’) is one of the largest extantcollections of renunciant sayings from the first two Islamic centuries. It wasassembled by his son �Abd Allah, who contributed about half the sayings in it inde-pendently of his father. The extant text is only half or a third of the version availableto Ibn Hajar in the Mamluk period. Some of what is missing can be recovered fromquotations in Abu Nu�aym, Hilyat al-awliya#. It is notably dominated by data fromBasra. Its contents are highly miscellaneous, but rejection of worldly goods appearsto be the theme that comes up most often.

Renunciation (zuhd) is a major feature of early Islamic piety. Its values,especially fear of God and insistence on taking seriously the question ofone’s place in the Afterlife, apparently predominate in securely datableIslamic inscriptions of the seventh century ce, to the point that little elsecan be made out about the religion at that stage, such as the importanceof law and the Prophet.1 Modern scholarly consensus has for some timeagreed with medieval Islamic scholarship in locating the origins of Sufism,which flourished from the later ninth century, in the early renunciant mo-vement.2 Our principal sources for the history of renunciation are collecti-

1) V. Solange Ory, “Aspects religieux des textes épigraphiques du début del’Islam”, Les premières écritures islamiques, dir. Alfred-Louis de Prémare, Revuedue Monde Musulman et de la Méditerranée 58 (Aix-en-Provence 1990), 30–9; FredDonner, Narratives of Islamic Origins, Studies in Late Antiquity and EarlyIslam 14 (Princeton 1998), chap. 2.

2) The classical account is Louis Massignon, Essay on the Origins of the Techni-cal Language of Islamic Mysticism, trans. Benjamin Clark (Notre Dame 1997). Re-cent historical overviews are Alexander Knysh, Islamic Mysticism: A Short History,Themes in Islamic Studies 1 (Leiden 1999), and Ahmet Karamustafa, Sufism: TheFormative Period, The New Edinburgh Islamic Surveys (Edinburgh 2007). For the

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346 Christopher Melchert

ons of stories and sayings from the ninth to eleventh centuries, amongwhich the second largest is the Kitab al-Zuhd (“book of renunciation”) at-tributed to Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 241/855). The intention of this study isto sketch its extent and character.

As for Ahmad ibn Hanbal, modern biographies in Arabic have stressedhis involvement in the Inquisition and the formation of Islamic law.3 NimrodHurvitz’s more recent biography in English rightly stresses Ahmad’s pietyas one basis of the regard in which he was held and of the Hanbali schoolof law that formed after his death; however, it cites al-Zuhd very seldom, inline with its general neglect of Ahmad�s activity as a collector of hadith.4

Two versions of al-Zuhd are in print, based on different manuscripts,both without a critical apparatus. The first appeared in Mecca in themid-1930s with an introduction by one �Abd al-Rahman ibn Qasim, whopresumably also edited it on the basis of one Moroccan manuscript.5 Daral-Kutub al-�Ilmiya of Beirut published a photomechanical reprint in the1970s, then a resetting of it with new pagination in the 1980s.6 The second

present writer’s understanding of the historical development of Sufism, v. ChristopherMelchert, “Basran Origins of Classical Sufism”, Der Islam 83 (2005), 221–40.

3) Oustandingly, Abu Zahra, Ibn Hanbal: hayatuhu wa-�asruhu wa-fiqhuh(Cairo n.d.), Mustafa al-S

ˇak�a, al-A#imma al-arba�a (Cairo and Beirut 1399/1979),

687–973, idem, al-Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal (Beirut 1404/1984), and Fahmi Jad�an,al-Mihna (Amman 1989).

4) Nimrod Hurvitz, The Formation of Hanbalism: Piety into Power, Cultureand Civilisation in the Middle East (London 2002). Other recent treatments ofAhmad’s piety, both excellent, are Michael Cook, Commanding Right and Forbid-ding Wrong in Islamic Thought (Cambridge 2000), chap. 5, and Michael Cooper-

son, Classical Arabic Biography: The Heirs of the Prophets in the Age of al-Ma#mun,Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization (Cambridge 2000), chap. 4. V. also Chris-topher Melchert, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Makers of the Muslim World (Oxford: One-world, 2006), chap. 5.

5) Ahmad ibn Hanbal, K. al-Zuhd (Mecca 1357), 400 pp. Sezgin identifies theMS as Rabat, Kattani 292 (GAS 1:506, no. 3), 236 ff., confirmed by Roger Delad-

rière, Introduction to Bayhaqi, L’anthologie du renoncement, Collection “Islamspiritual” (Lagrasse: Verdier, 1995), 9. According to Sezgin, the manuscript isfrom the 12th century H. (i.e. approximately the 18th century CE). A facsimile ofthe title page shows the year 1243 under the name of an owner, mostly crossed out,but this seems to be the year someone acquired it, not when it was copied: Ahmadibn Hanbal, al-Zuhd, ed. Yahya ibn Muhammad Sus (n.p. n.d.), 29.

