SOURCE: "Source Criticism in the Uthmaniyya of Al-Jahiz," in The Muslim World, Vol. LXX, No. 2, April, 1980, pp. 134-41.

In the essay below, Zahniser considers the methods that al-Jahiz used to evaluate the validity of his sources.

In a previous article published in this journal on the Uthmaniyya of Abu Uthman Amr b. Bahr al-Jahiz (d. 869), the celebrated Basrian Mutazilite litterateur, reference was made to the fact that the author wrote a series of treatises for the caliph al-Mamun (reigned 813-833) on the imamate, and that his Uthmaniyya was probably one of them.¹ It presents the views of a sect called the Uthmaniyya, views al-Jahiz himself seems to have shared. In it he argues for the superior virtue of Abu Bakr and, thus, his exclusive right to the leadership of the Muslim community.

An attempt is made here to elucidate al-Jahiz' assessment of the reliability of information from traditional...