Imam al-Bukhari

The great hadith scholar known for al-Jami' al-sahih, regarded as the most reliable book after the Qur'an (d. 256/870). His full name was Abu 'Abd Allah Muhammad b. Isma'il b. Ibrahim al-Ju'fi al-Bukhari.

He was born at Bukhara on Friday 13 Shawwal 194 (20 July 810). His great-great-grandfather Bardizbah was a Zoroastrian; because the latter's son al-Mughira became a Muslim through the governor of Bukhara, Yaman al-Ju'fi, al-Bukhari is also known by the nisba al-Ju'fi. His father Isma'il had learned hadith from scholars such as Malik b. Anas and 'Abd Allah b. al-Mubarak; he died while al-Bukhari was still a child, and some of his hadith books passed to his son. His mother is mentioned as a pious woman whose prayers were answered.

Around the age of ten he began to learn hadith from Bukharan traditionists such as Muhammad b. Salam al-Bikandi and 'Abd Allah b. Muhammad al-Musnadi. At about eleven he drew attention by correcting some errors made by his teacher al-Dakhili while transmitting; by sixteen he had entirely memorized the books of Ibn al-Mubarak and Waki' b. al-Jarrah. At that time he went on pilgrimage with his mother and his brother Ahmad; while they returned home he stayed in Mecca and studied hadith with scholars such as Khallad b. Yahya and 'Abd Allah b. al-Zubayr al-Humaydi. Then he began to travel among the centres of learning: he went to Baghdad more than eight times, meeting Ahmad b. Hanbal on each visit; he went to Basra four or five times and to Balkh several times, where at the request of its people he dictated one hadith from each of the 1000 teachers from whom he had learned. He learned hadith from Abu Mushir in Damascus, stayed six years in the Hijaz, went to Hims, travelled many times to Kufa, and also studied in Medina, Merv and Egypt, which he visited twice. In Nishapur, which he visited first in 209 (824) and last in 250 (864), he taught hadith for five years. He says that the number of scholars from whom he wrote hadith was 1080; a treatise by Ibn Manda gives the names of 309 of his teachers from whom he transmits in al-Jami' al-sahih.

From the hadiths gathered on his long journeys he built up a large library; he said that one night, staying awake, he reckoned up the hadiths he had written until then and found he had recorded 200,000 hadiths with continuous chains. The most famous example of the strength of his memory is the Baghdad test reported by Ibn 'Adi: the traditionists mixed up the chains and texts of 100 hadiths, gave them to ten men, and these asked al-Bukhari about them in turn. Al-Bukhari said that he knew none of the hadiths in the form in which they had been read, and then, beginning with the first questioner, told each of them the correct chain and text of the hadith he had asked about.

He too suffered from the controversy, long continuing in the Islamic world, over whether the Qur'an is created. When he came to Nishapur the people and the traditionist Muhammad b. Yahya al-Dhuhli received him with great honour; but when he was asked whether the Qur'an is created, his answer caused a great dispute among those present. Faced with al-Dhuhli's influence in the city, he recited the verse "I commit my affair to God; surely God sees His servants" (al-Mu'min 40/44), said that he had not come to Nishapur for any gain, and left the city the next day. He went on to Merv and from there to Bukhara.

He withheld his knowledge from no one who sought it, but kept away from men of state and regarded going to their palaces as demeaning to learning. When the governor of Khurasan, Khalid b. Ahmad al-Dhuhli, let him know that he wished to hear his works from him, he replied that he could not carry learning to other people's doors, and that if the governor wished he should come to the mosque where he taught or to his house; he also refused the governor's request to teach only his own children, on the ground that he could not reserve learning for particular people. Thereupon the governor had men close to him allege that he held views incompatible with the Sunna, and exiled him from his homeland. Al-Bukhari set out for Samarqand; while visiting relatives in the small town of Khartank, 3 miles from Samarqand, he fell ill and could not reach Samarqand. He died on the eve of the Feast of Breaking the Fast of the year 256 and was buried there the next day (Friday 1 September 870). All that is known of his family is that he had a son named Ahmad.