6) Ahmad ibn Hanbal, K. al-Zuhd (Beirut 1396/1976), 400 pp.; idem, al-Zuhd(Beirut 1403/1983), 480 pp. Henceforth, citations of page numbers in the former willappear in roman, in the latter in italic. From the same publisher is now availableAhmad, al-Zuhd, ed. Muhammad �Abd al-Salam S

ˇahin (Beirut 1420/1999), 327 pp.,

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appeared in successive volumes from Alexandria and Beirut at the end ofthe 1970s and beginning of the ’80s, editing attributed to a MuhammadGalal Saraf, based on one Libyan manuscript.7 Later in the 1980s, there ap-peared an index to both editions from Yusuf �Abd al-Rahman al-

Mar�asli.8 Roger Deladrière speaks of the Meccan edition as compri-sing 2,379 items, which my own count confirms.9 A more recent reprintingof the Meccan edition, edited by Yahya ibn Muhammad Sus, counts 2,418items.10 Mar�asli’s index indicates 893 items in the Meccan edition notfound in S

ˇaraf ’s, 327 in S

ˇaraf ’s edition not found in the Meccan, sugges-

ting an extant collection of about 2,700; however, his index is faulty on thispoint and exaggerates the number of additional items in S

ˇaraf ’s edition.

The two editions, which is to say the two manuscripts, follow the same planof beginning with the sayings of prophets, proceeding to the sayings ofCompanions, then of persons who came after them, but the order of chap-ters is slightly different and S

ˇaraf ’s edition has fewer sayings in inappro-

priate chapters.Both manuscripts come with an account of the book’s transmission up

to the year 708/1309–1011:

Nasir al-Din Abu �Abd Allah Yusuf ibn Muhammad ibn �Abd Allah al-Dimasqial-Safi�i, known as Ibn al-Munhar <Taqi al-Din Abu Muhammad �Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi l-Fahm ibn �Abd al-Rah-man al-Buldani al-�Abbasi <

with items numbered but again without indices or cross-references. Another reprintof the Meccan edition with items numbered and some cross-references is Ahmad,al-Zuhd, ed. Muhammad al-Sa�id Basyuni Zaglul (Beirut 1423/2002), 568 pp. TheMeccan edition has also been reprinted by Dar Rayan and Dar �Umar ibn al-Äattab,according to Sus, “Introduction”, Zuhd, 21. I have not myself seen Ahmad, al-Zuhd,ed. �Isam Faris al-Harastani and Muhammad Ibrahim al-Zughli (Beirut 1994).

7) Ahmad ibn Hanbal, al-Zuhd, ed. Muhammad Galal Sˇ

araf, 2 vols. (Alexan-dria 1980, then Beirut 1981). Citations of page numbers that include a volumenumber will be to this edition. MS identified as al-Gami�a al-Libiya 3856, 358 ff., bySˇ

araf, Zuhd, I, 6.8) Yusuf �Abd al-Rahman al-Mar�asli, Fihris ahadith K. al-Zuhd lil-imam

Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Hanbal, Silsilat faharis kutub al-sunna 6 (Beirut1408/1988).

9) Deladrière, Anthologie, 9.10) V. supra, n. 5. This edition, of 752 pages, includes marginal cross-references

to the Meccan edition and the Moroccan manuscript, also notes commenting on theasanid. My guess is that it was published in Cairo in 2003.

11) Ahmad, al-Zuhd, 3 8 = ed. Sˇ

araf, I, 23; cf. ed. Sus, 37.



Abu l-Qasim Muhammad ibn Yusuf ibn Yahya ibn Yunus al-Tagir <Abu Talib �Abd al-Qadir ibn Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Yusufi <Abu �Ali al-Hasan ibn �Ali ibn Muhammad ibn �Ali ibn al-Muühib, by qira#a inRabi� I 443/July-August 1051, <Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn Ga�far ibn Hamdan ibn Malik al-Qati�i.

The earliest three names are known.12 Ibn Hagar once says of the ear-liest two that they alone transmitted the Musnad of Ahmad ibn Hanbaland al-Zuhd al-kabir.13 However, other sources concerning Ibn al-Muühib(including other references by Ibn Hagar) call the latter book only al-Zuhd, so we probably need not infer that there was ever a lost Kitab al-Zuhd al-sagir. Al-Äatib al-Bagdadi disparages Ibn al-Muühib: “He also re-lated from Ibn Malik K. al-Zuhd of Ahmad ibn Hanbal. He had no old copyof it. His copy was in his own hand. He wrote it in his old age and it is not tobe argued by.”14 Fortunately, Ibn Hagar was wrong inasmuch as AbuNu�aym al-Isbahani also transmitted great parts, at least, of al-Zuhd.Comparison with his transmission suggests that Ibn al-Muühib’s transmis-sion was reasonably exact, on which more below. The Libyan manuscriptbegins with almost the same list of transmitters, so the text traditions re-presented by it and the Moroccan manuscript must have diverged subse-quently to 708/1309–10. It seems fairly certain that neither manuscriptdepends on the other, but they may go back to a common ancestor subse-quent to 708/1309–10.

Saud Al-Sarhan, whose doctoral dissertation on the works of Ahmadibn Hanbal we eagerly await, has shown me photocopies from two othermanuscripts of al-Zuhd. Except for section headings, one seems to bepractically identical to the Moroccan text published by �Abd al-Rahmanibn Qasim. The other includes the first nineteen folios from a recension at-tributed to Salih ibn Ahmad (d. Isfahan, 266/880?) rather than �Abd Allah(d. Baghdad, 290/903). It begins very similarly to the familiar Moroccan

12) On Abu Bakr al-Qati�i (d. 368/979), v. al-Üahabi, Siyar a�lam al-nubala#,ed. Su�ayb al-Arna#ut, &al., 25 vols. (Beirut 1981–8), XVI, 210–13, with furtherreferences; on Ibn al-Muühib (d. 444/1052), v. ibid., XVII, 640–3; on Abu Talib al-Yusufi (d. 516/1123), v. ibid., XIX, 386–7.

