The Sheikh of Islam and the mayor of hadith scholars, Imam al-Bukhari, is considered one of the greatest memorizers, the most prominent and most capable of Muslim jurists, and he is one of the most famous scholars of hadith, the sciences of men, the jurisprudence and modification, and the ills of the Sunnis and the community. His book “Sahih al-Bukhari,” in which he collected the prophetic hadiths, is classified as one of The greatest source of the noble Prophet’s influence. He is the divine scholar who spent a greater part of his life serving the sayings of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace. He would begin by collecting hadiths, reading them, verifying them, and documenting them (may God have mercy on him).

Firstly: Imam Al-Bukhari: his origin, upbringing, and life

He is Abu Abdullah Muhammad bin Ismail Al-Bukhari. He was born in Shawwal in the year 194 AH, corresponding to 810 AD, in the city of Bukhara, to which he is attributed, and which is one of the cities of present-day Uzbekistan. His father died when he was young, and he was raised as an orphan in the care of his mother, who raised him well and played a role in sharpening his determination and love. For your information.

Al-Bukhari traveled to Mecca at the age of 16, accompanied by his mother and brother Ahmed, to perform the Hajj. He left behind them to gain more knowledge. He remained there for six years and began collecting hadiths. After that, he traveled between countries for this purpose, from Baghdad to Kufa, Damascus, Egypt, Khorasan, and others, and he memorized He strives to request more and write down, and it was narrated that he does not write down hadiths until he has performed ablution and prayed two rak’ahs.

Al-Bukhari died on the first of Shawwal 256 AH, corresponding to 869 AD, at the evening prayer. He was prayed for on the afternoon of the Eid and was buried in one of the villages of Samarkand. He had arrived there after the ruler of Bukhara expelled him from the city. Because he refused to go to educate his children rather than the public, and he said: “I do not humiliate knowledge, nor do I carry it to people’s doors.”

Second: His knowledge and sheikhs

When he was young, the Imam was afflicted with an eye disease to the point that he almost lost his sight, but he was treated for it and his health returned. He was a leader in knowledge, and a leader in piety and worship. He had intelligence, purity, and a strong memory, which was one of the qualities that helped him later in collecting the Prophetic hadiths.

Al-Bukhari memorized the Holy Qur’an, learned the basic sciences in religion, and memorized thousands of hadiths while he was still a boy. He was helped by the atmosphere of Bukhara, which was a center of knowledge in that era, and he used to attend circles of scholars and clerics.

Al-Bukhari met with a large number of sheikhs and scholars, until they reached more than a thousand men, during his many trips and his extensive travels in the regions. Al-Bukhari said: “I wrote about one thousand and eighty people, among whom was no one except a hadith narrator.”

The scholars paid attention to mentioning the sheikhs of Al-Bukhari, so some scholars named them and arranged them by country, such as Al-Dhahabi in the biographies of noble figures, and some of them arranged them according to class, such as Al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar in Huda Al-Sari, and some of them arranged them according to the number of narrations, and some of them arranged them according to the letters of the dictionary. Imam Al-Nawawi said: “This section is very broad and cannot be exhausted. He referred to a group from every region and country, to demonstrate the breadth of his journey, the abundance of his narrations, and the greatness of his care.”

As for his sheikhs, whose narrations are very numerous in the Sahih, and who have more than a hundred narrations with him: Abdullah bin Yusuf al-Tanisi, and his narrations about him exceeded three hundred narrations, Ali bin Abdullah al-Madini whose narrations exceeded two hundred, Abu al-Yaman al-Hakam bin Nafi’, Musa bin Ismail al-Tabudhaki, Abd Allah bin Muhammad Al-Musnadi, Abu Naim Al-Fadl bin Dakin, Muhammad bin Bashar, known as Bandar, Qutayba bin Saeed, Salman bin Harb, Abu Al-Walid Hisham bin Abdul-Malik Al-Tayalisi, Muhammad bin Al-Muthanna.

As for the average ones who have less than a hundred narrations and more than fifty: Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah Al-Uwaisi, Abdullah bin Al-Zubair Al-Humaidi, Ibrahim bin Musa, Ibrahim bin Al-Mundhir, Muhammad bin Yusuf Al-Faryabi, Muhammad bin Katheer, Hafs bin Omar.

