The Isnād and the Production of Cultural Memory: Ibn Abbās as a Case Study

Abstract

The reputation of Abd Allāh b. Abbās as the greatest early exegete of the Qurān began as a product of Abbasid propaganda. Even his biography is suspect. To focus exclusively on the issue of authenticity, however, is to neglect the cultural memory he represents within Sunni Muslim tafsīr . Within the matn s of the thousands of hadīth s attributed to him, he is the mythic embodiment, the cultural memory, of the acceptable range of diversity that “re-collects” and helps unify the (Sunni) Muslim community. The Isnād s also preserve an independent cultural memory. In them, Ibn Abbās is the embodiment of an ideal: he stands as the cipher for the exegetical methodology that bases itself on the Qurān and on the Prophet and his Companions. The Ibn Abbās of the Isnād s represents the connection to and communication with these sources of knowledge that the Ibn Abbās of the matn s seems to have rarely employed.