13) Ibn Hagar, Lisan al-Mizan, 7 vols. (Hyderabad 1329–31, repr. Beirut1406/1986), I, 146, s.n. Ahmad ibn Ga�far ibn Hamdan.

14) Al-Äatib al-Bagdadi, Ta#riä Bagdad, 14 vols. (Cairo 1349/1931, repr. n.d.),VII, 391 = Ta#riä madinat al-salam, ed. Bassar �Awwad Ma�ruf, 17 vols. (Beirut1422/2001), VIII, 394. A similar charge from al-Silafi apud Ibn Hagar, Lisan, II,237, s.n. al-Hasan ibn �Ali ibn Muhammad.



text but with occasional slight differences in the order of reports, addi-tions, and omissions. It seems to regularly omit items in the Moroccan textthat come through �Abd Allah from someone else than Ahmad (more onthese below). Unfortunately, it comes with no account of its transmissionfrom Salih, nor does Salih’s name reappear after the first line. Having comeacross no literary source that attributes any recension to Salih, I suspectthat it was originally someone’s selection from an earlier version of theMoroccan text, omitting �Abd Allah’s name and items through him fromsomeone else than Ahmad. Someone else, then, noticing the omissions, as-cribed the whole at the beginning to Salih.

The largest extant collection of renunciant sayings is Abu Nu�aym al-Isbahani (d. 430/1038), Hilyat al-awliya#, which comprises about 15,600items altogether.15 Even if we exclude its approximately 4,000 prophetichadith reports and 1,000 items from ninth- and tenth-century Sufis, thisremains our most abundant source by far. To my knowledge, the next-lar-gest extant collection, after al-Zuhd of Ahmad ibn Hanbal, is K. al-Zuhdwa-l-raqa#iq attributed to Ibn al-Mubarak (d. 181/797), which comprisesaltogether about 2,050 items. After this come the kitab al-zuhd includedin Ibn Abi Sayba (d. 235/849), al-Musannaf, which comprises about 1,500items, and the Kitab al-Zuhd of Hannad ibn al-Sari (d. 243/857), whichcomprises almost as many.16

However, al-Zuhd of Ahmad ibn Hanbal was originally much longerthan the extant text. Ibn Hagar al-�Asqalani (d. 852/1449) states that Ah-mad�s Musnad is three times as long as al-Zuhd.17 Ibn Hagar worked from a

15) Abu Nu�aym al-Isbahani, Hilyat al-awliya#, 10 vols. (Cairo 1352–7/1932–8).A more recent edition is attributed to Mustafa �Abd al-Qadir �Ata#, 12 vols. (Beirut1418/1997), but it represents no more than a retyping of the first edition with addedmistakes – scholars should avoid it as long as photomechanical reproductions of theCairo edition remain in print.

16) Ibn al-Mubarak, Kitab al-Zuhd wa-l-raqa#iq, ed. Habib al-Rahman al-

A�z. ami (Malegaon 1386). Indices by Yusuf �Abd al-Rahman al-Mar�asli, Fihrisahadi© Kitab al-Zuhd, Silsilat faharis kutub al-sunna 5 (Beirut 1408/1987). Thestandard edition of Ibn Abi Sayba, al-Musannaf, is now that edited by Hamd ibn�Abd Allah al-Gum�a and Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Luhaydan, 16 vols. (Riyadh1425/2004). K. al-zuhd appears at XII, 133–468. To be sure, other renunciant say-ings appear elsewhere in the larger work; e.g. k. al-du�a#, about 800 items at X,5–204. Hannad ibn al-Sari, K. al-Zuhd, ed. �Abd al-Rahman ibn �Abd al-Gabbar al-

Faryawa#i, 2 vols. (Kuweit 1406/1985).17) Ibn Hagar, Ta�gil al-manfa�a bi-zawa#id rigal al-a#imma al-arba�a (Hydera-

bad 1324), 8 = ed. Ikram Allah Imdad al-Haqq, 2 vols. (Beirut 1416/1996), I, 243.



Musnad of about 28,000 items, very like the one in print today.18 This im-plies that he knew a Zuhd of more than 9,000 items, over three times aslong as either version of al-Zuhd in print today. It is impossible to say howlong after Ibn Hagar’s day the full version was lost.

Ibn Hagar’s estimate is confirmed by quotations in Abu Nu�aym, Hi-lyat al-awliya#. Abu Nu�aym seldom mentions books by name; rather, likeal-Äatib al-Bagdadi and other traditionists, he prefers to cite everythingby isnad going up to the speaker of the item at hand. Yet many of AbuNu�aym’s reports can be identified as coming from particular books, justas many of al-Äatib al-Bagdadi’s can.19 I have counted 480 certain quota-tions of al-Zuhd in the Hilyah; for example, from the entry for the YemeniSuccessor Tawus (d. 106/724–5?),20

< Abu Bakr ibn Malik < �Abd Allah ibn Ahmad ibn Hanbal < my father < �Abdal-Razzaq < Ma�mar that Tawus occupied himself with an ill comrade of hisuntil he had missed the pilgrimage.

They nearly all came to Abu Nu�aym by the links < Abu Bakr ibn Malik< �Abd Allah ibn Ahmad ibn Hanbal or < Ahmad ibn Ga�far ibn Hamdan <�Abd Allah ibn Ahmad.21 Abu Bakr ibn Malik and Ahmad ibn Ga�far ibnHamdan are the same person, more usually known as Abu Bakr al-Qati�i,from whom Abu Nu�aym collected hadith in Basra in about 360/970–1. Be-sides these, however, I have also counted 737 apparent quotations notfound in the published texts of al-Zuhd; for example, the next after the onejust quoted22:

< Ahmad ibn Ga�far ibn Hamdan < �Abd Allah ibn Ahmad < his father < Mahdiibn Ga�far < Damra < Bilal ibn Ka�b: Tawus, when he went out of Yemen,would drink only from ancient, Gahili waters.

