Muhammad Ibn Ismail Ibn Ibrahim Ibn al-Mughirah Ibn Bardizbah al-Bukhari محمد بن اسماعيل بن ابراهيم بن المغيرة بن بردزبه البخاري (born 810 - died 870), author of the most generally accepted collection of traditions (Hadith) from Muhammad, was born at Bokhara (Bukharä), of an Iranian family, in AH 194 (AD 810).
At a very early age he distinguished himself in the learning of traditions by heart, and when, in his sixteenth year, his family made the pilgrimage to Mecca, he gathered additions to his store from the authorities along the route. Already, in his eighteenth year, he had devoted himself to the collecting, sifting, testing and arranging of traditions. For that purpose he travelled over the Muslim world, all the way to Egypt, Syria, Arabia, and Iraq, seeking hadith narrators and listening to them. It is said that he heard from over 1,000 men, and learned over 600,000 traditions, true and false. He certainly became the acknowledged authority on the subject, and developed a power and speed of memory which seemed miraculous, even to his contemporaries. His theological position was conservative and anti-Mu'tazili; he enjoyed the friendship and respect of Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, and was persecuted because he held to Ibn Hanbal's views in matter of creed, specially that Qur'an is not created. In law, he appears to have been a Shafi'ite.
After sixteen years' absence he returned to Bokhara, and there drew up his al-Jami' al-Sahih, a collection of 7275 tested traditions, arranged in chapters so as to afford bases for a complete system of jurisprudence without the use of speculative law, (see Islamic Law). His book is highly regarded among Sunni Muslims, and considered the most authentic collection of hadith. Several commentaries have been written on it by various authors.
He also composed other books, including al-Adab al-Mufrad, which is a collection of hadiths on ethics and manners, as well as two books containing biographies of hadith narrators (see isnad).
He died in A.H. 256, in banishment at Khartank, a suburb of Samarkand. His grave is still visited, and some believe that prayers are to be heard there.
See F Wüstenfeld, Shâfi`iten, 78 if.; McG. de Slane's transl. of Ibn Khallikan, i. 594 if.; I Goldziher, Mohammedanische Studien, ii. 157 if.; Nawawi, Biogr. Dict. 86 if.
Works
- al-Tarikh al-Kabir The big history, containing biographies of narrators, with a rating of each
- al-Tarikh al-Saghir The little history
Reference