A Preview of Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī

Enabling both, the Muslim layman and the expert alike, to appreciate the value and utility of the Ṣaḥīḥ

۩ {} Thread {} ۩

Muḥammad b. Ismā’īl al-Bukhārī, author of the Ṣaḥīḥ, was born in 194 in Bukhārā.

By the age of 16, he had demonstrated his aptitude, as he had already memorized the books of the giant ḥadīthists, Wakī’ b al-Jarrāh (d. 196) and ‘Abdullāh b. al-Mubārak (d. 181).

Eventually, he left for Ḥajj with his mother & brother. When they finished, they returned, and Bukhārī stayed in Mecca in his quest for ḥadīth.

He reputedly began authoring works at around the age of 18. Some of his most notable works are his biographical dictionaries.

His largest biographical work is al-Tārīkh al-Kabīr, which contains around 3452 biographical entries for ḥadīth transmitters.

He also authored al-Tārīkh al-Awsaṭ, which has around 2997 entries. It also contains quotes from earlier ḥadīthists pertaining to ḥadīth criticism..

He also authored al-Ḍu’afā al-Ṣaghīr, which was dedicated to weak & criticized transmitters.
It contains around 418 entries.

According to al-Ḥāzmī (d. 584), less than 2000 men were admitted into Bukhārī’s Ṣaḥīḥ, and over 38,000 viable reliable transmitters were excluded.

I am yet to come across an authentic statement that mentions the # of ḥadīths Bukhārī had memorized.

Nevertheless, the figures cited for a cohort of ḥadīthists is ~several hundred thousand reports.
These #’s span ḥadīths, the opinions of the Ṣaḥābah/Tābi’īn, & repetitions.

How many ḥadīths are there in Ṣaḥīḥ of al-Bukhārī?
Interestingly, early scholars dedicated entire works towards the assessment of ḥadīths in the book.

Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥammūyī (d. 381) authored a monograph, where he counted the# of ḥadīths in each sub-book of the Ṣaḥīḥ

The monograph ends with an addendum, which was added later from one of Ibn Ṭāhir al-Maqdisī’s (d. 507) books.

It mentioned that the Ṣaḥīḥ contains around 7275 reports.
Ibn Ḥajar’s count: 7397
Ibn Fāris’ count: 7319

These figures span repetitions, not individual reports.

Excluding repetitions, Ibn Ṭāhir stated that the figure would amount to ~ 4000 reports.

Ibn Hajar's count: 2602 ḥadīths.

Ibn Ḥajar noted that this big difference in figures can be due to several reasons, which he outlined in the intro to Fatḥ al-Bārī.

Thus, it is evident that the collection is an extremely refined and well-filtered collection that has excluded most that ḥadīths that existed during his time.

Out of all of the ḥadīths in the Ṣaḥīḥ, I am only aware of 2 reports in his book that cannot be found elsewhere.

One of them is not a Prophetic tradition, but a saying of Aisha.

The other is a Prophetic tradition that has a basis, but its wording is very unique; as it is a distinct variant not found elsewhere.

Other than that, he is corroborated in every single thing he had transmitted.

In his intro to Fatḥ al-Bārī, IH counted how many ḥadīths each Ṣaḥābī had in the Ṣaḥīḥ.

I listed them all out along with the # of hadiths each transmitted.

Total # of Companions who relayed hadith in the Ṣaḥīḥ:

A whopping 182 Ṣaḥābīs

30 of them were women.

Top 10 Prolific Companions of the Prophet in the Ṣaḥīḥ:

1.Abu Hurayrah: 446
2.Abdullah b. Umar
3.Anas b. Malik 268
4.Aisha: 242
5.Abdullah b. Abbas 217
6.Jabir b. ‘Abdillah 90
7.Abdullah b. Mas’ud 85
8.Abu Sa’id al-Khudri 66
9.Umar b. al-Khattab 60
10.Abu Musa 57

Most Prolific Female Companions of the Prophet in the Ṣaḥīḥ:

Aisha 242
Asmaa’ b. Abi Bakr: 16
Umm Salamah: 16
Maymuna b. al-Harith 7
Hafsah b. Umar 5
Nusaybah, Umm ‘Atiyyah 5

This distribution of Prophetic traditions among the Ṣaḥābah in the Ṣaḥīḥ represents a shared Islamic tradition that is spread across the Muslim world. The more prolific companions were distributed as follows:

Kūfa:
-Abdullah b. Mas’ud
-Abu Musa al-Ash’ari

Medina:
-Aisha
-Abu Hurayrah
-Ibn Umar
-Jabir
-Abu Sa’id

Basra:
-Anas b. Malik

Mecca:
-Abdullah b. Abbas

The distribution is quite impressive.

Had the ḥadīth corpus been forged by later hadithists, then one would expect to see a much more uniform pattern and distribution of ḥadīth. Instead, it is organically distributed across 182 different Ṣaḥābīs.

These companions of the Prophet vary in their fame, status, residence, knowledge, and transmission.

If the hadith corpus was truly forged, as some claim, we would expect to the see the hadiths arbitrarily assigned to the most famous and renowned of them all.

Rather, we see the transmission of many senior companions pale in comparison to other junior and less knowledgeable companions.

Thus, it is a shared Muslim experience and effort in retaining and relaying the Prophetic Sunnah.

Now that we have outlined Bukhārī’s source of Prophetic traditions among the Ṣaḥābah, let us outline his sources at the bottom of the chains: his teachers.