18) V. Christopher Melchert, “The Musnad of Ahmad ibn Hanbal”, Der Islam82 (2005), 32–51, at 37–8, for these calculations.

19) Pedersen identifies quotations by Abu Nu�aym of Sulami’s Ta#riä al-su-fiya in his introduction to Sulami, Kitab Tabaqat al-sufiyya, ed. Johannes Peder-

sen (Leiden 1960), 51–3, 57–9. On al-Äatib al-Bagdadi, v. Akram Diya# al-�Umari,Mawarid al-Äatib al-Bagdadi fi Ta#riä Bagdad (n.p. 1395/1975).

20) Abu Nu�aym, Hilya, IV, 10 = Ahmad, Zuhd, 376 450.21) For one exception among a handful noticed by me, v. Abu Nu�aym, Hilya, I,

70–1, which quotes a story on the authority of Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn al-Hasanthat appears in Ahmad, Zuhd, II, 71.

22) Abu Nu�aym, Hilya, IV, 10.



(The point was to avoid wells dug by tyrannical rulers.)Identifying quotations of lost works is a difficult operation.23 In this

case, on the one hand, we are often able to compare our texts of al-Zuhdwith Abu Nu�aym’s quotations, and they are reassuringly close. Sometimesone appears to give us a better text, sometimes the other, but discrepanciesare always within the usual range between variant manuscripts. An exam-ple of Abu Nu�aym’s giving us the better text is where he quotes Ahmadas relating an item (on al-Hasan al-Basri�s longstanding sadness) from�Ali ibn Hafs, whereas the extant Zuhd presents Ahmad as relating thesame item from �Ali ibn Ga�far.24 �Ali ibn Hafs of Baghdad is an historicalpersonage, Ahmad’s source for 38 hadith reports in the Musnad, whereasno �Ali ibn Ga�far is mentioned among his shaykhs.25 Ga�far is easily expli-cable as a scribal error. An example of a slightly better text in the printedversion is where it has Bilal ibn Sa�d enjoin us, la takun wali Allah fil-�alaniya wa-�aduwahu fi l-sirr (“Be not God’s friend in public but hisenemy in private”), whereas Abu Nu�aym has rather waliyan lillah, whichspoils the grammatical parallelism and is easily explicable as another scri-bal error.26

On the other hand, many of Abu Nu�aym’s quotations from al-Qati�ifrom �Abd Allah are manifestly not from al-Zuhd but rather from �Abd Al-lah’s version of al-�Ilal wa-ma�rifat al-rigal or from the Musnad. Some quo-tations of the �Ilal or Musnad are easy to spot, as they concern questions ofhadith transmission or law, but others concern matters of piety that onemight expect to find in al-Zuhd. For example, this item from Abu Nu�aym’s

23) For recent treatments of the difficulty, v. inter alia Lawrence I. Conrad,“Recovering Lost Texts: Some Methodological Issues”, Journal of the AmericanOriental Society 113 (1993), 258–63, Stefan Leder, “Grenzen der Rekonstruktionalten Schrifttums nach den Angaben im Fihrist”, Ibn al-Nadim und die mittelalter-liche arabische Literatur (Wiesbaden 1996), 21–31, and Ella Landau-Tasseron,“The Reconstruction of Lost Sources”, al-Qantara 25 (2004), 45–91. The difficul-ties appear to be greatest for works from before around the middle of the ninth cen-tury CE, which is related to the very fluidity of texts before then, on which v. theworks of Gregor Schoeler, esp. “Die Frage der schriftlichen oder mündlichenÜberlieferung der Wissenschaften im frühen Islam”, Der Islam 62 (1985), 201–30.

24) Abu Nu�aym, Hilya, III, 19; Ahmad, Zuhd, 266, 326.25) V. �Amir Hasan Sabri, Mu�gam shuyuä al-imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal fi l-Mus-

nad (Beirut 1413/1993), 268–70; Ibn al-Gawzi, Manaqib al-imam Ahmad ibn Han-bal, ed. Muhammad Amin al-Äangi al-Kutubi (Cairo 1349), 45, chap. 5, fi tasmiyatman laqiya.

26) Ahmad, Zuhd, 385 461; Abu Nu�aym, Hilya, V, 228.



chapter on ®abit al-Bunani (d. 720s/738–48) is found also in the �Ilal butnot in al-Zuhd27:

< Abu Bakr ibn Malik < �Abd Allah ibn Ahmad ibn Hanbal < his father: I haveheard that Anas said to ®abit, “How your eyes resemble those of the Messengerof God …”, whereupon he ceased not to weep until he had damaged his eyes.

This item from the chapter on the Basran Maymun ibn Siyah (fl. earlier2nd/8th cent.) is found also in the Musnad but not in either printed versionof al-Zuhd28:

< Abu Bakr ibn Malik < �Abd Allah ibn Ahmad < his father < Muhammad ibnBakr < Maymun al-Muradi < Maymun ibn Siyah < Anas < Prophet: There isno people who meet to recollect God, wanting by that only his face, withoutthere calling to them a caller in Heaven, saying “Go forgiven: your faults havebeen replaced by virtues.”

