Musnad al-Imām al-Rabī‘. Preliminary remarks about its authenticity

Jābir b. Zayd, a disciple of Ibn ‘Abbās, highly esteemed both by his followers and the Sunni community, was considered one of the greatest scholars of Baṣra. Jābir appears to be as the real founder of the Ibāḍī sect. Jābir’s doctrine was transmitted by al-Rabī‘ in his Min Jawābāt al-imām Jābir b. Zayd and al-Jāmi‘ al-ṣaḥīḥ. Musnad al-Imām al-Rabī‘ b. Ḥabīb. The Musnad is a collection of Ibāḍī ḥadīths in which traditions of the Prophet and Companions were handed down through the imāms of the school. However, some doubts have been raised about its actual attribution to al-Rabī‘. The paper, based on a comparative approach, tries to verify the authenticity of the Musnad. The comparison is done between the issues treated in the Musnad and the solutions given both in the earliest and the subsequent Ibāḍī works. Moreover, a comparison is done between the Ibāḍī and the Sunni sources in order to highlight whether there has been interdependence between the Ibāḍī doctrine and the Sunni elaboration. Such methodology is aapplied to the few traditions present in the Musnad regarding the inheritance.