MUTAWATIR REPORTS

The raison d’etre of witnesses in a court of law is obviously the creation of a connecting link between the judge and the facts or actual events of the case. Through true testimony our knowl­edge is extended to things beyond our individual experience, such as our knowledge of the existence of remote cities which we have never visited or, as in a criminal law suit, of events which took place sometime in the past.

¹⁴ The case, cited in Herbert J. Liebesny, The Law of the Near and Middle East (Albany: SUNY Press, 1975), p. 41, was decided by the renowned Ottoman Shaykh al-Islam Abu al-Su‘ud.

¹⁸ Abu al-Barakat al-Nasafi, Kashf ahasrar sharh al-manar ft usul aLfigh, 2 vols. (Cairo: Matba'at Bulaq, 1316 A.H.), 2:22, 11.22-24. In the same vein, Article 1702 of the Majallah stipulates that “there must not be enmity as regards temporal things between the witnesses and the person against whom evidence is given.” But Article 1701 accepts as valid the testimony of a person in favor of his friend, provided that the two cannot, by operation of the law, dispose of the property of each other. <

¹⁶ For the constitutive characteristics of *adalah, see Muhammad Diya’ al-DTn Ibn al-Ukhuwah, Ma‘alim al-gurbah ft ahkam al-hisbah, ed. and trans. R. Levy (London: Luzac, 1937-1938), p. 211 ff. (Arabic text). source and rationale in these reports.

The mutawatir report, whose authenticity is absolutely cer­tain, reaches us through channels of transmission sufficiently nu­merous to preclude any possibility of collaboration on a forgery. Moreover, the persons witnessing the Prophet saying or doing a particular thing must be sure of what they saw or heard, and their knowledge of what they witnessed must be based on sensory perception (mahsus).^[223] All of the above conditions must be met at each stage of the transmission if the status of tawatur is to be maintained.^[224]

Epistemologically, this report yields necessary or immediate knowledge (‘Um darun) in the mind of the hearer, a knowledge that is not inferred but directly imposed on the intellect.^[225] In contradistinction to mediate knowledge (‘Um muktasab or nazari), where by definition inference is the means of its acquisition, neces­sary knowledge does not allow for any reflection; it simply occurs in the intellect without the awareness of the process—if any— through which knowledge is obtained. Now, when a person hears a report narrated by only one witness, he is presumed to have gained only probable knowledge concerning the authenticity of that report. To reach the stage of conclusive knowledge, the report must recur (yajibu an yatawdtara) in the presence of the hearer a sufficient number of times, and each time it must be transmitted by a different witness. In the view of the great majority of scholars

the report of two or four witnesses falls short of meeting the cri­teria of tawatur.

Another source of difficulty involving the determination of the minimal number of tawatur transmissions relates to the premise that the knowledge imparted by this type of report is immediate. A person simply does not know how and when he reaches such knowledge. Ibn Qudamah gives as an illustration an example of the knowledge about the existence of Mecca gained by people who have never paid a visit to it. They can never determine the exact instance at which they became absolutely certain of its existence. Likewise, if a man were killed in the marketplace, and we were told by the first passing person that such a murder had taken place, we would think only that this event has probably happened. But when a second person informs us of the same news, and then we hear it from a third, fourth, fifth, and sixth person, the probability in our minds is increasingly strengthened until we become totally convinced that such an event has indeed taken place. We do not, however, know the precise moment or by which individual report we reached such a conclusive knowledge.^[230] The precise degree of corroboration which draws the line between probable and certain knowledge is as impossible to determine as the exact day a person ceases to be a minor and becomes an adult, or the exact instant at which night ends and the light of day begins.^[231]

The obvious impossibility of determining the minimal number of mutawatir reports leads us to resort ultimately to the intellect of the hearer as the point of reference for measuring qualitatively as well as quantitatively the reports leading to conclusive knowledge.

The knowledge of the qara’in surrounding an individual report and of its chains of transmission varies, as we have intimated, from one person to another. It is the number of instances of reporting plus the qara’in ahahwal that make up the body of knowledge in the mind. A report recurring a few times, say five, may lead, with the help of many qara’in, to conclusive knowledge, while another report, recurring seven or eight times but without qara’in, may fail to yield such knowledge. The corroboration through qara’in may best be illustrated by the example of a suckling child. When we observe a mother nursing her child, we do not in fact see the milk reaching the stomach of the child. However, when we see the child sucking the breast of his mother, the movement of its throat, and its thorough satisfaction, and when we further know that it had not been fed for sometime and that its mother is in the nursing period, we come to the conclusive knowledge that the milk is indeed reaching the stomach of the child.²⁷ Although we have not seen the milk itself, the accompanying evidence conclusively proves that the child has taken it in.

