He is Imām Abū ʿAbdillāh Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl Abī al-Ḥasan ibn Ibrāhīm ibn al-Mughīrah ibn al-Bardizbah al-Juʿfī al-Bukhārī. His father, Ismāʿīl Abī al-Ḥasan, was a pious scholar of his time, and passed away when Imām al-Bukhārī was still a small child; he was raised an orphan, by his mother and his older brother. His great-grandfather, al-Mughīrah ibn al-Bardizbah, became a Muslim at the hands of Yamān al-Juʿfī, the guardian of Bukhārā: he is therefore called al-Juʿfī, since the practice of the time was that a convert took the nisbah of the one at whose hands he had embraced Islam. He is called al-Bukhārī after the place of his birth, Bukhārā. He was born on Friday the 13th of Shawwāl 194 AH, after ṣalāt al-jumuʿah.
It is narrated that Imām al-Bukhārī was a very thin man, and that a whole day and night would often pass in which he ate nothing. He had inherited a great deal of wealth from his father, which he would spend on the poor and the needy. In Ramaḍān he would complete a reading of the entire Qurʾān every day.
It is narrated that Imām al-Bukhārī was once praying ṣalāt al-ẓuhr in a garden. When he had completed his ṣalāh he stood up and lifted the edge of his garment, asking a person nearby to look beneath it for anything they might see. They looked and found that a hornet had stung him in sixteen or seventeen places, and his skin had swollen up because of the stings. He was asked how he had not broken off his ṣalāh at the first sting, and he replied: I was in the middle of a sūrah and wished to complete it.
When Imām al-Bukhārī came to Naysābūr, he was asked whether the Qurʾān is created or not. He replied, "The Qurʾān is the word of Allāh and is not created, while our actions are created." His statement was misunderstood, and many accused him of saying that the wording of the Qurʾān is created. Imām al-Dhuhlī came to know of the misattributed view and declared that whoever says the Qurʾān is created should not be sat with in his gathering, for he is an innovator. The people stopped attending Imām al-Bukhārī's gatherings of learning, except for Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj and Aḥmad ibn Salamah. Imām al-Dhuhlī also said that whoever takes from such a man should not narrate from him; for that reason Imām Muslim does not narrate from Imām al-Dhuhlī, but neither does he narrate from Imām al-Bukhārī.
Many testimonies attest to the competence of Imām al-Bukhārī. One incident, related by Abū Aḥmad ibn ʿAdī al-Ḥāfiẓ, will suffice. A number of scholars from Baghdād resolved to test Imām al-Bukhārī's memory with a hundred aḥādīth. They mixed the matn of one ḥadīth with the isnād of another, and the isnād of one ḥadīth with the matn of another. They handed these mixed aḥādīth to ten people, ten aḥādīth each, and instructed them to put the test to Imām al-Bukhārī. Many people from Khurāsān and Baghdād gathered for the occasion. Once everyone had settled, the first of the ten began relating his ten jumbled aḥādīth to Imām al-Bukhārī. To each, Imām al-Bukhārī replied, "I do not know of it." The scholars present were astonished. The second of the ten then related his ten in the same way, and met the same response, and so went the third, the fourth, and the rest, until all one hundred jumbled aḥādīth had been read out. As soon as Imām al-Bukhārī realised that they had finished, he turned to the first man and said: as for your first ḥadīth, it is supposed to be this; and as for the second, it is this; and so on through all ten. He restored every matn to its correct isnād and every isnād to its correct matn. He did the same for each of the remaining nine men, and for each of the hundred aḥādīth. The people present testified to the marvel of his memory and conceded his great virtue.
Imām al-Bukhārī heard ḥadīth from the scholars of Balkh, Makkah, Baṣrah, Kūfah, Shām, ʿAsqalān, Ḥimṣ, and Damascus. He is reported to have said that he had written ḥadīth from more than a thousand men.
He narrates from more than seventy individuals in his Ṣaḥīḥ, and from many more outside it. Some of his more notable teachers include:
Imām al-Bukhārī's shortest chain of narration is three narrators to the Prophet ﷺ, also known as thulāthiyyāt. The latter seven names in the list above are those from whom he narrates these thulāthiyyāt; the chains of the last two are not preserved in the Ṣaḥīḥ.
Imām al-Bukhārī also narrates in his Ṣaḥīḥ from his teacher Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Dhuhlī, despite the controversy between them. He does not, however, refer to him by his full name; he calls him Muḥammad, or Muḥammad ibn Khālid, or Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdillāh, the latter two being references to his grandfather.
Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad al-Qaṭṭān reports hearing Imām al-Bukhārī say, "I have written from one thousand teachers and more, and I do not have a single ḥadīth with me except that I mention its isnād." ʿAllāmah al-Kirmānī notes that he narrates from 289 shuyūkh in his Ṣaḥīḥ.
Imām al-Bukhārī narrates from ʿAbd al-Razzāq through an intermediary, even though both were alive at the same time. The reason is that he had intended to take from ʿAbd al-Razzāq directly in Yemen, but was told that ʿAbd al-Razzāq had passed away; he therefore delayed his travels to Yemen, until it became clear to him one day that ʿAbd al-Razzāq was in fact still alive.
Those who narrate from Imām al-Bukhārī are many; their full list may be found in Tahdhīb al-Kamāl of ʿAllāmah al-Mizzī. Among the more notable are:
Imām al-Tirmidhī narrates through Imām al-Bukhārī's student.
There are three opinions as to which school of thought Imām al-Bukhārī followed. Some hold that he followed the Shāfiʿī school, others that he followed the Ḥanbalī. The view preferred by Imām al-Sakhāwī is that Imām al-Bukhārī was a mujtahid muṭlaq, and so followed no school of thought, but was rather in a position to derive rulings himself.
Imām al-Bukhārī wrote Qaḍāyā al-Ṣaḥābah wa al-Tābiʿīn wa Aqāwīlihim at the age of eighteen. He went on to write the famous al-Tārīkh al-Kabīr in Madīnah at the side of the grave of the Prophet ﷺ. Among his many other works are:
Towards the end of Imām al-Bukhārī's life, the guardian of Bukhārā, Khālid ibn Aḥmad al-Dhuhlī, asked him to teach his children. Imām al-Bukhārī refused, on the principle that students should travel to their teacher to seek knowledge, and that the teacher should not be made to come to the door of the student. He was for that reason expelled from his hometown of Bukhārā, and went to Khartank, a village in Samarqand. ʿAbd al-Quddūs ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Samarqandī reports hearing Imām al-Bukhārī make duʿāʾ one night: "O Allāh, indeed the earth has narrowed upon me, so take me away." Less than a month passed before the duʿāʾ was answered. He passed away on the night of ʿĪd al-Fiṭr, on a Saturday around the time of ʿishāʾ ṣalāh, in 256 AH, having lived for sixty-one years. His grave is in Khartank.
How Imām al-Bukhārī came to compile his Ṣaḥīḥ: its name, scope, method of writing, places of authorship, and the principal commentaries upon it.
The opening ḥadīth of Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, narrated by ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb, on the principle that deeds are judged by their intentions, with notes on the Bukhārī isnād.
Ibn Ḥajar's nine views on the fate of the children of the mushrikīn who die before reaching the age of accountability.
The opening chapter of Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī: why Imām al-Bukhārī begins with revelation, the meaning of waḥy, and the forms it takes.
