by GF Haddad

Ibrāhīm ibn Maqil said: I heard Muhammad ibn Ismāīl al-Bukhārī say: I was with Ishāq ibn
Rāhūyah when a man said: Why don’t you compile an epitome (mukhtasar) of the prophetic ways? This stayed with me, and was the reason why I compiled this book (the Sahīh).1 Al-Dhahabī said: It has been narrated through two firm channels of transmission that al-Bukhārī said: I extracted this book from about 600,000 (sound) hadīths, and I compiled it over sixteen years, and I made it a plea for what lies between myself and Allāh.2 Al-Firabrī said: Muhammad ibn Ismāëīl said to me: I never included in the Sahīh ahadīth except I made a major ablution (ghusl) and prayed two rakat beforehand.

Al-Nawawī said: ìThe scholars have agreed that the soundest of all hadīth compilations are the two Sahīhs of al-Bukhārī and Muslim, and their vast majority have agreed that the soundest and most beneficial of the two was al-Bukhārī’s. He continued: The totality of its hadīths are 7,275 with the repetitions and about 4,000 without.

In his Kitāb al-Tatabbu, al-Dāraqutnī argues for the weakness of 78 hadiths in al-Bukhārī, 100 in Muslim, and 32 in both based on isnād and matn criticism.

Al-Nawawī said: ìThe two S. ah. īh.s differ from all other books only in respect to the fact that what is
in them is s.ah.īh. and does not require investigation.3 Ibn al-Salāh said: Whatever only al-Bukhārī or only Muslim narrates enters [also] into the category of what is definitely sahīh…. except a few letters
which some of the expert critics objected to, such as al-Dāraqutnī and others and these are known to
the specialists.4 He said this after stating that what they agree upon is ìdefinitely sahīh (maqtū’un
bisihhatihi) for the Umma. Imām al-Nawawī objected to the terms definitely sahīh while granting all
that is in the Sahīhayn the level of strongly presumed [sahīh] until it becomes mutawātir (yufīdu alz anna ma lam yatawātar) as is the rule with all s.ah.īh. lone-narrated (āhād) hadīths.5 But Ibn Kathīr
differed: I am with Ibn al-Salāh. in his conclusion and directives, and Allāh knows best.6 Al-Suyūtī in
Tadrīb al-Rāwī cites Ibn Kathīr’s words verbatim then states: And this is also my choice and none
other.7 This is because of the standing of the two Sahīhs in the Umma and because none of the past
Imāms in Islām ever declared explicitly and rightly that all they had gathered in their respective books
was sahīh except al-Bukhārī and Muslim, and the verifying experts have confirmed their claim. Al-Suyūti also states:

Shaykh al-Islām said: What al-Nawawī mentioned in Sharh Sahīh Muslim is based on the
perspective of the majority (al-aktharīn); as for that of the verifying authorities (al-muhaqqiqūn),
then no. For the verifying authorities also agree with Ibn al-Salāh.8

By Shaykh al-Islām al-Suyūtī means the spotless Hāfiz and immaculate Imām Ibn Hajar al-Asqalānī and his book al-Nukat alā Ibn al-Salāh.9 Al-Suyūtī goes on to quote in detail mostly from Hadī al-Sārī – the refutations of Ibn Hajar to al-Dāraqutni’s criticism, showing that, in effect, the latter fails to invalidate the view of the Sahīhayn as 100% sahīh.

The fact is that they are all sahīh but not all of them reach the same high degree of sahīh. This is in
essence what al-Dhahabī concluded concerning the few narrators of the Sahīhayn whose grading was questioned: The narration of one such as those, does not go below the rank of hasan which we might call the lowest rank of the sahīh.10 Shaykh Abū Ghudda comments in the margin: This is an explicit confirmation that al-Bukhārī and Muslim did not confine themselves, in the narrations of their respective books, only to narrate hadīths that have the highest degree of sihha. Then again in his appendix (p. 144) he states:

Our Shaykh, the Allāma Ahmad Shākir stated: The truth without doubt among the verifiers of those who have knowledge of the sciences of hadīth… is that the hadīths of the two Sahīhs are all sahīh and there is not in a single one of them a cause for true [technical] disparagement or weakness. What al-Dāraqutnī and others criticized is only on the basis that it did not reach the high criterion which each of them defined in their respective books. As for the [criterion of] soundness (sihha) of the hadīths in themselves, then both of them lived up to it.

Dr. Badī al-Sayyid al-Lahhām in his edition of Ibn Kathīr’s al-Bāith al-Hathīth (p. 44-45) also
closes the discussion on the topic of the Sahīhayn with the same words but without attributing them to Shākir.Abū Ghudda concludes (p. 145): All these texts show that most of what is in Sahīh al-Bukhārī and Sahīh Muslim is of the highest degree of the sahīh., and that some of what is in them is not of the highest degree of the sahīh. More to the point, our teacher Dr. Nūr al-Dīn Itr said in his manual
Manhaj al-Naqd fī Ulūm al-Hadīth: The ruling concerning the hadīths of the two Sahīhs is that they
are all sahīh.11 All those mentioned above Ibn al-Salāh, al-Nawawī, al-Dhahabī, Ibn Kathīr, Ibn
Hajar, al-Suyūtī, Ahmad Shākir, Abū Ghudda, Itr, al-Lahhām agreed on the fact that all of what is in al-Bukhārī and Muslim is sahīh, and, apart from al-Nawawī’s duly recorded dissent, the muhaqqiqūn
such as Ibn al-Salāh, Ibn Kathīr, Ibn Hajar, and al-Suyūtī consider all the hadīths contained in them
maqtū’un bisihhatihi i.e. of the same probative force as mutawātir hadīth. Further examination of the positions of the major hadīth Masters might add more names to this distinguished list.

