Sahih al-Bukhari صَحِيح الْبُخَارِي

Overview

Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī (Arabic: صَحِيح الْبُخَارِي; full title al-Jāmiʿ al-Musnad aṣ-Ṣaḥīḥ al-Mukhtaṣar min Umūr Rasūl Allāh ﷺ wa-Sunanihi wa-Ayyāmihi) is the most authoritative hadith collection in Sunni Islam — universally regarded by Sunni scholars as the most authentic book after the Quran itself. It was compiled by Muhammad ibn Ismaʿil al-Bukhārī (194–256 AH / 810–870 CE) over sixteen years of travel, examination, and isnad criticism.

The collection contains 7,275 narrations (with repetitions across topics) — approximately 2,602 distinct hadith — all chosen from a working pool of around 600,000 hadith that al-Bukhārī examined. Every entry meets his triple-strict criteria: continuous chain (ittiṣāl), upright (ʿadālah) and accurate (ḍabṭ) narrators throughout, contemporary contact verified (each narrator must have demonstrably met or heard from his immediate teacher), and freedom from concealed defects.

Compilation

Al-Bukhārī said: "I compiled my Ṣaḥīḥ from a pool of six hundred thousand hadith, and I included no hadith in it without performing the istikhārah prayer and an ablution." The Tarjamah (chapter heading) of each chapter is itself a juristic statement, drawn from a verse of the Quran or another hadith — the chapter heads are studied as legal scholarship in their own right ("the fiqh of al-Bukhārī is in his chapter headings" is a classical maxim).

The book is organised topically into 97 books (kutub) and over 3,400 chapters (abwāb), beginning with the Book of Revelation, the Book of Belief, the Book of Knowledge, and proceeding through prayer, zakat, fasting, hajj, transactions, marriage, divorce, foods, attire, conduct, judgement, oaths, prescribed punishments, dreams, the trials of the end times, and concluding with the Book of Tawhid.

Structure

• 97 books (kutub)
• ~3,400 chapters (abwāb)
• ~7,275 narrations with repetitions
• ~2,602 distinct hadith
• Opens: "Actions are by intentions" (the famous Hadith of Niyyah, Hadith 1)
• Closes: a hadith of "Two phrases beloved to ar-Raḥmān" (Hadith 7563), in the Book of Tawhid

Major commentaries

The most celebrated commentary is Fatḥ al-Bārī by Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī (d. 852 AH) — a masterwork of fifteen volumes that examines every hadith's isnad, the variant chains, the linguistic and juristic content, and the relations to other hadith. Other major commentaries:

• ʿUmdat al-Qārī by Badr ad-Dīn al-ʿAynī (d. 855 AH).
• Irshād as-Sārī by al-Qasṭallānī (d. 923 AH).
• al-Kawkab ad-Darārī by al-Kirmānī (d. 786 AH).

Famous hadith

ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb reported the Prophet ﷺ said: "Actions are by intentions, and every person will have only what they intended." — Hadith 1 — the opening hadith of the entire collection

Anas reported the Prophet ﷺ said: "None of you truly believes until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself." — Hadith 13

Significance

Sunni consensus, articulated since the early classical period, ranks Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī as the most authentic book after the Quran. The phrase "the most authentic of books after the Book of Allah" applies to Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī first and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim second — the two together being called aṣ-Ṣaḥīḥān. The methodology of the work has shaped every subsequent hadith study; ʿulūm al-ḥadīth as a discipline draws much of its empirical material from al-Bukhārī's practice.

See also

• Hadith
• Sahih Muslim
• Jami at-Tirmidhi
• Sunan Abi Dawud
• Al-Adab al-Mufrad
• Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
• Sunnah

References

1. al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, ed. Muḥibb ad-Dīn al-Khaṭīb (Maktabat al-Salafiyyah); trans. M. Muhsin Khan (Darussalam, 9 vols.).
2. Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Fatḥ al-Bārī Sharḥ Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, ed. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Bāz (Dar al-Maʿrifah, 15 vols.).
3. Badr ad-Dīn al-ʿAynī, ʿUmdat al-Qārī Sharḥ Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.
4. al-Dhahabī, Siyar Aʿlām an-Nubalāʾ, vol. 12 — life of al-Bukhārī.
5. Mustafa al-Aʿẓamī, Studies in Early Hadīth Literature, sections on al-Bukhārī.
6. Jonathan A. C. Brown, The Canonization of al-Bukhārī and Muslim (Brill, 2007) — modern academic survey.