The Kitāb al-Aṣl of Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī (d. 189/805) and its Riwāyas (Recensions)

This essay is a preliminary study of some aspects of the transmission of Kitāb al-Aṣl by Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī. The essay examines information, preserved in later, mainly Ḥanafī works, about two major riwāyas of al-Aṣl, and analyses some points of doctrine on which they differ. These differences are shown to be substantial, as emerges from biographical sources. Given the divergence from each other and also, in one instance, from a third riwāya, I propose that the two riwāyas do not represent the content of a single original text. They may reflect either different stages in the development of a text that was still fluid, or else doctrinal changes that were introduced into a fixed text by its transmitters. The disparity between the riwāyas must be taken into consideration in any attempt to reconstruct the teachings and history of Kitāb al-Aṣl.