A few prophetic hadith reports are found in both the Musnad and theextant text of al-Zuhd; for example,29

< Abu Bakr ibn Malik < �Abd Allah ibn Ahmad ibn Hanbal < his father < �Abdal-Rahman ibn Mahdi < Hammam < Qatada < Äulayd al-�Asari < Abul-Darda# < the Messenger of God …: The sun does not rise without there beingsent next to it two angels who cry out, “A little that suffices is better thanmuch that distracts.”

(The point is not to let possessions distract from one’s dependence onGod.) It is possible that the example just quoted, on people who meet to re-collect God, originally was in al-Zuhd as well as the Musnad. Altogether,I feel fairly sure that my count of Abu Nu�aym’s quotations of al-Zuhd isbelow rather than above the true number.

It is impossible to tell for sure whether Abu Nu�aym or the anonymousabridgers behind the printed versions of al-Zuhd present us more nearlywith a random selection of items from the original, long version. AmongAbu Nu�aym’s quotations, the ratio of those found in the printed version tothose not found is about 2:3, whereas it would be 1:2 or more if Ibn Hagar’s

27) Abu Nu�aym, Hilya, II, 323; Ahmad ibn Hanbal, al-�Ilal wa-ma�rifat al-rigal, ed. Wasi Allah ibn Muhammad �Abbas, 4 vols. (Beirut 1988), II, 373 = idem,al-Gami� fi l-�ilal wa-ma�rifat al-rigal, ed. Muhammad Husam Baydun, 2 vols. (Bei-rut 1410/1990), I, 332.

28) Abu Nu�aym, Hilya, III, 107–8; Ahmad, Musnad imam al-muhaddithin,6 vols. (Cairo 1313), III, 142 = Musnad al-imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, ed. Su�ayb al-

Arna#ut et al., 50 vols. (Beirut 1413–21/1993–2001), XIX, 437.29) Abu Nu�aym, Hilya, IX, 60; Ahmad, Musnad, V, 197 = ed. Arna#ut,

XXXVI, 52–3; Ahmad, Zuhd, 19 26.



figure were certainly correct, if Abu Nu�aym’s selection were certainly ran-dom, and if my undercounting of prophetic hadith quoted by Abu Nu�aymfrom the lost part of al-Zuhd were certainly negligible. If we assume thatAbu Nu�aym’s selection from the original was random, then the original,long Zuhd should have comprised about 6,800 items, not 9,000. It is alsopossible that Abu Nu�aym was guided by some of the same principles of se-lection as the anonymous abridgers, and I have somewhat undercountedAbu Nu�aym’s quotations of prophetic hadith from al-Zuhd; therefore, anoriginal size of around 9,000 remains at least credible.

Just as Ahmad’s Musnad includes a significant number of additionsfrom his son �Abd Allah, meaning items he heard from other persons than hisfather, so does al-Zuhd include many additions from him: a little more thanone-third of the printed versions, almost exactly one-half of the quotationsfrom Abu Nu�aym. Here, the parallel with the Musnad is weak evidence thatthe proportions of material from Ahmad and �Abd Allah in the original, longversion of al-Zuhd were more like those in Abu Nu�aym’s sample; that is,equal. Abu Nu�aym also quotes a substantial number of prophetic hadithfrom �Abd Allah that he did not hear from his father. It is possible that thesewere once transmitted with the Musnad, then excised with other hadithfrom �Abd Allah. Such excision must have happened on a considerable scaleif we are to harmonize medieval reports that �Abd Allah’s additions compri-sed about a quarter of the Musnad with the extant text, of which �Abd Allah’sadditions make up less than 5 percent.30 If there was a tendency over time todrop material from the Musnad that did not come through Ahmad, the sametendency might account for the diminished proportion of items from �AbdAllah in al-Zuhd. (I have supposed the same tendency accounts for the ma-nuscript of al-Zuhd attributed to Salih ibn Ahmad.)

The table of contents to al-Zuhd suggests stories of twelve qur’anic pro-phets, not in chronological order (nor with all reports of particular onesgathered together; e.g. sermons, wisdom, and the renunciation of �Isa aredistributed among three). Then come Companions, Successors, and othersof the eighth century CE. A comment from Ibn Taymiya confirms that theoriginal, long version of al-Zuhd was likewise arranged biographically, forhe reports preferring this arrangement to the topical one of Ibn al-Muba-rak, al-Zuhd.31 The Musnad, likewise assembled by �Abd Allah from his fat-

30) V. Melchert, “Musnad”, 37, 47.31) Jean R. Michot, Musique et danse selon Ibn Taymiyya, Études musulmanes

33 (Paris 1991), 122–3. Similar quotation apud Katib Çelebi, Kasf al-zunun, ed.Serefettin Yaltkaya and Rifat Bilge, 2 vols. (Istanbul 1942–3), II, 1423, s.v. kitabal-zuhd.



her’s dictation and notes, occasionally groups together hadith that Ahmadheard from some particular shaykh. So does al-Zuhd; for example, a se-quence of 53 items from, ultimately, a very miscellaneous collection of pro-phets, Companions, and Successors, of which 45 came to �Abd Allah fromAbu Bakr ibn Abi Sayba.32

