Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl ibn Ibrāhīm al-Juʿfī al-Bukhārī (; 21 July 810 C.E – 1 September 870; AH 194–256), commonly known as al-Bukhārī, was a 9th-century Muslim muhaddith and one of the foremost authorities on hadith, widely regarded as the most important hadith scholar in the history of Sunni Islam.

Born in Bukhara, in present-day Uzbekistan, he began studying hadith at the age of ten and became noted for his exceptional memory. He travelled extensively throughout the Abbasid Caliphate in search of traditions and studied under numerous influential contemporary scholars. He is said to have interviewed about a thousand shaykhs and examined more than 200,000 hadiths, rejecting many after careful scrutiny at a time when numerous spurious traditions were in circulation.

Al-Bukhārī memorized thousands of hadith narrations and compiled his principal collection, the Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, in 846 C.E. The work selected 7563 narrations including repetitions, from over 600,000 narrations, but fewer than 3,000 when repeated material is excluded; its contents are arranged principally by subject for ease of reference in ninety-seven "books", subdivided into 3,450 chapters. He spent the remainder of his life teaching the traditions he had collected. Near the end of his life he was exiled from Nishapur and subsequently moved to Khartank, near Samarkand.

The Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī became the most highly revered hadith collection in Sunni Islam. Together with the Ṣaḥīḥ of al-Bukhārī's student Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj (d. 875; AH 261), it is known collectively as the Ṣaḥīḥayn (). The two collections are regarded by Sunnis as the principal definitive compilations of reliable hadith and, after the Qurʾān, as authoritative sources for principles of legislation and religious practice. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī is also one of the Kutub al-Sittah, the six most highly regarded Sunni hadith collections. Among al-Bukhārī's other extant works are al-Tarikh al-Kabir and al-Adab al-Mufrad.

Sources of biography

Al-Bukhari's life is reconstructed primarily from contemporary accounts and biographical compendia written in the 3rd–4th centuries AH (9th–10th centuries CE).

The single most important source is Shamāʾil al-Bukhārī, a now-lost monograph by his personal scribe Abū Jaʿfar al-Warrāq, documenting al-Bukhari's life. Al-Warrāq's association with him spanned two periods: before 239 AH until al-Bukhari's second journey to Iraq (~243 AH), and from his return to Bukhara in 253 AH until shortly before his death in 256 AH. The work combined al-Warrāq's eyewitness accounts with external reports of events from other people, and circulated in two successive recensions, the second containing substantial additions.

Other early contemporary notices include Aḥmad ibn Sayyār al-Marwazī's (d. 268 AH) lost history of Khurasan, the earliest mention of al-Bukhari, and Ibn Abī Ḥātim's Al-Jarḥ wa-al-Taʿdīl (d. 327 AH), the earliest surviving notice, covering his stay in Rayy and the theological dispute over recitation of the Quran. Specialized narrator compendia of his biography include Ibn ʿAdī's (d. 365 AH) Mashāyikh al-Bukhārī, alongside notices by al-Nasāʾī (d. 303 AH), Ibn Yūnus al-Miṣrī (d. 347 AH), Ibn Ḥibbān (d. 354 AH), Ibn al-Nadīm (d. 385 AH), and Abū Aḥmad al-Ḥākim (d. 378 AH).

Though lost today, the Shamāʾil was extensively cited in the major biographic compendia of al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī (d. 463 AH), Ibn ʿAsākir (d. 571 AH), and al-Samʿānī. Both recensions were utilized by al-Dhahabī (d. 748 AH) across his historical works, and served as Ibn Ḥajar's main source for the biographical introduction of Hady al-Sari.

Life

Ancestry and early life Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Bukhari al-Ju'fi was born after the Friday prayer on Friday, 21 July 810 (13 Shawwal 194 AH) in the city of Bukhara in Greater Khorasan in present-day Uzbekistan. He was of Persian descent and his father was Ismail ibn Ibrahim, a scholar of hadith and a student of Malik ibn Anas, Abd Allah ibn al-Mubarak, and Hammad ibn Salamah. Ismail died while Al-Bukhari was an infant. Al-Bukhari's great-grandfather, Al-Mughirah, settled in Bukhara after accepting Islam at the hands of Bukhara's governor, Yaman al-Ju'fi. As was the custom, he became a mawla of Yaman, and his family continued to carry the nisba "al-Ju'fi."

