Abstract
This paper is a survey of the destruction of books particularly by traditionists (collectors, transmitters, and critics of hadith) and particularly in the ninth century CE and before, offered as an addendum to Omar Ali de Unzaga’s forthcoming study of book burning in Islam. The destruction of books from distrust of written transmission has been adequately brought out by Michael Cook. What I chiefly add to previous scholarly accounts are some additional examples, a brief consideration of destroying books for the sake of orthodoxy, and a better account of pious reasons for destroying books, which had much to do with distrust not of writing hadith but of teaching it as a temptation to pride and a distraction from weightier things.
Highlights
This paper is a survey of the destruction of books by traditionists and in the ninth century CE and before, offered as an addendum to Omar Ali de Unzaga’s forthcoming study of book burning in Islam
Scholarly accounts are some additional examples, a brief consideration of destroying books for the sake of orthodoxy, and a better account of pious reasons for destroying books, which had much to do with distrust not of writing hadith but of teaching it as a temptation to pride and a distraction from weightier things
228/843?) paid fifty dinars for some books from Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn Abi Yahya (d. al-Hadath, 191/806-7?), a traditionist of mixed reputation sometimes cited by al-Shafi‛i, tore them up when some turned out to report Qadari and Jahmi positions
Summary
This paper is a survey of the destruction of books by traditionists (collectors, transmitters, and critics of hadith) and in the ninth century CE and before, offered as an addendum to Omar Ali de Unzaga’s forthcoming study of book burning in Islam. 21 Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Kitab al-‛Ilal, 3:383 2:235; cited by Cook, “The opponents of the writing,” p.
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