SAHEEH-UL-BHUKARI

Imam Muhammad Ibn Ismaeel Al-Bhukari was born in 194H

in Bhukara, in todays Uzbekistan. He passed away in
Samarqand at the age of 62 in the year 256H.
Imam AL-Bhukari was an orphan he possessed an amazing
memory. He memorized the Quran and all of the Ahadeeth
available with the scholars in his area by the time he was
only ten years old.
Then he began his travels across the Muslim world to collect
the Hadeeth when he was sixteen.
He travelled to Makah, Madina, Iraq, Syria and Egypt to
study with the great scholars of his time.

The teacher of Imam Al-Bhukari suggested him to

work on compiling of Saheeh Hadeeth in a small
summarized book. Imam Al-Bhukari liked this idea
and he began writing his Saheeh when he was
twenty three years old.
He studied with over a thousand of scholars of
Hadeeth bringing together 600,000 different chains
narration for Hadeeth. Of out this he selected of
about 2,607 of the very best in his Saheeh. He
presented it for review to many of the great
scholars of his time. They recognized and adopted
as the most prefect book after the Quran.

THE GREAT SCHOLARS LOVED

HIM!

Imam Muslim once said to Imam Bhukari

There are non like you in this world, He
also said to him one time, Please allow me
to kiss your feet. You are the master of
teachers and Hadeeth scholars.

LAYOUT OF THE BOOK

Imam Al-Bhukari was a brilliant scholar of

Islamic law in addition of being a scholar of
Hadeeth. So his book breaks up the Hadeeth
or even a section of a Hadeeth based on the
theme, law, or lesson that is learned from it.
The total number of narration in his book is
7,563.

SAHEEH MUSLIM

Imam Muslim ibn Al-Hajjaj An-Nisaboori was

born in 206 A H. During his life, he was
recognized as one of the greatest scholars of
hadeeth.
He traveled and studied with many scholars
including Imam Al-Bukhari and Imam Ahmed
ibn Hanbal.
He spent about 15 years compling his Saheeh
from a collection of about 300,000 chains of
nararation.

He

presented his Saheeh to another great scholar of his time

named Imam Abu Zarah Ar-Razi. When Imam Ar Razi felt
that certain hadeeth had even minor defect Imam Muslim
would remove that hadeeth from the book.
Thus Saheeh Muslim accepted as one of the most authetic
book of Hadeeth, second only to Saheeh Al-Bukhari.
To understand why Saheeh-Al-Bukhari is stronger overall. It
could be said that Imam Al-Bukhari focused on collecting
Hadeeth from A narrators.

Imam Muslim did not focus so exclusively on A

narrators and included a lot of B narrators also.
Imam Bukhari had certain extra criterion that Imam
Muslim did,nt require for accepting narration.
According to Imam Bukhari, every narroter must
have met his sheikh, or the scholar whom he
learned the hadeeth from. Imam Muslim only
requred that the narrtor have lived during the same
time.

LAYOUT OF THE BOOK

Saheeh Muslim does not focus on the Fiqh

lessions of the Hadeeth.
He only collected narrations attributed to
Rasoolullah (P B U H). The focus of the book
is to collect the different narrations and
wording of the same Hadeeth in one place .
With repetition there are about 5,362
different narrations in the book.
Without repetiion there are about 2,846
narrations.

MUSNAD OF IMAM AHMAD

Imam Ahmed Ibn Hanbal was born in 167H and

passed away in 241H. He was one of the greatest
scholars of Hadeeth.
His collection has about 27,363 chains of narration
that can be summarized down to 9,339 unrepeated
Hadeeth.
Imam Ahmad started with 750,000 chains of
narration and then summarized and filtered them
down to form his book.
Most of the ahadeeth in his collection are strong or
have mild weakness. Only a small handful of
Hadeethhave been assessed by some scholars as
fabricated.

The Hadeeth acholar Abu Zarah was asked, which

scholar that you met had memorized the most
Hadeeth? He said, Ahmad ibn Hanbal.
The day he died his books were collected and
amounted to twelve camels loads.The books contained
nothing but narration and he had them all memorised.
Imam Ahmad was once asked about all of his travels to
learn hadeeth, If a man documents 30,ooo ahadeeth
isnt it enough for him? The Imam was silent. The man
said, 60,ooo?The Imam was silent. The man said,
1oo,000? Imam Ahmad said, Then person would
know something.
Al-Musnad means the book of hadeeth that includes
the proper chains of narration.

STUDY QUESTIONS
List the eight books and their authors in
chronological order.
Define: Saheeh Musnad.
Describe briefly the following books:
a. Sahee-ul-Bukhari
b. Saheeh Muslim
c.
Al-Muwatta
d. Musnad Ahmad