ABSTRACT
ONE FINDS THE FOLLOWING TRADITION in Abu IsQiiq al-Sh!riizl's Tabaqat al-fuqaha', a prosopography of Muslim jurists written in the fifth century of the Islamic era/eleventh century CE: "When the 'Abadila had died-'Abd Allah b. 'Abbas, 'AbdAllah b. al-Zubayr, 'AbdAllah b. 'Umar and 'AbdAllah b. 'Amr b. al-'A~-legal knowledge in all countries passed to the mawali [i.e. clients of non-Arab origin]. The lawyer of Mecca was 'Atii', that of Yemen Tiiwiis, that of the Yamama YaQyii b. Abi Kath!r, that of Ba~ra al-I:Iasan [al-Ba~r!], that of Kiifa Ibrahim al-Nakha'!, that of Syria Makl;liil, that of Khurasiin 'A!ii' alKhurasanL The only exception is Medina; God gave to this city a man from [the tribe of] Quraysh, an undisputed lawyer [named] Sa'!d b. alMusayyab."l
THE FORMATION OF ISLAMIC LAW
294 HARALD MOTZKI
This statement suggests that in the first generation after the Prophet Mul).ammad, legal knowledge (jiqh) was held mostly by Arabs, but that already in the second generation, that is to say, in the second half of the first Islamic/seventh century CE, legal knowledge had passed to converts of non-Arab origin in nearly all parts of the Islamic realm.