An oddity of al-Zuhd by comparison with other collections of renunci-ant sayings is the high proportion of items from pre-Muhammadan pro-phets. A little over a third of Ibn al-Mubarak’s K. al-Zuhd comes from theProphet, a tenth of Ibn Abi Sayba’s, fully 45 percent of Hannad ibn al-Sa-ri’s. About one-fifth of the published versions of Ahmad, al-Zuhd are madeup of hadith from the Prophet, an unsurprising proportion. The surprisingportion is another fifth of al-Zuhd comprising items from prophets beforeMuhammad: in descending order, �Isa, Luqman, Ayyub, Dawud, and ot-hers. This is far more than in any other such collection of renunciant say-ings. The proportion of sayings from pre-Muhammadan prophets in AbuNu�aym’s selection is a mere one in twenty, suggesting that the extant, ab-ridged versions of al-Zuhd include most of the original, long version’s ma-terial from pre-Muhammadan prophets and that the long original was lessanomalous in this regard. About one-eighth of Abu Nu�aym’s quotations goback to Companions, who were probably also, then, less well-represented inthe original, long version than in the extant abridgements. By the way, al-Zuhd includes 35 items transmitted by the Yemeni Wahb ibn Munabbih (d.113/731–2?), almost all of them concerning biblical prophets but almosthalf of them concerning �Isa, which seems to tell against the surmise thathe was a convert from Judaism.33

Conversely, it was probably sayings from Successors that predominatedin the original, long version of al-Zuhd, as among Abu Nu�aym’s quotationsand as in most other ninth-century collections of renunciant sayings. Thelatest persons to be quoted in al-Zuhd at the other end (not just relatingearlier sayings but speaking in their own right) are apparently Muhammadibn al-Farag (d. 236/850–1), Bisr al-Hafi (d. 227/841), and Fath al-Mawsili(d. 220/835), all quoted by �Abd Allah,34 and Sufyan ibn �Uyayna (d.198/814?) and Ibrahim ibn Adham (d. 163/779–80?), quoted by Ahmad.35

32) Ahmad, Zuhd, 210–17 259–66.33) Contra Steven M. Wasserstrom, Between Muslim and Jew (Princeton

1996), 26, among others.34) Muhammad ibn al-Farag at Zuhd, 317 385; Bisr at Abu Nu�aym, Hilya, VIII,

337, 338–9, 345, 347; Fath at Zuhd, 206–7 254.35) Sufyan at Abu Nu�aym, Hilya, VII, 288 and Ahmad, Zuhd, 148 185, to which

add Sufyan’s direct quotations of the prophets Luqman and �Isa at Zuhd, I, 154 and



Of Ahmad�s immediate informants in al-Zuhd, 95 percent also appear inthe Musnad, 92 percent somewhere in the Six Books. Prophetic hadith andrenunciant sayings were thus transmitted by much the same persons, atleast in the eighth and early ninth centuries. Of hadith reports in Ahmad’sMusnad, 34 percent came to Ahmad from Baghdadi shaykhs, 28 percentfrom Basran, 15 percent from Kufan. Altogether, the Musnad is about 86percent Iraqi. Significant numbers of hadith reports there also came fromSyrian, Meccan, and Yemeni shaykhs. Al-Zuhd is likewise 86 percent Iraqi.Proportions from different centres are similar except that Basra (36 %)and Baghdad (23 %) exchange places and Syria is insignificant. Ahmadsettled in Baghdad from 204/819–20 and travelled from it only once, to Sy-ria, around 211/826–7 (except for forced journeys to al-Raqqah and Sam-arra in connection with the Inquisition and its aftermath).36 The sugges-tion is that his interest in collecting renunciant sayings weakened overtime by comparison with his interest in prophetic hadith, so that when hefinally went to Syria, he concentrated on collecting prophetic hadith. Quo-tations of Ahmad himself certainly suggest that he thought physical priva-tion unsuited to the married man, such as he had now become. His discipleal-Marruüi writes,37

I told Abu �Abd Allah [i.e. Ahmad ibn Hanbal] … that the self-deniers weresaying that there is nothing better than paucity and hunger, and that if a manaccustomed himself to not eating save every two or three days, he would be re-warded the same as someone who fasted perpetually. He said, “This is possibleonly for someone who is alone. As for one who has dependants, how can he be sostrong? I broke my fast yesterday, and today my lower self impelled me tobreak it (again). There is nothing to equal poverty. I remember those youngmen of prayer.”

In his youth, by contrast, when he was an impoverished student, thestrictest austerity had made more sense.

The circulation of items in al-Zuhd also testifies to the geography of in-terest in renunciation over the eighth century. Here are comparisons withthe kitab al-zuhd of Ibn Abi Sayba, showing percentages more than 5.

Ahmad’s source in early 9th cent. (first name in isnad):

Abu Nu�aym, Hilya, VII, 273–4, 288, 300, VIII, 101; Muhammad ibn Nadr atAhmad, Zuhd, 86, 368 108 441.

36) Üahabi, Siyar, XI, 306.37) Ahmad ibn Hanbal, K. al-Wara�, ed. Muhammad Sayyid Basyuni Zaghlul

(Beirut 1409/1988), 81–2 = K. al-Wara�, ed. Zaynab Ibrahim al-Qarut (Beirut1403/1983), 100.



Basra 76 (38 %), Kufa 37 (18 %), Baghdad 27 (13 %), Syria 16 (8 %), Wasit 13(6 %), Yemen 9 and Khurasan 8 (4 %), Mecca 7 (3 %), Mesopotamia 5 (2 %),Medina 2 (1 %).