The questions are sometimes asked (1) whether all the Ulema of Hadīth agree that all the hadīths in
al-Bukhārī and Muslim are sahīh or (2) if there are any scholars who consider them to contain some
weak narrations, and (3) whether one who believes that the Sahīhayn are not 100% sahīh is an
innovator. As was just shown, some of the greatest hadīth authorities such as Ibn al-Salāh, Ibn Kathīr,
and al-Suyūtī answered yes to the first question. Imām al-Haramayn (Ibn al-Juwaynī) said that if a man
swore on pains of divorce that all that is in al-Bukhārī and Muslim is sahīh his marriage would be
safe.12 But Imām al-Dāraqutnī said a small number may not reach that level so the answer to the second
question has to be yes. Yet the objections were refuted one by one by Ibn Hajar at the beginning of Fath al-Bārī and Imām al-Nawawī at the beginning of Sharh Sahīh Muslim.13 The short formula whether the Sahīhayn are or not 100% sahīh remains tenuous and misleading, for the Umma far and wide meaning the Consensus of the Fuqahā generation after generation have been satisfied that they are.

This conclusion excludes the chainless, broken-chained reports, or unattributed reports sometimes
adduced by al-Bukhārī in his chapter-titles or appended to certain narrations. An example of the latter
is the so-called suicide hadīth one of al-Zuhrī’s unattributive narrations (balāghāt) which is actually
broken-chained and therefore weak. It does not meet the criteria of hadīth authenticity used by the lesser and greater hadīth Masters, much less that of al-Bukhārī who mentioned it only to show its discrepancy with two other chains whose versions omit the attempted suicide story, and Allāh knows best.14

The above conclusion is proof that the position that everything that is found in the two Sahīhs is
rigorously sound refers only to full-chained reports positively attributed to the Prophet, and Allāh
knows best.

1 M.M. Azami writes: Al-Bukhārī did not claim that what he left out were the spurious, nor that there were no authentic traditions outside his collection. On the contrary, he said: I only included in my book al-Jāmi those that were authentic, and I left out many more authentic traditions than this to avoid unnecessary length. He had no intention of collecting all the authentic traditions. He only wanted to compile a manual of hadīth according to the wishes of his shaykh Ishāq ibn Rāhūyah, and his function is quite clear from the title of his book Al-Jāmi, Musnad, al-Sahīh, al-Mukhtasar, min umūr Rasūl Allāh wa Sunanihi, wa ayyāmih (The Compendium of Sound Narrations Linked Back With Uninterrupted Chains and Epitomized of the Matters of the Messenger of Allāh, His Ways, and His Times). The word al-mukhtasar, epitome, itself explains that al-Bukhārī did not make any attempt at a comprehensive collection. Studies in Early Hadīth Literature (p. 304-305). This should be understood by those who ask: If hadīth x is not in al-Bukhārī nor Muslim then how can it be authentic?

2 Narrated by al-Khat.īb, al-Jāmië li Akhlāq al-Rāwī (2:270-271 #1613).

3 Al-Nawawī, Introduction to his Sharh. S. ah. īh. Muslim (1:20): Innamā yaftariqu al-Sahīh āni an ghayrihimā min al-kutub fī kawni mā fīhimā sahīh an lā yuhtāju ilā al-nazari fīh.

4 Ibn al-Salāh, Ulūm al-Hadīth, chapter on the sahīh hadīth (Dār al-Fikr ed. p. 29): Mā infarada bihi al-Bukhārī aw Muslimun mundarijun fī qābili mā yuqtau bisihhatihi… siwā ahrufin yasīratin takallama alayhā baduahli al-naqdi min al-huffāz al-Dāraqutnī wa ghayrih, wa hiya marūfatun inda ahli hādha al-shaín.

5 Al-Nawawī, Taqrīb wal-Taysīr (p. 70) and Sharh Sahīh Muslim (1:20).

6 Ibn Kathīr, chapter on the sahīh hadīth of his al-Bāith al-Hathīth (p. 45).

7 Al-Suyūtī, Tadrīb al-Rāwī (Dār al-Kalim al-Tayyib ed. 1:145).

8 Tadrīb al-Rāwī (1:143).

9 See also Ibn Hajar’s words from his Sharh Nukhbat al-Fikar to the effect that the foremost hadīth experts examination of and familiarity with any given āhād hadīth may take him to the conclusion that it is qatī al-thubūt categorically established as sahīh, i.e. in effect of mutawātir-like authenticity unlike the feel of the rest of the scholars with regard to the same hadīth.

10 Al-Dhahabī, al-Mūqiza (p. 80).

11 Itr, Manhaj al-Naqd fī Ulūm al-Hadīth (3rd ed. p. 254).

12 See Sirāj al-Dīn’s commentary on the Bayquniyya.

13 In our own time Nāsir al-Albānī, his arch-enemies the Ghumārī Shaykhs and Hasan al-Saqqāf, and their respective camps agreed for once upon the position that there are some daīf hadīths in them, which tends to confirm that, in real terms, the answer to the third question would tend to be yes unless the speaker is a hadīth Master of impeccable Sunnī belief sufficiently knowledgeable of the art to form an independent confirmation or invalidation, and Allāh knows best.

14 Cf. Fath (12:359-360), Abū Shuhba, al-Sīra al-Nabawiyya (1:265-266), Mūsā Shahīn, Fath al-Munim (2:337), al-Albānī in Difā’an al-Hadīth wal-Sīra (p. 41-42), and Sad al-Mirsafi in Hadīth Bidí al-Wahī fil-Mīzān (p. 75-85).

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