Conclusive or Clue? Reading unexpected silences in our sources.

ABSTRACT · The article intends to reflect over the function and use of unexpected silence in histori- cal investigation. It takes as its theoretical and methodological framework Marc Bloch’s (d. 1944) in- sightful classification of historical documentation into intentional and unintentional evidence. Ac- cordingly, it explores the mechanics and weaknesses of the argumentum ex silentio by using as a case study Joseph Schacht’s (d. 1969) considerations on the marginality of Prophetic Hadith in early Is- lamic legal literature. The broad point the article wishes to make is that, whether deliberate or not, the unexpected silence that sometimes surprises the historian in their historical investigation ought not to be considered necessarily as a proof of a given absence (argumentum e/ex silentio). On the contrary, when carefully investigated, unexpected silence is a promising clue, or indicator, that may lead to some non-obvious aspect of the history we are delving into. A cursory exploration of Joseph Schacht and Marc Bloch’s lives shows that, at the end of the ’30s, the two scholars were fully engaged in their big intellectual projects. The respective outcome of their efforts will be Bloch’s posthumous milestone: The Historian’s Craft (1948), and Schacht’s ground-breaking book on The Origins of Mu- hameddan Jurisprudence (1950). In spite of the fact that the two historians do not seem to be aware of each other, and that their books are of a genuinely diverse nature, they both moved away from history as a purely philological act by placing the interpretative undertaking of the historian at the centre of their scholarly work.