Generally speaking, the simple and summary supposition is generally made, that the earlier transmitters of Paleo-Muslim materials, exemplified by ‘Urwa b. al-Zubayr, recorded aide-mémoires, with little substantive analysis of this notion that might go beyond references to the Hellenic and Hellenistic hypomnemata, and beyond the statement that these were “private” notes, perhaps intended to help oral delivery. Later, it is supposed, emerged the syngramma, a type of text written for more general circulation or “publication,” beginning more or less, we are told, with Ibn Isḥāq. This seems, for all intents and purposes, to settle the matter; it is seen to demonstrate the thesis that composition was a fairly late event dependent upon prior oral transmission, and subject to the vagaries of such. This point has been widely received in scholarship; the ability to encapsulate a phenomenon in a word (hypomnemata), not least as the word is Sterling Greek, and is one used by Foucault, seems by implication to lend conclusive definitiveness to a thesis of original orality.the vagaries of such. This point has been widely received in scholarship;

the ability to encapsulate a phenomenon in a word (hypomnemata), not

least as the word is Sterling Greek, and is one used by Foucault,2 seems

by implication to lend conclusive definitiveness to a thesis of original

orality.

A number of observations are in order. Hypomnema (pl. hypomnemata) is a term with a wide range of reference. It can designate any kind of note, from the short note to bolster memory (an aide-mémoire strictly speaking), a merchant’s register, a memorandum, to notes of public meetings, public records, minutes, decrees or petitions to magistrates, on to drafts of fullscale works, annals, treatises, dissertations, registers, and scholia. The noted historian and Senator Cassius Dio (d. 235) used the term with reference to official records of the Roman Senate, and Aristarchus’ commentaries on Homer were likewise classified as hypomnemata.