Text and Interpretation

Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 765) is an immensely influential but mysterious figure of early Islamic intellectual history, the nature of whose thought continues to be widely debated. Hossein Modarressi’s Text and Interpretation: Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and His Legacy in Islamic Law is, nevertheless, a welcome rarity in presenting a book-length study of al-Ṣādiq in a European language, a study that is rendered especially unusual by its radical choice of focus. While discussions of al-Ṣādiq have overwhelmingly concentrated on his role in the development of Shiʿi thought—he is revered today by most Shiʿis as one of God’s appointed guides (imams) for humanity—Modarressi instead undertakes to analyze al-Ṣādiq only as a scholar of Islamic law, considered alongside other early jurists like Malik ibn Anas, rather than alongside theologies of imamate and their adherents.

Modarressi’s book is further distinguished by the wealth of translated primary texts presented therein (accompanied by the original Arabic), drawn mostly from Twelver Shiʿi hadith literature, but also from a prodigious range of other sources including those of Zaydi Shiʿi, Ismaʿili Shiʿi, and Sunni provenance. These sources substantiate a sequence of characterizations of al-Ṣādiq’s teachings, encompassing both jurisprudential principals, such as adherence to prophetic precedent and rejection of excessive legalism, and specific legal rulings, such as those regarding marriage and inheritance. Among other things, this feature of the work renders it an excellent sourcebook of early Islamic legal discourse. While non-specialists may avoid those parts of the book that are dominated by dense, uninterrupted assemblages of source material, overall Modarressi’s translations build a vivid picture of the forms and priorities of early Islamic law that should find widespread use in classroom settings.

At its best, Text and Interpretation gives a thorough and broadly contextualized account of al-Ṣādiq as a jurist. Reconstructions of al-Ṣādiq’s views on matters such as the primacy of the Qurʾan and the boundaries of Muslim identity are placed in illuminating conversation with the views of al-Ṣādiq’s contemporaries and his social and political circumstances. Modarressi argues strongly that al-Ṣādiq often held distinctive positions, but that these were articulated within the intensely dialectic milieu of early legal discourse. A particularly detailed discussion concerns al-Ṣādiq’s unusual endorsement of ‘temporary marriage’ (mutʿa), in which Modarressi interrogates and refutes reports that al-Ṣādiq or Muhammad himself forbade the practice, surveys others’ attitudes to al-Ṣādiq’s position, and investigates the historical reality of mutʿa in early Muslim society (247-279).

Where the book’s arguments feel less secure is at the inevitable limits of Modarressi’s attempt to isolate al-Ṣādiq from the early Shiʿi contexts in which he is, irrefutably, a figure of towering importance. This isolation often manifests as authorial silence, whereby several profoundly significant topics, including al-Ṣādiq’s relationship with his father and his views on writing and precautionary dissimulation (taqiyya), are addressed with meticulous consideration of their legal contexts but near-total disregard for their importance in Shiʿi sources, often the very same sources from which Modarressi’s prooftexts are selected. This unevenness can extend into the book’s most sustained arguments, such as Modarressi’s rich discussion of teachings of al-Ṣādiq (e.g., wiping one’s feet during ritual ablution) that were once generally recognised as prophetic precedent but later widely rejected due to their association with the Shiʿa. On the one hand, this bolsters Modarressi’s hypothesis that al-Ṣādiq was unusually committed to prophetic precedent. On the other hand, and despite Modarressi’s disinclination to say so, the point also forcefully illustrates the role of Shiʿi identity—an identity that functioned very differently to that of just another legal school—in al-Ṣādiq’s teachings and how they were received.

In some contrast to its magisterial range of primary sources, this volume offers only sparing engagement with secondary scholarship. Over the past few decades, Modarressi’s work has frequently been cast as a key axis of historical debates over early Shiʿi thought, and the choice not to relitigate those debates here is, perhaps, understandable. Indeed, the introduction’s brief methodological remarks refer the reader to more substantial and integrated discussions in his earlier works. It remains the case, however, that this book is often frustratingly opaque regarding how Modarressi evaluates his sources amidst the vast, conflicting and highly contested available corpus.

For example, an important element of his portrayal of al-Ṣādiq is the concept of the school of the Prophet’s house—that there existed an identified orthopraxy among Muhammad’s descendants that al-Ṣādiq considered an authoritative legal proof, similar to the role played by the practice of the people of Medina in the Maliki school (e.g., 134-141). This concept has long been distinctive of Zaydi Shiʿi law, and the prooftexts that Modarressi cites for al-Ṣādiq’s enunciation thereof are, conspicuously, almost all from Zaydi sources. Effectively, then, he seems to hypothesise an early divergence whereby a crucial teaching of al-Ṣādiq was preserved by the Zaydis but abandoned by the Twelvers, despite the latter generally being more reliable custodians of al-Ṣādiq’s thought (as Modarressi’s usual preference for Twelver sources ostensibly implies). Such a hypothesis, though, not to mention the textual basis thereof, is left for the reader to infer.

Alongside its historical investigations, a notable facet of Text and Interpretation is its dialogue with contemporary Shiʿi thought. As in his earlier work, Modarressi’s arguments that al-Ṣādiq was a pious, respected scholar, rather than an esoteric miracle-worker, are sometimes framed as a direct refutation of Shiʿi theologies that assert the contrary. Readers, moreover, may perceive more such contentions beneath the surface, such as in Modarressi’s robust historical analysis of a particular hadith that mutely contradicts this text’s role as a major proof for the founding theology of the Islamic Republic of Iran (237-244). More generally, much of his portrayal of al-Ṣādiq exhibits a distinct emphasis towards tolerance for others, rejection of violence, and encouraging individual moral agency that carries evident theological consequence.

This book will undoubtedly generate controversy, due both to the dramatic reappraisal of al-Ṣādiq that it presents and to its partial integration of that reappraisal into al-Ṣādiq’s historical contexts and into current academic conversations around him. Regardless, Modarressi’s study remains valuable and relentlessly erudite, and draws challenging but constructive attention to an overlooked aspect of this pivotal early Muslim figure.

George Warner is an honorary fellow at the University of Exeter.

George Warner

Date Of Review:

April 3, 2024