Contested Boundaries: The Reception of Shi'ite Narrators in the Sunni Hadith Tradition

This dissertation examines the lives of roughly 150 Shi'ite narrators active in the 2nd/8th and 3rd/9 th centuries and their reception in the Sunni hadith tradition. These narrators were contemporaneous with the crystallization of sectarian boundaries and the emergence of an inchoate Sunni orthodoxy and their reception among Sunnis sheds considerable light on both of these processes. Through the first decades of the 'Abbasid period (mid-2nd/8 th century), Shi'ite narrators played a central role in the transmission of hadiths in the proto-Sunni milieu. This was especially so in the city of Kufa, where Shi'ite narrators of various stripes were associated with nascent sectarian trends and revolutionary efforts, and even defined the religio-political mainstream in the city to a significant extent. The diverse orientations of these figures constitute a testament to both the considerable sectarian ambiguity that characterized this era and to the contested processes by which sectarian boundaries were gradually drawn and enforced.;In the course of the century following the accession of the 'Abbasids, the presence of Shi'ite narrators in the proto-Sunni milieu underwent a precipitous decline. By the middle of the 3rd/9th century, the few Shi'ite narrators who continued to play a prominent role in the emergent Sunni milieu were characterized by relatively mild Shi'ite sentiments lacking distinctively sectarian features. Several processes were at work in this decline, most prominent among which were cultural homogenization facilitated by trans-regional scholarly exchange, and increasingly exclusionary practices directed at figures who violated the boundaries of an incipient Sunni orthodoxy.;From the perspective of the proponents of this orthodoxy, the legacy of Shi'ite narrators was problematic, consisting of elements that were deemed indispensable to the Sunni hadith tradition and others that were deemed vestigial reminders of its checkered genealogy. In an effort to delineate a standard for negotiating this problem, Sunni scholars developed an increasingly nuanced discourse on narrating from "innovators", a category of which Shi'ites were one prominent subset. This discourse had a significant impact in shaping the recorded legacy of Shi'ite narrators, and in large part has defined the terms by which their legacy has been debated down to the present day.