Early Shiite hermeneutics and the dating of Kitab Sulaym ibn Qays

The Kitab Sulaym ibn Qays, a collection of sayings attributed to Ali b. Abi alib, was supposedly collected by the (otherwise unknown) Sulaym b. Qays al-Hilali (d. 76/678); the work is generally recognized as an important source for early Shi i thought. There has been much debate, both within the Shi i tradition and outside of it, over when its contents reached their current form and how representative they were of Shi i views in the early centuries of Islam. Here, I take one passage from the Kitab Sulaym and set it against the development of early Muslim hermeneutics in an attempt to establish a tentative dating for this passage. The result is a dating between late eighth century ce (second century ah) and the early ninth century ce (early third century ah), roughly contemporary with, and perhaps postdating the revolutionary hermeneutic work of Mu ammad b. Idris al-Shafi i (d. 204/820). This conclusion tallies, to some extent, with an analysis of the report's various isnads.