Circumstantial evidence may be strong enough to take the place of what would have been additional instances of transmis­sion. In throwing its weight behind the report, this evidence yields, together with the instances of transmission it accompanies, conclu­sive knowledge.²⁸ This means that when the number of instances

^se QarafT, Shark, p. 352, 11.12-13; Farra’, ‘Uddah, 3:855, 11.10-11; Ibn Qudamah, Rawdah, p. 89, 11.10-11; Fakhr al-Dm al-Razi, Lubab al-ishardt (Cairo: Matba‘at al-Sa‘ada, 1355 A.H.), p. 27.

²⁷ Ibn Qudamah, Rawdah, p. 87 f.; Wael B.

²⁸ AmidT, Zhfcdm, 1:232, 238; Ibn Qudamah, Rawdah, p. 87; “li-anna al-qara’ina qad turithu aPilma wa-in lam yakun fihi ikhbar, fala yab'udu an tandamma al-qara’inu ila al-akhbari fayaqumu ba‘du al-qara’ini maqama ba‘di al-ad ad i min al-mukhbirma.” of transmission is above four but still incapable of leading to con­clusive knowledge, the quality of the circumstantial evidence may be such that it complements the instances of transmission with the result that conclusive knowledge is attained.^[232] Conclusive knowl­edge is not attained when the number is less than five and the circumstantial evidence is not sufficiently persuasive.

DOES TAWATUR YIELD MEDIATE OR IMMEDIATE KNOWLEDGE?

The significance and weight of circumstantial evidence in this theory are given equal weight to the number of tawatur reports.^[233] A few jurists went so far as to argue that when circumstantial evidence surrounds even a solitary report (khabar wahid), which necessarily falls short of fulfilling the conditions of tawatur and therefore leads by itself to probable knowledge only,^[234] it some­times renders the knowledge gained from that report conclusive.^{[235] [236]} Since circumstantial evidence is resorted to when the channels of transmission are less than the tawatur number, the knowledge INDUCTIVE CORROBORATION, PROBABILITY, AND CERTAINTY 15 that such a report imparts is necessarily mediate rather than im­mediate, for to ascertain the sufficient degree of persuasiveness of the circumstantial evidence involved, and to verify the uninter­rupted chain of transmission of the solitary report—or reports— throughout generations of Muslims entails a good deal of contem­plation and thought.

It may well be argued that even in cases of tawatur transmis­sion the mind comes to a conscious realization of the instances of corroboration, whether they be instances of transmission or qara’in abahwal.³³ In such cases, the knowledge obtaining in the intellect may be deemed inferential and thus mediate. The pro­cess by which this knowledge occurs is clearly cumulative and corroborative. The aggregation of statements made by trustwor­thy informants will increase the level of probability until certainty is achieved; and this is precisely the moment when we realize that what we heard is a mutawatir report.^{[237] [238] But the problem that quickly unfolds here is the incompatibility of the assumed immediacy (darurah.) of knowledge, on the one hand, and the in­tellect’s awareness of the gradual process of corroboration that yields an increase in the level of probability, on the other, for any degree of such awareness naturally precludes knowledge from being immediate.}

The solution to what seems to be an epistemological dilemma is claimed by jurists and theologians to be found in an inner psy­chological ability given to people by God, an ability to reach a level of certainty without consciously perceiving the gradation of evidential corroboration imposed on the mind.^[239] In other words, the Almighty creates in us the power to attain conclusive knowl­edge through a mutawatir report without a conscious cognizance of the means and data through which that knowledge is attained. This argument may be explained only in terms of an unconscious method of inference in which the conscious intellect is totally obliv­ious to the hidden, ongoing cumulative process of constructing knowledge.

While the conscious intellect remains heedless of the inner pro­cess of acquiring tawatur knowledge, this process itself operates on the basis of a set of assumptions which are thought to justify the occurrence of immediate knowledge. Although God creates in us such knowledge,^[240] there still exist outside the intellect certain con­ditions that must be fulfilled in order for that intellect to reach a state of immediate knowledge. As we have intimated earlier, in the fulfillment of these conditions the number of instances of transmission ranks supreme. A mutawatir number precludes any possibility of conspiring on a forgery or a lie. Lying within the framework of a tawatur number is impossible, the reasoning being that the tawatur transmitters cannot all have a single reason to lie, and therefore it is inconceivable that they should conspire to tell the same lie.^[241] The differences between individuals, their multifar­ious ambitions and interests, make it impossible for them to agree on the same lie, since this cannot conceivably serve their divergent purposes and goals.^[242] And even if they attempt to conspire on a lie, their great number will eventually bring their conspiracy into the open; it is simply impossible to preserve a secret among such a large group of people.^[243] Thus, when they all transmit one and the same report, we know that the report is absolutely true.