Al-Mughirah's father, Bardizbah (), is the earliest known ancestor of Al-Bukhari according to most scholars and historians. Bardizbah was a Zoroastrian Magi. Taqi al-Din al-Subki is the only scholar to name Bardizbah's father, who he says was named Bazzabah (). Little is known of both of them except that they were Persian and followed the religion of their people. Historians have also not come across any information on Al-Bukhari's grandfather, Ibrahim ibn al-Mughirah ().

Travels and education According to contemporary hadith scholar and historian Al-Dhahabi, al-Bukhari began studying hadith in the Hijri year 821 CE. He memorized the works of Abd Allah ibn al-Mubarak while still a child and began writing and narrating hadith while still an adolescent. In the Hijri year 826 CE, at the age of sixteen, Al-Bukhari performed the Hajj with his elder brother and widowed mother.Tathkirah al-Huffath, vol. 2, pg. 104-5, al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyyah edition Al-Bukhari stayed in Mecca for two years, before moving to Medina where he wrote Qadhāyas-Sahābah wa at-Tābi'īn, a book about the companions of Muhammad and the tabi'un. He also wrote Al-Tārīkh al-Kabīr during his time in Medina.

Al-Bukhari is known to have travelled to most of the important Islamic learning centres of his time, including Syria, Kufa, Basra, Egypt, Yemen, and Baghdad. He studied under prominent Islamic scholars including Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Ali ibn al-Madini, Yahya ibn Ma'in and Ishaq ibn Rahwayh. Al-Bukhari is known to have memorized over 600,000 hadith narrations.

Mihna, later years and death

According to Jonathan Brown, following Ibn Hanbal, Al-Bukhari had reportedly declared that 'reciting the Quran is an element of createdness’. Through this assertion, Al-Bukhari had sought an alternative response to the doctrines of Mu'tazilites and declared that the element of creation is applied only to humans, not the Word of God. His statements were received negatively by prominent hadith scholars and he was driven out of Nishapur.Wahab, Muhammad Rashidi, and Syed Hadzrullathfi Syed Omar.

"The Level of Imam al-Ash'ari's Thought in Aqidah." International Journal of Islamic Thought 3 (2013), p58-70:

"Because of that, al-Bukhari in most matters related to the question of aqidah is said to take the opinion of Ibn Kullab and al-Karabisi (al-'Asqalani 2001: 1/293)"Azmi, Ahmad Sanusi. "Ahl al-Hadith Methodologies on Qur'anic Discourses in the Ninth Century: A Comparative Analysis of Ibn Hanbal and al-Bukhari." Online Journal of Research in Islamic Studies 4.1 (2017): 17-26. "Supporting his master, Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 241/855), al-Bukhari is reported to declare that ‘reciting the Qur’an is an element of createdness’. This statement presumably proclaimed by al-Bukhari as an explanatory assertion intended to provide an alternative source of thought or reasoning for Muslims. Instead of accepting the doctrine of the Mu’tazilites (the group that champions the concept of the creation of the Qur’an), al-Bukhari appears to suggest that the element of creation is only applied to humans, not to the words of God, namely the Qur’an. The statement did, however, receive a negative response from the Muslim community, including some prominent scholars (especially Hanbalites)."Melchert, Christopher. "The Piety of the Hadith folk." International Journal of Middle East Studies 34.3 (2002): 425-439. "Hadith folk in Baghdad warned those of Nishapur against the famous traditionist Bukhari, whom they then drove from the city for suggesting one's pronunciation of the Qur'an was created" Al-Bukhari, however, had only referred to the human action of reading the Qur’an, when he reportedly stated "My recitation of the Quran is created" () Al-Dhahabi and Taj al-Din al-Subki asserted that Al-Bukhari was expelled due to the jealousy of certain scholars of Nishapur. Al-Bukhari spent the last twenty-four years of his life teaching the hadith he had collected. During the mihna, he fled to Khartank, a village near Samarkand, where he then also died on Friday, 1 September 870. Today his tomb lies within the Imam Bukhari Mausoleum in Hartang, Uzbekistan, 25 kilometers from Samarkand. It was restored in 1998 after centuries of neglect and dilapidation. The mausoleum complex consists of Al-Bukhari's tomb, a mosque, a madrasa, library, and a small collection of Qurans. The modern ground-level mausoleum tombstone of Al-Bukhari is only a cenotaph, the actual grave lies within a small crypt below the structure.

