Abstract

This article focuses on some aspects of the prophetic veneration through a very specific sub-genre of ḥadīth literature, the so-called ḥadīth musalsal or chained prophetic transmission. Musalsal is the name given to the ḥadīth that in each of the links in the chain of transmission repeat identical expressions or sayings. Often, these expressions refer to a certain ritual or gesture that goes together with the delivery of the saying to the prophet. This article therefore deals with a ritualized transmission in which the fundamental point is how that ḥadīth is transmitted and who transmits it. The chronological framework I have chosen is that of the Naṣrid Kingdom of Granada, even though this study must be a continuation of other works on prophetic veneration during the Almoravid and Almohad periods, the time of the introduction and consolidation of this genre in the Iberian Peninsula and the North Africa. I have collected the authors and transmitters of musalsalāt in al-Andalus from the end of the 7th/ 13th century until the conquest of Granada, and I have shown that their interest in these ḥadīth-s is related to a general interest in the literature of prophetic veneration and the jihād literature. Finally, I have shown that this ritualization process becomes an identity question among the pious Andalusian ulama, which contributes to increasing their pre stige and integrating them into a privileged group of experts.