Al-Kutub al-Sitta and Their Authors

1. Al-Bukhari and His Work

Muhammad ibn Ismail ibn Ibrahim al-Bukhari was born in Bukhara in the year 194 after the Hijrah or 810 AD. He became deeply interested in hadith when he was 10 years old and started memorizing many hadiths when he was still a child.

He first studied hadith with his teachers in his home town; then he continued his education in important scholarly centers of the time such as Damascus, Basra, the Hijaz, Kufa, Baghdad and Egypt.

It has been reported that he studied hadith with as many as one thousand teachers. The number of hadiths that he memorized was, according to al-Bukhari himself, was three hundred thousand, one hundred thousand of them being sahih (authentic and reliable) hadiths.

After his scholarly journeys to learn and teach hadith, which lasted about 40 years, al-Bukhari finally settled in a town near Bukhara called Hartenk, and died there in 256 after the Hijrah or 870 AD at the age of 62.

One of the most important scholars of his time, al-Bukhari's knowledge of hadith was tested many times by his peers. In one instance, the isnad (narration) chains and texts of approximately 100 hadiths were mixed up and read to him. When he was asked what he would say about these hadiths, he corrected each and every one of them with his sound memory, gaining the admiration and praise of the scholars and the audience who were present. These examinations were repeated several times by different scholars, and his continued success in these exams provided him with a deserved fame among the enthusiastic public and a very high status among the scholars of hadith.

Al-Bukhari started writing about hadith when he was still a student. His scholarly books include al-Tarikh al-Kabir (The Great History) al-Tarikh al-Awsat (The Middle History), and al-Tarikh al-Saghir (The Little History), Adab al-Mufrad, and al-Duafa, as well as his al-Jami al-Sahih (or Sahih al-Bukhari), the first book of al-Kutub al-Sitta, which has a very special status among the hadith books; this is the most authentic hadith collection ever produced in the history of Islam.

 Al-Bukhari started writing his al-Jami al-Sahih when his teacher, Ishaq ibn Rahouye (d. 238/ 852) said "If only someone would collect the authentic hadiths..."; he spent about a quarter of his life in the completion of this task. As a consequence of his hard work, careful scrutiny and resilience the Jami al-Sahih became celebrated by scholars of Islam and accepted as the most authentic book after the Quran.

Seen as a cornerstone in the history of hadith literature, Jami al-Sahih was written with the purpose of collecting only sahih (authentic) hadiths.

In his book, al-Bukhari includes 7,275 reported hadiths and classifies them according to the topics they involve. Instead of reporting different versions of a hadith in one place, he locates them in different places where they are better suited, thus demonstrating that several practical consequences can be discerned from one single hadith.

Due to the many superior qualities of this work, throughout history al-Bukhari's Jami al-Sahih has been celebrated and admired by an enthusiastic public (who still buy and read it) as well as by the scholarly community. An indication of this high status is the fact that there are more than two hundred academic studies carried out on this work alone.

2. Muslim and His Work

Muslim ibn Hajjaj al-Qushayri was born around 200 (after the Hijrah) in Nishabur, and he belongs to the Qushayr, a well known tribe among Arabs at the time.

There is very little information about his childhood years. Like al-Bukhari, he devoted his life to the study of hadith. He was educated in hadith in scientific centers of his time, such as the Hijaz, Iran, Syria, Mesopotamia and Turkistan, traveling back and forth between these countries.

Muslim also met al-Bukhari towards the end of his life and praised his scholarly competence. He died in the year 261 after the Hijrah or 874 AD.

Imam Muslim wrote many books on hadith, the best known of which is, no doubt, al-Jami al-Sahih, which is the second book of al-Kutub al-Sitta. The Jami al-Sahih contains approximately 4,000 hadiths that were selected from among 300,000 hadiths and classified according to their main themes. Imam Muslim says that only those hadiths which he and other scholars of hadith considered to be authentic were included in this book.

Muslim emphasized, and achieved with great success, the bringing together of different versions of particular hadiths as reported from different channels. His al-Jami al-Sahih has thus been considered superior to the Jami' of al-Bukhari in terms of its organization and classification of hadiths. Finally, Imam Muslim also wrote an introductory chapter to his book in which he explains his method and the principles according to which he collected the hadiths.

3. Tirmidhi and His Work

Abu ‘Isa Muhammad ibn ‘Isa ibn Thawra was born in 209 after the Hijrah or 827 AD. Tirmidhi traveled to different centers of hadith study including Arabia, Mesopotamia, Iran and Khorasan in order to learn hadith; he also met such scholars of hadith as al-Bukhari, Imam Muslim, and Abu Davud. He died in 279 (after the Hijrah) (892) in Tirmidh.