The ḥadīthist, Ibn ‘Adiyy (d. 365), authored a monograph where he listed the names of Bukhari’s teachers in his Sahih.

Ibn ‘Adiyy’s count amounted to around ~296 men from whom Bukhārī transmitted in his Ṣaḥīh (he made a few errors)ز

These men, like the Ṣaḥābah, were distributed across the Muslim world: Mecca, Medina, al-Sham, Kufa, Basra, Persia, Khurāsān and Egypt etc.

His teachers come from a variety of theological leanings as well. Thus, it is, again, a shared Muslim experience.

To contextualize this figure, compare the # of Bukhārī’s teachers to that of al-Kulayni, author of al-Kāfī: the most significant Shī’ī ḥadīth collection.

While al-Bukhari collected ~ 7397 ḥadīths from ~ 306 men...

We find that al-Kulayni narrated ~16000 reports from a meager ~<37 men in his book of al-Kāfī.

To add to that, most of his teachers were limited to 2 cities: Qumm & Kūfa.

When one compares the Ṣaḥīḥ to mediocre sources that embodied many limitations, one observes Bukhārī’s impressive ability to diversify his sources.

This applies to his direct sources (his teachers) and to sources higher up the chains (the Ṣaḥāba)...

Another impressive effort of Bukhārī’s is his pursuit of shorter chains of transmission that omitted unnecessary intermediaries between him and the Prophet.

Bukhārī was able to effectively bypass many known figures in the chain in pursuit of shorter and stronger isnāds.

Bukhārī’s omission of many notable figures led to some controversies.

i.e: some began to ask: why didn’t Bukhari relay anything through al-Shāfi’ī (d. 204)?!

It became a significant controversy such that al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī authored a work to address some of these claims.

Some began to claim that Bukhārī refrained from transmitting from al-Shāfi’ī because al-Shāfi’ī was weak.

Khatib’s response: Bukhārī, despite never meeting al-Shāfi’ī, transmitted reports from some of Shāfi’ī’s teachers! Narrating from al-Shāfi’ī would be a step down for him!

The shortest chains of transmission in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī are only 3 men long.

He has around 22 reports that are relayed through such triplet chains (thulāthiyyāt).

The longest chain in the Ṣaḥīḥ is 9 men long. He has 1 report relayed with such a chain.

Most of his reports are relayed through chains with 4/5/6 men.

This disparity in Bukhārī’s isnāds demonstrates his reliability.

Had he been a liar, he could have arbitrarily forged reasonably shorter chains for each ḥadīth in his book, which would bolster their strength.

Some polemicists claim that the Sahih was an Umayyad fabrication.

The claim is preposterous once one observes the book’s sources Ṣaḥīḥ:

Ali has more ḥadīths (29) in the book than key Umayyad figures, such as Mu’awiyah (8), Abu Sufyan (1), Marwan (2) and Uthman (9) combined!

The Prophet’s cousin & pro-Alid figure, Ibn Abbas, is the 5th most prolific Ṣaḥābī in the book, with 217 reports.
Bukhari narrated hadith through other members of Ahlulbait, such as:

-Abbās b. Abdulmuttalīb
-Fadl b. al-‘Abbās b. ‘Abdulmuttaleb
-al-Ḥusain b. Alī b. Abī Ṭāleb

-Abdullah b. Ja’far b. Abī Ṭāleb
-Alī b. al-Ḥusain
-Muḥammad al-Bāqir
-Muḥammad b. al-Hanafiyyah
-Kathīr b. al-Abbās b. Abdulmutṭaleb
-Abdullah b. Abdullah b. al-Ḥārith b. Nawfal b. al-Ḥārith b. Abdulmuttaleb
- al-Fadl b. al-‘Abbas b. AbdulMuttalib

-Abdullah b. al-Fadl b. al-Abbās b. Rabī’ah b. al-Ḥārith b. Abdulmuttaleb

Thus, it is apparent that Bukhari did not have a bias towards the Prophet’s family, as is insinuated by some polemicists. Hence, we find Bukhari transmitting ample reports through the Umayyads’ opponents.

Al-Bukhārī, in his Ṣaḥīḥ, similarly demonstrated impressive aptitude in fiqh.

Due to his exclusive dependence on authentic reports, he was limited and forced to meticulously utilize the reports in his Ṣaḥīḥ to the greatest extent possible.

This is why we find many reports repeatedly mentioned throughout his Ṣaḥīḥ across many different chapters.
That is because he will try to utilize an authentic report as much as he can when different rulings can be derived from it.

When deriving rulings for fiqh, we often find al-Bukhārī discarding weak reports that would otherwise explicitly substantiate his claim(s) in exchange for authentic reports where the desired conclusion can only be inferred.
We can thus appreciate him as a competent jurist as well

Nevertheless, when Bukhārī does repeat multiple reports throughout his book, he doesn’t let that pass without additional contributions.

He will often list these repeated reports with different chains, further adding to the value of the book!

His Ṣaḥīḥ consists of 97 sub-books, which span the chapters of fiqh. These sub-books then span hundreds upon hundreds of chapters, in which the ḥadīths are carefully arranged throughout the Ṣaḥīḥ.

The 1st report in the Ṣaḥīḥ is the report of Umar on the importance of one’s intention with respect to his deeds.

The last report is the famous report of Abu Hurayrah:
(Both pictured below)

These are the points that I have in mind for now, and I may make some additions later on.

Until then

سبحان الله وبحمده سبحان الله العظيم

.