Ahmad’s sources in mid- to late 8th cent. (second name): Basra 89(46 %), Kufa 54 (28 %), Syria 16 (8 %), Yemen 8 (4 %), Baghdad 5 (2 %)Medina, Mecca, & Khurasan 5 each (2 %), Egypt 4 (2 %), Wasit 2 (1 %).

Transmitter from Successor (some overlap with previous category):

Basra 84 (53 %), Kufa 31 (20 %), Syria 9 (6 %), Yemen 7 (4 %), Medina 6 (4 %),Wasit and Khurasan 4 each (2 %), Baghdad 3 (2 %), Mecca and Egypt, 2 each(1 %).

Successors:

Basra 80 (51 %), Kufa 35 (22 %), Medina 13 (8 %), Yemen 11 (7 %), Syria 8(5 %), Mecca and Egypt 3 each (2 %), Wasit 2 (1 %).

Ibn Abi Sayba’s source in early 9th cent. (first name in isnad), sampleof 138:

Baghdad 6 (4 %), Basra 23 (17 %), Khurasan 3 (2 %), Kufa 93 (67 %), Mecca 1(1 %), Wasit 12 (9 %).

Ibn Abi Sayba’s sources in mid- to late 8th cent. (second name), sampleof 145, of whom 137 identified:

Baghdad 1 (1 %), Basra 44 (32 %), Egypt 1 (1 %), Khurasan 1 (1 %), Kufa 73(53 %), Mecca 3 (2 %), Medina 4 (3 %), Mesopotamia 1 (1 %), Syria 6 (4 %),unknown 8 (6 %), Wasit 3 (2 %).

Successors, sample of 146, of whom 137 identified.

Basra 46 (34 %), Hijaz 1 (1 %), Khurasan 1 (1 %), Kufa 52 (38 %), Mecca 12(9 %), Medina 17 (12 %), Mesopotamia 1 (1 %), Syria 3 (2 %), Yemen 4 (3 %).

The Zuhd is notably dominated by data from Basra, a domination thatbecomes stronger the further back in time one goes. Ibn Abi Sayba travel-led much less than Ahmad and gathered most of his hadith in Kufa (two-thirds of k. al-zuhd, likewise of al-Musannaf as a whole), and Kufan itemsoutnumber Basran at all points in the eighth century; however, his col-lection shows the same pattern of increasingly more data from Basra thefurther back in the century one goes.

A considerable number of hadith reports in al-Zuhd are duplicated inthe Musnad. A few items are likewise repeated in al-Zuhd. Most of this re-petition was probably deliberate, mainly similar or even identical sayingssupported by alternative asanid; e.g. Abu l-�Aliya (d. 93/711–12?) againstlearning the Qur’an, then not reciting it, at Zuhd, 303 368. A few are exact



duplicates and probably unintentional; e.g. al-Hasan al-Basri (d. 110/728)on persons who feared to accept even wealth that was rightfully theirs atZuhd, 37, 262–3 48, 221.

The most interesting questions about al-Zuhd naturally have to dowith its doctrine. There are three main literary traditions that supply uswith reports of renunciants. The most voluminous is that of hadith, underwhich category falls the bulk of Abu Nu�aym’s collection and the collecti-ons of Ibn al-Mubarak and Ibn Abi Sayba. The outstanding characteristicof the hadith tradition is its insistence on full asanid to document the pro-venance of every saying. Less voluminous but significant are the literatu-res of adab and Sufism. The outstanding ninth-century adab collectionsare the kitab al-zuhd included in al-Gahiz (d. 255/868–9), al-Bayan wa-l-tab-yin, the k. al-zuhd included in Ibn Qutayba (d. 276/889?), al-�Uyun wa-l-aäbar, and numerous works by Ibn Abi l-Dunya (d. 281/884).38 The adabtradition is distinguished from the hadith by its attraction to elegant locu-tions, also, more subtly, to humorous material and often to miracle stories.The Sufi tradition crystallized only in the later ninth century, and onlyfragments and quotations remain of the earliest Sufi biographical dictio-naries: Ibn al-A�rabi (d. 340/952?), Tabaqat al-nussak, and a large col-lection not referred to by title from Ga�far al-Äuldi (d. 348/959).39 It is dis-tinguished from the hadith tradition in sometimes projecting later,mystical values back onto the early renunciants, more regularly in makingout renunciation as an early stage in the formation of a mystic and the his-torical formation of Sufism. There is, of course, considerable overlapamong the three traditions: individual books would be most convenientlygraphed on a triangle whose points would be zuhd, adab, and tasawwuf.

38) Al-Gahiz, al-Bayan wa-l-tabyin, ed. �Abd al-Salam Muhammad Harun,4 vols., Maktabat al-Gahiz (Cairo 1367–9/1948–50), III, 125–92; Ibn Qutayba, al-�Uyun wa-l-aäbar, 4 vols. (Cairo 1343–9/1925–30), II, 61–375. For the works of IbnAbi l-Dunya, v. Reinhard Weipert and Stefan Weninger, “Die erhaltenen Werke desIbn Abi d-Dunya. Eine vorläufige Bestandsaufnahme”, ZDMG 146 (1996): 415–55.My attention was first drawn to the distinction between significant practitionersand littérateurs by Jacqueline Chabbi, “Remarques sur le développement histo-rique des mouvements ascétiques et mystiques au Khurasan”, Studia Islamica, no.46 (1977), 5–72, at 24.

