Translator: M. Muhsin Khan
Sahih Bukhari is a
collection of sayings and deeds of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), also
known as the sunnah. The reports of the
Prophet's sayings and deeds are called ahadith.
Bukhari lived a couple of centuries after the Prophet's death and
worked extremely hard to collect his ahadith. Each report in his
collection was checked for compatibility with the Qur'an, and the
veracity of the chain of reporters had to be painstakingly
established. Bukhari's collection is recognized by the overwhelming
majority of the Muslim world to be one of the most authentic
collections of the Sunnah of the Prophet (pbuh). Bukhari (full name
Abu Abdullah Muhammad bin Ismail bin Ibrahim bin al-Mughira
al-Ja'fai) was born in 194 A.H. and died in 256 A.H. His collection
of hadith is considered second to none. He spent sixteen years
compiling it, and ended up with 2,602 hadith (9,082 with
repetition). His criteria for acceptance into the collection were
amongst the most stringent of all the scholars of ahadith. It is
important to realize, however, that Bukhari's collection is not
complete: there are other scholars who worked as Bukhari did and
collected other authentic reports.