Identifying the Patterns of Kolayni's Isnad To Zorara b. A'yon's Book

Abstract

Zorara b. A'yon is one of the “consensus companions”(ashab ejma῾) and one of the most frequently mentioned narrators in Imami Books. Imami cataloguers have a special way to his book. In addition to the experts on narrators (Rijali), Traditionists including Thiqatol-Islam Kolayni (329 AH) also had a regular pattern or isnad for Zorara b. A'yon's traditions. In this research, with a new approach namely extraction and enumeration of all Zorara's traditions in Al-Kafi and then identifiying the isnad with the highest frequency, Kolayni's regular pattern is detected. This pattern was compared to those of the Rijalis. Meanwhile the first transmitters who narrated Zorara’s traditions have been introduced one by one. The accordance of the isnad with the identified patterns reveals the authenticity of the traditions. In addition, this typical pattern can be employed to obviate interpolation, omission of the narrators (irsal) and weakness of the isnad. Thus, if at times Kulayni's isnad to Zorara’s traditions is through unfamiliar ways, different from the typical pattern, it is less authentic. In these cases, it is surmised that Kafi's compiler has gained access to Zorara’s traditions from an unauthentic source; since anonymous, weak or non-Imami narrators are recurrently mentioned in these isnad.

Keywords

• al-kafi
• experts on narrators
• identifiying the isnad patterns
• isnad critisism
• zorara b. a'yon