Works

Sahih al-Bukhari is considered Al-Bukhari's magnum opus. It is a collection of approximately 7,563 hadith narrations across 97 chapters creating a basis for a complete system of jurisprudence without the use of speculative law. The book is highly regarded among Sunni Muslims, and most Sunni scholars consider it second only to the Quran in terms of authenticity. It is considered one of the most authentic collection of hadith, even ahead of Muwatta Imam Malik and Sahih Muslim. Alongside the latter, Sahih al-Bukhari is known as one of the Sahihayn (Two Sahihs)' and they are together part of the Kutub al-Sittah.Abdul Qadir Muhammad Jalal et al., "Elevating Imam Al Bukhari: Affirming the Status of Imam Al Bukhari and His Sahih by Dispelling the Misconceptions Surrounding them", Lagos 2021

Al-Bukhari wrote multiple works discussing narrators of hadith. His major biographical compendium is Al-Tārīkh al-Kabīr, alongside an abridged chronological history known as Al-Mukhtaṣar min al-Tārīkh (also known as Al-Tārīkh al-Awsaṭ and Al-Tārīkh al-Ṣaghīr). Al-Dhahabi quotes Al-Bukhari as having said, “When I turned eighteen years old, I began writing about the companions and the tabi'un and their statements. [...] At that time I also authored a book of history at the grave of the Prophet at night during a full moon." The books being referred to here were Qadāyā al-Ṣaḥābah wa al-Tābiʿīn and Al-Tārīkh al-Kabīr. Al-Bukhari also authored Kitāb al-Kunā on patronymics, and Al-Ḍuʿafāʾ al-Ṣaghīr on weak narrators.Fihris Muṣannafāt al-Bukhāri, pp. 9-61, Dār al-'Āṣimah, Riyaḍ: 1410. Al-Adab al-Mufrad is his dedicated collection of hadith narrations on ethics and manners.

In response to the accusations levied against him during his mihna, Al-Bukhari compiled the treatise Khalq Afʿāl al-ʿIbād, the earliest traditionalist representation of the position taken by Ahmad ibn Hanbal, in which Al-Bukhari explains that the Quran is God's uncreated speech, while maintaining that God creates human actions, as the Sunnis had insisted in their attacks on the free-will position of Qadariyah. The first section of the book reports narrations from earlier scholars such as Sufyan al-Thawri that affirmed the Sunni doctrine of the uncreated nature of the Quran and condemned anyone who held the contrary position as a Jahmi or Kāfir. The second section asserts that the acts of men are created, relying on Qur'anic verses and reports from earlier traditionalist scholars like Yahya ibn Sa'id al-Qattan. In the last part of his treatise, Al-Bukhari harshly condemned the Muʿtazilites, defending the belief that the sound of the Qur'an being recited is created. Al-Bukhari cited Ahmad Ibn Hanbal as evidence for his position, re-affirming the latter's legacy and the former's allegiance to the Ahl al-Hadith.

List of Works The following is a list of Al-Bukhari's works:

Extant works

Al-Adab al-Mufrad (The Singular Book of Manners, also known as Al-Adab). Al-Bukhari published it in Bukhara after leaving Nishapur. It was transmitted from him by Abū al-Khayr Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Jalīl al-ʿAbsī al-Karminī al-Bukhārī.