<論考>イスラームにおける「スンナ」の多義性とハディースとの相関性 --ハディース学および法源学から見た位置づけ--

Abstract

It is well-known that Islam is based on the two main sacred texts, namely, the Qur'an and the Prophetic Sunna, or Kitāb Allāh wa Sunna Rasūl Allāh (Allah's Book and the Sunna of Messenger of Allah) in Arabic. While the Qur'an is unanimously recognized, the Sunna has various meanings, and varied usages of the term with different connotations under different contexts create ambiguity, especially for non-specialist readers and listeners. This article attempts to clarify the usage of the term by Muslim scholars of different specializations. After historical articulation and developments of various branches of Islamic knowledge in the first three centuries of Islam, the Sunna was understood mainly as the established practices of the Prophet, and secondly those of the major Companions after him, while the written texts of Hadīth became indispensable to prove the authenticity of such Sunna, as the Science of Hadīth took a clear shape. The unwritten traditional practice of Sunna in Madina lost its significance, except for what was recorded by Imam Malik of the Madina School of law. This seems to have made Sunna and Hadīth synonymous. However, this writer found that only a smaller portion of Hadīth literature, probably a quarter or less, contain Sunna, and the rest are about history, biography, private and social life, and characteristics of the Prophet. Calling it Sunna rather than Hadīth stems from the necessity to emphasize the normative nature of the texts. While Islamic Jurisprudence ('Ilm Usūl al-Fiqh) uses Sunna as the source of legal interpretation, in the actual books of Islamic law ('Ilm al-Fiqh), Sunna is a category of Islamic rulings (hukm fiqhī), namely, what is "recommended" among the Islamic rulings which are the result of legal interpretation. Thus, Sunna is used both at the beginning of the process of legal thinking and at the resultant end of it. The Sunna as a source may bring other rulings, such as "forbidden" (harām) and "obligatory" (wājib), while Sunna as a category of rulings is neither what is forbidden nor obligatory; the usage of the same term at both ends differs greatly. When we deal with Islam, therefore, we have to keep in our minds these two sets of different usages of Sunna: Interchangeable usage of Sunna and Hadīth, and a totally different terminology in material related to Islamic law. Both may bring confusion if not treated with this finding in mind.