Al Bukhari

Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Isma'il ibn Ibrahim ibn al-Mughira ibn Bardizbah al-Bukhari al-Ju'fi, described in the source as the Commander of the Faithful in hadith and one of the trustworthy hadith scholars. ²

Ibn al-Nadim lists among his books: "al-Tarikh al-Kabir", "al-Tarikh al-Saghir", "al-Tarikh al-Awsat", "al-Asma' wa al-Kuna", "al-Du'afa'", "al-Sahih", "al-Sunan" in jurisprudence, "al-Adab", "Khalq Af'al al-Ibad", and "al-Qira'a khalf al-Imam". ²

The account the introduction to the Sahih gives through the History of Damascus (the period of composition, the number of hadiths selected, and the practice at the Sacred Mosque) is not included here: the local copies of the Sahih do not show this text, and it will be added from a documented source in a later batch.

Tareq al-Suwaidan dedicates two episodes to al-Bukhari, declaring his greatest secret to be a rare talent — a powerful memory — nurtured from childhood and invested, adding that one who finds no patron can still carve his own way ^{3 4}. He recounts: as a boy under ten he attended the jurists' circles at Merv and wrote; when the attendants laughed that he had written only two hadiths, a shaykh said 'do not laugh, for he may laugh at you one day'; and at sixteen he visited Basra, wrote nothing for sixteen days, then recited from memory the fifteen thousand hadiths his companions had collected — until they corrected their books from his memory ^{5 6 7}. He cites his saying 'I memorise a hundred thousand sound hadiths and two hundred thousand unsound ones' and that he distilled the Sahih from six hundred thousand; and he pairs it with an incident he himself witnessed at Shaykh al-Albani's, aged seventeen — al-Albani spotting an interrupted hadith by naming the volume, page, transmitters and their dates — to show this memory is a real human capacity, not legend ^{8 9 10}. Of his travels: he heard al-Zuhri at Mecca, entered Baghdad eight times sitting each time to Imam Ahmad until Ahmad said at parting 'do you leave knowledge and the people and go to Khurasan?' — and journeyed to Mecca, Medina, Egypt and Syria gathering every route of each hadith ^{11 12 13}. He transmits his saying 'I wrote from one thousand and eighty men, every one a hadith scholar, all holding that faith is word and deed, increasing and decreasing' — the formula of the Sunnis ^{14 15}. And the making of the Sahih: hearing a companion of Ishaq ibn Rahawayh wish for 'a concise book of the Prophet ﷺ's sunnas', it settled in his heart and he began collecting at eighteen, finishing in sixteen years, entering no hadith without first washing and praying two rak'as, and leaving many sound ones so the book would not grow long ^{16 17 18 19}. He draws from him that one who splits his life into taking and giving, focuses on a field suiting his gift, and rubs against the great scholars reaches the summit — with balance that neglects neither worship nor character ^{20 21}.

Al-Suwaidan continues al-Bukhari's life, describing the labour of authorship: a student counted him rising eighteen times in one night to light the lamp, recall and write, and al-Warraq reports fifteen to twenty risings a night while travelling — for creativity is 'one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent effort' ^{22 23 24}. He explains the Sahih's greatness: not only the soundness of its hadiths but the fiqh of its chapter-headings, the ordering, and his own comments; and he would not write from a man until he asked his name, kunyah, lineage and stock of hadiths, tested his understanding and went back to the man's source ^{25 26 27}. The Baghdad test: the hadith scholars scrambled a hundred hadiths — sound isnads on sound but unconnected texts — split among ten memorisers; al-Bukhari heard them all, said 'I do not know these', then returned them correctly ordered, 'the first isnad belongs to the seventh text' — whereupon Ibn Sa'id called him 'the butting ram' ^{28 29 30}. Of his scrupulousness in jarh wa-ta'dil: he used to say 'I hope to meet God without being called to account for backbiting anyone', so instead of 'liar' he would say 'his hadith needs examining' — meaning suspect, weak — except rarely for fabricators ^{31 32 33}. And when a scholar claimed he did not know how to pray he answered 'by God, if I wished I would narrate for you now ten thousand hadiths on prayer' ^{33 34}. His early brilliance: at eleven he corrected his shaykh — 'Zayd did not narrate from Ibrahim, but Sulayman' — and the shaykh rose, fetched his source and corrected the book; while the people of Basra gathered to hear him at seventeen, his beard not yet full ^{35 36 37}. His father Isma'il said on his deathbed 'I know not a dirham of my wealth from the unlawful nor a dirham of doubt' — and al-Bukhari remarks: a man is most truthful at death ^{38 39}. Of the scholars' testimony: Qutayba's 'had he been among the Companions he would have been a sign', Ahmad's 'none like Muhammad ibn Isma'il came to us from Khurasan', and Ibn Khuzayma's 'under heaven's canopy I have seen none more knowing or more memorising of the Prophet's hadith' ^{40 41 42}. He died at sixty-two; the lesson drawn: a single book can immortalise a man — 'a scholar's book is his immortal child' — with focus on one field and no distraction ^{42 43 44}.