Among his most important sheikhs who reached the rank of imamate in knowledge and religion: Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, even if he did not narrate from him in the Sahih, Ishaq ibn Rahawayh who narrated about thirty narrations from him, Ahmad ibn Salih al-Masry, Abu Naim al-Fadl ibn Dakin, and others.

Perhaps the most influential of them on the soul and personality of Imam al-Bukhari, and the highest ranked among them in his view, is Imam Ali bin al-Madini, may God have mercy on him, as al-Bukhari said about him: “I did not consider myself to be insignificant to anyone except Ali bin al-Madini.”

Third: Imam Al-Bukhari’s approach to writing the hadith, the doubts surrounding it, and responding to them:

Al-Bukhari’s (may God have mercy on him) approach in writing hadith was strict, examining the narrators and chains of transmission, and he became a scholar in this field in terms of good classifications and accuracy. The story of his writing of his book (Al-Jami’ al-Sahih), which is considered the first book to be classified on the authentic and abstract hadith, is considered great evidence of determination and intelligence. And sincerity, this work took 16 years on arduous journeys between countries and regions.

He was not in a hurry to publish the book, as he put a lot of review, revision, and investigation into it until he came up with the final form to include 7,275 hadiths chosen by Al-Bukhari from among the 600,000 hadiths that had come to him. He worked to verify the narrations and set conditions for accepting the narration of the narrator of the hadith, which is that he must be contemporary with the one who narrates from him. And he must have heard the hadith from him, along with: trust, justice, precision, mastery, knowledge, and piety.

Al-Bukhari in his Sahih does not narrate directly on the authority of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace. Rather, he narrates on the authority of trustworthy sheikhs, who are at the highest levels of memorization, accuracy, and trustworthiness than their counterparts until it reaches the Companions on the authority of the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, and the smallest number between Al-Bukhari and the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace. Three narrators said yes.

Imam Ibn Hajar, in his introduction to the explanation of Sahih al-Bukhari, included a special chapter in which he mentioned the hadiths that Imam al-Hafiz al-Dar Qutni and other critics of Sahih al-Bukhari criticized in a recent hadith in the context of the book, and he answered them, and the number of these hadiths reached one hundred and ten hadiths, and he said: “ Every fair-minded person should know that even though most of these hadiths do not discredit the origin of the subject of the book, they are all narrated from another source.” He mentioned on the authority of Imam Abu Omar ibn al-Salah: “The places whose authenticity is disputed did not receive the kind of reception that happened to most of the book.” Most of Al-Dar Qutni’s criticisms are technical and ambiguous to non-specialists in the Prophet’s hadith, and are divided into six categories, as Ibn Hajar explained, which are:

1. The first: What the narrators differ in, whether with additions or omissions from the narrators of the chain of transmission.
2. Second: What the narrators differ about by changing the narrators of some of the chain of narration.
3. Third: Some narrators are unique in adding an addition to it, without those who are more numerous or more precise than those who did not mention it.
4. Fourth: What was unique to some of the weak narrators.
5. Fifth: What was ruled as delusion on some of its men, some of which favor that delusion as an insult, and some of which it does not.
6. Sixth: What is disputed about by changing some of the words in the text, most of which does not result in slander.

Then the author said before starting to review the one hundred and ten hadiths one by one: “These are the sum of the sections of what the imams criticized according to the Sahih, and I have edited them, verified them, divided them, and detailed them. Nothing that affects the original subject of the book, thank God, appears except rarely.”

Al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar concluded this chapter by saying: “This is all that was followed by the critical scholars who know the reasons for the chains of transmission, and are familiar with the secrets of the paths. Not all of them are slanderous, but rather the answer to them is obvious and the criticism about them is impulsive, and the answer to some of them is possible, and the simple ones in the answer to them are arbitrariness.” “If the fair person considers what I have edited from that, the greatness of the value of this work (meaning: Sahih al-Bukhari) in itself, and the greatness of its classification in itself, and the excuse of the Imams among the scholars for receiving it with acceptance and acceptance, and for giving priority to it over every work in the hadith and the ancients, and they are not the same: whoever pays With the chest, the claim of fanaticism is not safe, and whoever pays with the hand of fairness, according to satisfactory rules and observed controls.”

