Who is al-Bukhari?
His name is Muhammad Ibn Ismail Ibn Ibrahim Ibn al-Mughirah Ibn Bardizbah al-Bukhari. He is called al-Bukhari attributed to his birth place al-Bukhara. His father Ismail was a well-known and famous narrator in his time and had been blessed with the chance of being in the company of Imam Malik, Hammad Ibn Zaid and also Abdullah Ibn Mubarak (rahimahullahum). But Ismail passed away in al-Bukhari childhood.
Being clever child made him memorizing Qur’an. His memory was considered to be one of a kind; after listening to a hadīth he would repeat it from memory. It was known in his childhood that he had memorized 2,000 ahādīth.
He started recording al-Hadith when he had been sixteen. So he started his travelling to many countries like Bilad El- Cham, Ashkelon, Kufa, Hejaz, Baghdad, Egypt, al-Basra and Samarqand (Uzbekistan) and others in order to collect Hadith in his great book Sahih al-Bukhari. Then he became in a high status in al-Hadith narration; he was examined in some unorganized chain of al-Hadith narrators, and he rearranged the chain. Imposed specific conditions in collecting the Hadiths, he Spent sixteen years writing his book Sahih al-Bukhari.
Al-Bukhari conditions to accept the al-Hadith As-Sahih
- All narrators in the chain must be just, pious and honest.
- All narrators in the chain must possess strong memory.
- The chain of narrators must be complete without any missing narrators.
- It must be known that consecutive narrators in the chain met each other (this is Imām al-Bukhārī’s extra condition).
Sahih al-Bukhari includes more than 7000 Hadith Sahih which he had chosen among 600 000 Hadith.
Al-Bukhari’s end life
Al-Bukhari was modest and brave even with the ruler of his country. The prince of Bukhara sent a messenger to al-Bukhari asking him to come to his palace and teach him or his children from his book. But al-Bukhari said to the messenger that he refused to go to make a special meeting to teach him, instead he invited the ruler to come on his meeting to teach the people. His famous saying was: “I do not humiliate knowledge, nor do I carry it to people’s doors. If you have any need, then attend my mosque, or in my home”. That situation caused banishment for him, as a result he went to Samarqand until he died in 256 A.H./870 A.D.
References
islamweb.net سير أعلام النبلاء
mawdoo3.com تعريف بالإمام البخاري
sunnah.com About Sahih al-Bukhari