39) On Ibn al-A�rabi, v. GAS 1:660–1; on al-Äuldi, v. GAS 1:661. Äuldi is said tohave assembled a book concerning 6,000 persons from the time of Adam until hisown, all of whom espoused the doctrine of the Sufis: al-Äatib al-Bagdadi, Ta#riä,VII, 228 = ed. Ma�ruf, VIII, 147–8. An apparent extract (short) has been pub-lished: al-Äuldi, al-Fawa#id wa-l-zuhd wa-l-raqa#iq wa-l-mara©i, ed. MuhammadFathi al-Sayyid (Tanta 1413/1993).



With its ubiquitous asanid and few lines of poetry, al-Zuhd is plainly partof the hadith tradition.

Major emphases of al-Zuhd are difficult to make out, stories and quo-tations being so miscellaneous. Abu Nu�aym’s selection apparently inclu-des more hostile sayings about rulers and fewer qur’anic glosses than theextant abridgements. Otherwise, I have noticed no recurring differences inthe content of what they preserve of the original, long version. In a contentanalysis of a random sample of 117 quotations from Abu Nu�aym, the ca-tegory best represented is rejection of worldly goods; for example, that Mu-jahid (Meccan, d. 104/722–3?) glossed Q. 102:8 (Jones translation: “Then,on that day, you will be asked about bliss”), “About everything of the plea-sures of the world.”40 This is followed by items praising particular indivi-duals in fairly general terms; for example, that on the Day of Siffin (thegreat battle between Mu�awiya and �Ali), a Syrian related of the Prophetthat Uways al-Qarani (said to have died in this very battle) was the best ofthe Successors at doing well.41 Of ritual activities, prayer (salah) is the sin-gle one most often commended; of austerities, restricted eating and drin-king. Naturally, however, there is some overlapping of categories; for exam-ple, when al-Hasan al-Basri says that the believer is sad morning andevening, so that just a little food and water suffice him – is this to be clas-sified as commending sadness or restricting one’s food and drink?42 In fact,I did classify it as commending sadness, along with three other items in thesample. To classify it as a commendation of restricting one’s food and drinkwould suggest that it is about techniques to produce moral states, whereasthe actual sayings stress rather that physical austerities are the naturaloutcome of a desirable moral state. Like other renunciant literature, al-Zuhd is much more concerned with moral states than with teachable tech-nique.

The contents of al-Zuhd are evidence first of all for what items of theearly renunciant tradition Ahmad and especially �Abd Allah ibn Ahmadthought admirable. How far one takes them to be direct evidence of thattradition depends first on how reliable one thinks hadith in general. Ah-mad is quoted as calling for a lower standard of reliability concerning al-targib wa-l-tarhib (“making to aspire and making to dread”): “When we re-late (hadith) from the Messenger of God … concerning the licit and illicit,

40) Abu Nu�aym, Hilya, III, 281, quoting a lost section of Ahmad, Zuhd. Al-Ta-bari quotes Mujahid the same way apropos of Q. 102:8, also by a completely differ-ent isnad as glossing it “security and health (amn, sihha)”.

41) Abu Nu�aym, Hilya, II, 86, quoting from a lost section of �Abd Allah, Zuhd.42) Abu Nu�aym, Hilya 2:132–3; �Abd Allah, Zuhd, 258 316.



the precedents and ordinances, we are strict about asanid; but when we re-late (hadith) from the Prophet concerning the virtues of works and whatneither lays down nor suspends any ordinance, then we are easygoingabout asanid.”43 However, it does not appear that hadith reports in theMusnad pertaining to al-targib wa-l-tarhib are any more liable to be weakthan hadith pertaining to ordinances.44 Neither have we reason to supposehe filled up al-Zuhd (or instructed �Abd Allah to fill up al-Zuhd) with itemshe considered weak. And, of course, the interest of al-Zuhd is primarily inwhat it tells us of the piety of the eighth century, about which scholars no-wadays tend to be markedly less sceptical than about the seventh. The ex-tent to which its picture of eighth-century piety contradicts what is repor-ted of Ahmad ibn Hanbal’s own – for example, the extremes of self-denial itextols, as compared with the more moderate self-denial we are told that hepractised – raises our confidence that this material goes back well into thecentury from which it purports to come.

The main findings of this study may be briefly summarized. The bookal-Zuhd attributed to Ahmad ibn Hanbal is the largest extant collection ofearly renunciant sayings from its century, exceeded for all centuries onlyby Abu Nu�aym, Hilyat al-awliya#. It was assembled by Ahmad’s son �AbdAllah, who added to what he had heard from his father half or even as manyitems again that he had heard from other sources. �Abd Allah’s text was twoor three times as long as the extant version, to judge by quotations in AbuNu�aym, Hilyat al-awliya# and a description by Ibn Hagar. The usefulnessof Hilyat al-awliya# is incidentally confirmed, both inasmuch as the Hilyagives us a better idea of the original version of Ahmad’s al-Zuhd and inas-much as we see that it accurately transmits the knowledge of the ninthcentury. Ahmad’s al-Zuhd, finally, is an important source for the recon-struction of his own piety, that of the early Sunni circles around him, andmore generally of Muslims in the eighth century, possibly also to some ex-tent in the seventh. It is unusually rich in quotations of prophets beforeMuhammad. Scholars are still at an early stage of figuring out how to in-terpret it.

43) Al-Äatib al-Bagdadi, al-Kifaya fi �ilm al-riwaya, ed. Ahmad �Umar Hashim

(Beirut 1406/1986), 163 = ed. Muhammad al-Hafiz al-Tigani (Cairo 1972), 213.44) Melchert, “Musnad”, 46–7.


Ahmed Bin Hanbal Zuhd

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