Fourth: The status of Imam Al-Bukhari and his book, and the response to his critics

Al-Bukhari was accepted and praised by most imams throughout history. Ahmad ibn Hanbal said: “Khorasan has not produced anything like Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Bukhari.” Al-Hafiz al-Khatib al-Baghdadi elaborated on al-Bukhari’s position in the cities of Islam: the Basrans, the Hijazis, the Kufans, the Baghdadis, the people of Rayy and Khorasan, and the two imams said: Al-Nawawi and Al-Tawfi: “Calling Al-Bukhari and Muslim the two imams of hadith scholars is based on their piety, asceticism, diligence, and diligence in issuing the authentic hadiths, until all those after them were followed in correcting them.” Al-Hafiz al-Tirmidhi said: “I have not seen anyone in Iraq, nor in Khurasan, who is more knowledgeable than Muhammad bin Ismail in the meaning of the causes, history, and knowledge of chains of transmission.”

There is no book among Muslims that has gained favor, reputation, and fame among the majority of jurists and sheikhs like Sahih al-Bukhari, and it has received the same amount of reverence, honor, and glorification. It is the most authentic book after the Qur’an (with regard to the texts of Islamic law), and the nation’s consensus has been reached that the biographies compiled by al-Bukhari indicate Deep understanding and careful consideration of the meanings of texts, it is the subject of agreement among the general scholars over the centuries after Al-Bukhari became accepted by them due to his extensive study and writing about him or an aspect of him. This was acknowledged by imams such as Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal and Al-Hafiz Al-Nasa’i, and imams such as Ibn Al-Salah narrated this agreement. Al-Nawawi, Al-Tawfi, and others. A large number of his students, such as Muslim, Abu Zur’ah al-Razi, al-Tirmidhi, Ibn Khuzaymah, and many others, narrated on the authority of al-Bukhari.

This is the status of Sahih Al-Bukhari among the scholars, sheikhs, and jurists of the Islamic nation, and this is the tip of the iceberg of what was said about this knowledgeable imam, so let every critic of him know what great man he is talking about. We conclude this research with what Ibn Taymiyyah said: “The majority of what was denounced by Al-Bukhari from what he authenticated, his statement about it is more preferable to the statement of those who disputed it, unlike Muslim ibn Al-Hajjaj, for he distributed several hadiths from what he narrated, and the correct view in them was with those who disputed him… But the majority of the texts of the two Sahih books are agreed upon. Among the imams of Ahl al-Hadith, they received it with acceptance, and unanimously agreed upon it, and they know with certainty that the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, said it.

We know the danger of belittling the importance of Imam al-Bukhari and his Sahih collection, and not giving them their due, and by that we do not mean the lack of fair and impartial scientific criticism if it comes from its people, as there is a difference between an insightful critic searching for the truth who issues his criticism based on knowledge and politeness, and a critic who belittles people’s things out of ignorance. Or passion.

Article references:

1. Ibn Taymiyyah, Majmo’ al-Fatawa, edition of the King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Noble Qur’an, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, (1/256).
2. Ibn Hajar Al-Asqalani, Fath Al-Bari, Explanation of Sahih Al-Bukhari, Dar Al-Ma’rifa, Beirut, 1379 AH, (1/479).
3. Ibn Kathir, The Beginning and the End, Dar Hijr, Egypt, 1st edition, 1417 – 1997 AD, (14/527)
4. Ibn Muflih, Al-Maqsad Al-Arshad fi Dhikr Al-Imam Ahmad’s Companions, Al-Rushd Library, Saudi Arabia, 1st edition, 1410 AH – 1990 AD, (2/230 – 377).
5. Al-Tirmidhi, Sunan Al-Tirmidhi, Dar Al-Gharb Al-Islami, 1st edition, 1996 AD, (9/232).
6. Shams al-Din al-Dhahabi, Tadhkirat al-Huffaz, Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyyah, Beirut, 1st edition, 1419 AH – 1998 AD (2/428).
7. Shams al-Din al-Dhahabi, Biography of Noble Figures, Al-Resala Foundation, Beirut, 3rd edition, 1405 AH – 1985 AD, (12/467).
8. Al-Nawawi, Tahdheeb Al-Asmaa wa Al-Lughat, Dar Al-Kutub Al-Ilmiyyah, Beirut, (1/71).

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