He was well known for his extraordinarily powerful memory. He wrote many books in different sub-fields of the study of hadith, including, most importantly, his al-Jami' al-Sahih, which became known as Sunan al-Tirmidhi and which is considered by all scholars to be among the al-Kutub al-Sitta.

Tirmidhi organized his book according to the topics of fiqh (Islamic law). It includes approximately four thousand hadiths. He painstakingly scrutinized the narrators of the hadiths he collected, and carefully investigated the degree of the authenticity of each hadith he analyzed. He also paid attention to how the scholars of fiqh drew on hadiths to reach a hukm (order or rule), and expressed his opinion on each hadith he reported based on his evaluation of them.

He has been reported to have said: "Whoever has this book in their house it is as if they are hosting the Prophet (pbuh)."

4. Abu Davud and His Work

Abu Davud Muhammad ibn Suleyman ibn Ishaq ibn al-Azdi al-Sijistani was born in 202 after the Hijrah in Sijistan.

After his primary education, he traveled to Nishabur, Kufa, Khorasan, Arabia, Mesopotamia, Iran, Syria and Egypt to learn and teach hadith. He died in 275 after the Hijrah or 888 AD in Basra, Iraq.

Abu Davud was a very prolific writer. The best known of his works is his Sunan, which is composed of hadiths about the topics in fiqh. Abu Davud's work is accepted by scholars as the first example of the genre of the Sunan, which has an important status in the hadith literature. Completed in twenty years, his Sunan consists of 4,800 hadiths that were selected from among 500,000 hadiths.

Abu Davud has been reported to have said: "Even four of the hadiths [in my book] are enough for a wise person", giving the four examples as follows: "Deeds are evaluated according to intentions", "The maturity of one's faith requires him to stay away from unnecessary actions", "He who does not wish for his Muslim brother what he wishes for himself cannot be a true believer", "What is permissible [halal] and what is forbidden [haram] are clearly separated from each other".

Abu Davud always chose the strongest (most authentic) hadiths on every topic he handled. He also narrated different versions of each hadith he included in his book. Although he did not include any narrated hadith that most scholars found to be not authentic, he sometimes included some Da'eef (weak) hadiths that the scholars of fiqh had employed as evidence for their opinions. However, when he did this, he always indicated the weaknesses of such narrations - whereas he did not provide an explanation about the hadiths which he considered to be authentic (sahih).

Abu Davud's Sunan has been used as a reference book by members of all schools of thought in Islam throughout history.

5. Nasaai and His Work

Abu Abd al-Rahman Ahmad ibn Shu'ayb al- Nasaai (also known as Nasai) was born in 214 after the Hijrah or 829 AD in Nasaa.

He received his primary education in his home town; then he learnt hadith from different scholars in Balkh, Iraq, Sham (Syria), and Egypt. He died in 303 after the Hijrah or 915 AD.

One of the best-known hadith scholars of his time, al-Nasaai composed a book entitled Kitab al-Sunan al-Kabir, which contained hadiths about the topics in fiqh. Later, he summarized this book by eliminating those hadiths that were not sahih (authentic and reliable), and entitled this new book that contained only sahih hadiths "al-Mujtaba". This latter book is also in the genre of Sunan, and contains approximately 5,700 hadiths. Al-Mujtaba has unanimously been accepted as one of al-Kutub al-Sitta.

Also known as the Sunan al-Nasaai, al-Mujtaba has been reported to include the least number of weak hadiths among the Sunan books. Al-Nasaai was famous for his close scrutiny and critical evaluation of the narrators of hadith, which he clearly showed in his selection of hadiths that were included in his book. Another feature of his work is that different versions of the hadiths contained in it were repeated several times without being summarized or abbreviated in order to demonstrate the differences, including different words and usages, among them.

6. Ibn Majah and His Work

Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Yazid ibn Abdullah Ibn Majah al-Qazvini was born in 209 after the Hijrah in Qazvin.

Like other scholars of hadith in his time, he traveled to different places to learn and teach hadith, including Iran, Mesopotamia, Arabia, Syria and Egypt. He died in 273 after the Hijrah or 886 AD.

He wrote several books in different fields, including tafsir (interpretation of the Quran), history and hadith. His most important and best-known work is his Sunan, which is the sixth book of the al-Kutub al-Sitta.

Ibn Majah's Sunan contains approximately 4,000 hadiths. An important feature of this book is that it is relatively short, for it does not contain repetitions of hadiths (different versions of them). In addition, it includes a number of weak hadiths; for this reason, some scholars have considered Imam Malik's al-Muwatta' or Darimi's Sunan to be the sixth book of al-Kutub al-Sitta, instead of Ibn Majah's Sunan.