He was of medium height, thin and slight of build; he spoke little, did not covet what others possessed and paid no attention to food and drink. Many of his actions are reported to show his generosity and his indifference to worldly goods: to those who advised him to collect through officials a debt long unpaid, he said, "If I ask them for help, they will ask me to give fatwas as it suits them; I cannot sell my religion for the world." Even of the narrators he criticized he spoke with great moderation and fairness, and used to say, "I hope that God Most High will not call me to account for backbiting." He loved archery.

His Circle of Influence — His famous pupil al-Firabri says that 90,000 people heard al-Jami' al-sahih from al-Bukhari. His other best-known pupils are Imam Muslim, al-Tirmidhi, Abu Hatim, Abu Zur'a al-Razi, Muhammad b. Nasr al-Marwazi, Salih Jazara and Ibn Khuzayma. His teachers and contemporaries spoke of him with praise: Nu'aym b. Hammad and Ya'qub b. Ibrahim al-Dawraqi used to say, "Al-Bukhari is the jurist of this community"; Ishaq b. Rahawayh advised the traditionists, "Write hadith from this young man"; Imam Muslim told him, "I bear witness that there is none like you in the world"; and Ibn Khuzayma said he had seen no one under the vault of heaven who knew the hadiths of the Messenger of God better. Because he was the first to bring the sound hadiths together and because of his superiority in detecting subtle defects ('ilal), he has been accepted as an undisputed authority in the science of hadith. In creed he is counted among the first Sunni scholars who contributed to the formation of the Ahl al-Sunna; his view that the recitation of the Qur'an is created paved the way for the later Sunni theological distinction between "verbal speech" (kalam lafzi) and "inner speech" (kalam nafsi), and his contemporaries Muslim and Ibn Qutayba adopted this view.

His Poetry and Sufi Line — It is recorded that the moral verses found in some books reflect his taste for poetry. In his scholarly line he was, in general terms, attached to the creed of the Salaf, and he criticized the Jahmiyya, the Mu'tazila, the Khawarij and the Shi'a. While most hadith scholars regarded the discussion of doctrinal questions as innovation, he held such discussion necessary when beliefs contrary to the texts arose, so that the view conforming to the Qur'an and Sunna could be established and defended. For him the Qur'an is the speech of God and is not created, while reading and writing the Qur'an are acts of the servants and are created. On the attribute of bringing into being, on not declaring grave sinners unbelievers, and on faith and Islam being the same thing he followed Abu Hanifa; on faith increasing and decreasing he followed Ahmad b. Hanbal. He is also known as a great jurist; because the chapter headings in al-Jami' al-sahih reflect his legal views it has been said, "Al-Bukhari's jurisprudence is in his chapter headings."

His Works — ① al-Jami' al-sahih: known popularly as Sahih al-Bukhari; he said that he produced it in sixteen years, selecting from some 600,000 hadiths, and that before writing each hadith he performed the full ablution and prayed two cycles. He began writing it in Bukhara and continued in Mecca, Medina and Basra; hundreds of studies and commentaries have been written on it. ② al-Tarikh al-kabir: begun before he was twenty and, in his own words, "by the Prophet's grave on moonlit nights", it establishes the degree of reliability of nearly 13,000 narrators; he kept renewing and completing it until a late stage of his life. ③ al-Tarikh al-awsat and ④ al-Tarikh al-saghir: abridgements and summaries of the great history. ⑤ Kitab al-du'afa' al-saghir: it contains 418 narrators. ⑥ Kitab al-kuna. ⑦ al-Adab al-mufrad: it gathers hadiths on good character, 1322 hadiths in 644 chapters. ⑧ Khalq af'al al-'ibad: written to show that the servants' utterance of the Qur'an, like their other acts, is created. ⑨ Raf' al-yadayn fi al-salat and ⑩ Kitab al-qira'a khalf al-imam. The source also lists other works whose names appear in his writings and in the sources, such as al-'Aqida (al-Tawhid), al-Tafsir al-kabir and Birr al-walidayn. His statement that he wrote all his books three times shows that he read them to his students and revised them each time.