Magnificent Pearls Of Wisdom
SYED AKBAR ALI
Folks, sometime ago more than one person requested that I write more about religion, Islam, etc. Today I want to post something I have never done before in my Blog. These are a few hadith from the Bukhari collection.
Most of the following hadith are from the collection of Bukhari – which is considered to be the most ‘sahih’ or authentic. There is also one from Abu Muslim – who is considered the second most authentic after Bukhari. . .
It is said by many that hadith represent the most important source of reference for the Ahlul Sunnah Wal Jamaah (the Sunnis) after the Quran. . .
I have given the references for these hadith as I found them through the Internet. I hope all these references are the correct ones. There are so many. I have just picked a few. . .
For non-Muslims and anyone else who does not know, hadith are extra-Quranic writings of the religious scholars who came long after the Prophet had died. . .
Muslims must believe that the Quran is revealed by Allah to His Messenger (the Prophet).
The hadith however represent (what the religious people think) the sayings of the Prophet. By their context, sometimes the actions of the Prophet are also described in some of these hadith.
The big issue that has always bugged the ‘hadith’ is their authenticity. Among the Sunnis, they have six major compilations of hadith of which the compilation by Bukhari is thought to be the most authentic. Abu Muslim’s collection is ranked number two and so on. That is why I have chosen the following hadith from Bukhari and one from the Muslim collection.
Some admirers of the Bukhari collection of hadith say that they are like “magnificent pearls of wisdom“.
Just another point of accuracy – the hadith collection of Bukhari does not come to us directly from the hands of Bukhari himself. Bukhari is believed to have died in 256 H or 835 AD – about 200 years after the Prophet. So he compiled information that was about 200 years old.
However what is generally accepted today as the Bukhari collection of hadith was actually put together by someone else, by the name of Ibnu Hajar Askalani in Cairo in 852 Hijrah or 1430 AD (over 800 years after the death of the Prophet) and 596 years after Bukhari. Ibnu Hajar’s work was called the “Fath Al Bari” from which the present collection of Bukhari hadith has been compiled.
Ibnu Hajar in turn based his selection of Bukhari hadith from other earlier sources like Khushaymani (389 H / 960 AD) 470 years prior to him and Firabri (320 H / 910 AD) 520 years before him .
Here is a timeline :
11 H / 632 AD death of Prophet
256 H / 835 AD Bukhari
320 H / 910 AD Firabri
389 H / 960 AD Khushaymani
852 H / 1430 AD Askalani
Here is some reference : “The scholars themselves say that “Bukhari’s text has not come down to us in a single uniform version, but exists in several ‘narrations’ (riwayat), of which the version handed down by al-Kushaymani (d.389 H) on the authority of Bukhari’s pupil al-Firabri (d. 320H) is the one most frequently accepted by the ulema” (Abdul Hakim Murad, Cambridge University).
So Ibnu Hajar did not have a complete, fully bound set of “Bukhari hadith” to work with. They were in various collections.
OK here are some of those ‘magnificent pearls of wisdom‘. I have some comments only.
