Saheeh-ul-Bhukari Imam Muhammad Ibn Isma’eel Al-Bhukari was born in 194H in Bhukara, in today’s 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 Qur’an 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 Qur’an.

The great scholar’s 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 Zar’ah 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. i

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 Zar’ah 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 isn’t 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: Sahee-ul-Bukhari Saheeh Muslim Al-Muwatta Musnad Ahmad