Admittedly, the credibility of the thesis that a large number of people cannot succeed in conspiring on a lie cannot be justi­fied on sheer objective grounds, for it is conceivable under given circumstances that such a thing might happen. But the nature of man and the world as created by God does not allow for a conspiracy under the conditions of tawatur. We know from God’s habitual way (‘adah) of running things in this world that a mu­tawatir number of people simply cannot agree on a lie.^[244] Abu Ya'la al-Farra’ goes so far as to say that God directly creates in us such knowledge as soon as we hear a mutawatir number of people transmitting a Prophetic report, although He could also posit the same knowledge in us even without our actually hearing INDUCTIVE CORROBORATION, PROBABILITY, AND CERTAINTY 17 the report. This is precisely analogous, he asserts, to the birth of a child subsequent to sexual intercourse, although God has the power to create the same child without any such intercourse.⁴¹

Although it would seem that this theory of tawatur is on the verge of losing itself in a highly subjective justification devoid of any conception of causality, the attempt to argue for its credibil­ity stems from the need to have a rational basis for believing the evidence of witnesses. Since individual instances of transmission (ahad) cannot by themselves yield certainty, a large number of transmissions becomes indispensable as a guarantee for conclu­siveness. As tawatur numbers cannot lead to anything but cer­tainty, it is therefore assumed that the continued recurrence of transmissions will eventually yield immediate knowledge. The re­alization of having reached certainty with no reflection upon the means by which we attained that state of knowledge tells us that the number of transmissions involved is mutawatir, and therefore we must assume that the conditions which preclude the possi­bility of a conspiracy have been met. This theory then comes down to the fundamental requirement of number, since increas­ingly large numbers will preclude the possibility of a conspiracy and inevitably lead to immediate knowledge..

Here, indeed, lies the solution to the problem concerning the hearer’s awareness of the very process by which immediate knowl­edge is attained. At a particular time, the hearer, after having reached a state of immediate knowledge, looks back and realizes that the report was transmitted a sufficient number of times. He does not, on the other hand, know for certain (nor is he expected to know) that the transmitters of the report did not lie. All he knows is that he heard the report a number of times sufficient to yield immediate knowledge in his mind. Presumably, he does not count the times of transmission, but realizes that they were sufficient to engender this knowledge in him. This is precisely analogous to the process of memorizing a lesson; you continue to repeat the lesson until you memorize it. You do not have to count the number of times you have read it, but you know that they were sufficient and that now you know the lesson by heart.⁴² Furthermore, the

⁴¹ Farra’, ‘Uddah, 3:850, 11.3-6.

⁴² Ibid., 3:843. hearer does not attempt to establish the relationships among the transmitters of the report, but he assumes, post eventum, that those who relayed the report to him could not have met or con­spired. This is certainly in consonance with the established theory. First, immediate knowledge occurs, and subsequently the hearer comes to the realization that the number of transmissions was a tawdtur number, for if it were not, he would not have attained this knowledge. Second, once the number of transmissions involved is established as a tawdtur number, we know that what the trans­mitters relayed is true, because God, in his ‘adah, cannot allow for a falsehood to circulate among a tawdtur group.

Each instance of transmission in a mutawdtir report may be taken to constitute a member of a class of things—a class which is the mutawdtir report in its entirety. According to the theories of inductive logic set forth in the first passages of this article, no conclusive knowledge can be attained with regard to a class until there is an exhaustive account of all the members of that class. The need for a full enumeration of members stems from the absence of any necessary relationship between the observed members of a class and its unobserved members. It is precisely here where the Muslim juristic conception of logic drastically differs from its Aristotelian and Western post-Aristotelian counterpart. A full account of all the instances of transmission, that is, all members of the class, is not deemed in the tawdtur theory to be indispensable for conclusive knowledge. A relatively large number, but not necessarily the whole, suffices for attaining certainty. A person may therefore reach certain knowledge without having been exposed to all the instances of transmission in existence.^[245]