Collection It is reported that Bukhari traveled widely throughout the
Abbasid Caliphate from the age of 16. Bukhari found the earlier
hadith collections including both
ṣaḥīḥ (authentic, sound)''
and hasan
narrations. He also found that many of them included daʻīf'' (weak) narrations. This aroused his interest in compiling hadith whose authenticity was beyond doubt. Bukhari imposed four conditions the narrators of a hadith must meet, in order for the narration to be included in his Sahih: • being just, • possessing strong memory and all the scholars who possess great knowledge of hadith must agree upon the narrators' ability to learn and memorize, along with their reporting techniques, • complete
isnad without any missing narrators, • consecutive narrators in the chain must meet each other. Bukhari began organizing his book in the
Masjid al-Haram in
Mecca, before moving to the
Al-Masjid an-Nabawi in
Medina. Bukhari completed writing the book in
Bukhara around 846 (232 AH), before showing it to his teachers for examination and verification.
Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani quoted Abu Jaʿfar al-'Uqaili as saying, "After Bukhari had written the
Sahih, he showed it to
Ali ibn al-Madini,
Ahmad ibn Hanbal,
Yahya ibn Ma'in as well as others. They examined it and testified to its authenticity with the exception of four hadith."
Ibn Hajar then concluded with al-'Uqaili's saying, "And those four are as Bukhari said, they are authentic." Bukhari spent the last twenty-four years of his life visiting other cities and scholars, making minor revisions to his book and teaching the hadith he had collected. In every city that Bukhari visited, thousands of people would gather to listen to him recite traditions.
Transmission Each version of the
Sahih is named by its narrator.
Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani in his book
Nukat asserts the number of narrations is the same in each version. There are many books that noted differences between the different versions, the best known being
Fath al-Bari. The version transmitted by Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Firabri (died 932), a trusted student of Bukhari, is the most famous version of the Sahih al-Bukhari today. All modern printed version are derived from this version.
Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi quoted al-Firabri in
History of Baghdad: "About seventy thousand people heard
Sahih Bukhari with me." al-Firabri is not the only transmitter of Sahih al-Bukhari. Many others narrated the book, including Ibrahim ibn Ma'qal (died 907), Hammad ibn Shakir (died 923), Mansur Burduzi (died 931) and Husain Mahamili (died 941).
One of the Transmissions from Bukhari to present day Source: From later to earlier - • Yemani sheikh
Habib al-Jifri • Imam Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Saqqāf • Imam ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Ḥibshī • Imam ʿAydarūs ibn ʿUmar al-Ḥibshī • Imam ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad Bāsūdān • Imam ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Bār • Ḥāmid ibn ʿUmar ibn Ḥāmid • Al-Ḥabīb ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd Allāh Bā Faqīh • Al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī al-ʿUjaymī and Shaykh Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Mithlī • Muḥammad ibn ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn al-Bāblī • Abū al-Najā Sālim ibn Muḥammad al-Samhūrī • al-Najm Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Ghīṭī •
Zakariyyā ibn Muḥammad al-Anṣārī •
Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī • Ibrāhīm ibn Aḥmad al-Tanūkhī and ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ibn Razīn al-Ḥamawī • Abū al-Faḍl Aḥmad ibn Abī Ṭālib al-Ḥajjār • al-Ḥusayn al-Mubārak al-Zubaydī • Abū al-Waqt ʿAbd al-Awwal ibn ʿĪsā al-Harawī • Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Muẓaffar al-Dāwūdī • Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad al-Sarakhsī • Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf ibn Maṭar al-Farabrī •
Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Bukhārī Manuscripts The number of extant manuscripts of Sahih Bukhari is difficult to assess. An Islamic Manuscripts catalog published in 1991 by
Royal Al Bayt Institute lists 2,327 manuscripts of Bukhari, while a study in 2016 indicates there are more than 1500 manuscripts in
Turkey alone. The oldest known copy was written in the year 370 AH/980 CE, according to the narration of al-Mirwazi from al-Farbari. It was first published by the Orientalist
Mingana in Cambridge in 1936 CE. Other Notable manuscripts includes a copy written by
Al-Ṣadafī on 21 Muharram 508 AH/27th June 1114 CE and another by Ibn Sa'ada in 492 AH/1098-1099 CE of which three out of five volumes survive in
National Library of Morocco. File:Oldest Known Manuscript of Sahih Bukhari.pdf|link=|The oldest known extant manuscript of Bukhari, published by
Mingana in 1936 File:Manuscript of Sahih Bukhari.jpg|link=|A manuscript of Bukhari, copied in Ramadan 490 AH/1097 CE in
Maghrebi script, housed in a library of
Mohammed V University File:Manuscript of Sahih Bukhari containing an Ijazah.jpg|link=|A manuscript of Bukhari containing an
Ijazah (transmission license) tracing back to
Al-Bukhari, housed in the
Princeton University Library, == Commentaries ==