Al-Kutub al-Sittah

Contents
Articles
Al-Kutub al-Sittah
1
History of hadith
2
Muhammad al-Bukhari
7
Sahih Muslim
10
Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj Nishapuri
12
Al-Sunan al-Sughra
14
Al-Nasa'i
15
Sunan Abu Dawood
17
Abu Dawood
18
Sunan al-Tirmidhi
19
Tirmidhi
21
Sunan ibn Majah
22
Ibn Majah
23
Muwatta Imam Malik
25
Malik ibn Anas
28
Sunan al-Darimi
31
Al-Darimi
31
Sahih al-Bukhari
33
Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal
36
Ahmad ibn Hanbal
37
Shamaail Tirmidhi
41
Sahih Ibn Khuzaymah
42
Ibn Khuzaymah
43
Sahifah Hammam ibn Munabbih
44
Hammam ibn Munabbih
45
Musannaf ibn Jurayj
46
Musannaf of Abd al-Razzaq
46
‘Abd ar-Razzaq as-San‘ani
47
Sahih Ibn Hibbaan
48
Al-Mustadrak alaa al-Sahihain
49
Hakim al-Nishaburi
51
A Great Collection of Fabricated Traditions
53
Abu'l-Faraj ibn al-Jawzi
54
Tahdhib al-Athar
60

Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari
61
Riyadh as-Saaliheen
66
Al-Nawawi
68
Masabih al-Sunnah
72
Al-Baghawi
73
Majma al-Zawa'id
74
Ali ibn Abu Bakr al-Haythami
75
Bulugh al-Maram
77
Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani
79
Kanz al-Ummal
81
Ali ibn Abd-al-Malik al-Hindi
83
Minhaj us Sawi
83
Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri
85
Muhammad ibn al Uthaymeen
98
Abd al-Aziz ibn Abd Allah ibn Baaz
102
Muhammad Nasiruddin al-Albani
107
Ibn Taymiyyah
110
Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya
118
Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab
123
Abdul-Azeez ibn Abdullaah Aal ash-Shaikh
130
Abd ar-Rahman ibn Nasir as-Sa'di
132
Ibn Jurayj
134
Al-Dhahabi
136
Yusuf al-Qaradawi
138
Rashid Rida
155
Muhammad Abduh
157
Jamal-al-Din al-Afghani
160
Al-Suyuti
165
References
Article Sources and Contributors
169
Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors
173
Article Licenses
License
174

Al-Kutub al-Sittah
1
Al-Kutub al-Sittah
The six major hadith collections (Arabic: ﻪﺘﺴﻟﺍ ﺐﺘﻜﻟﺍ; Al-Kutub Al-Sittah) are collections of hadith by Islamic
scholars who, approximately 200 years after Muhammad's death and by their own initiative, collected "hadith"
attributed to Muhammad. They are sometimes referred to as Al-Sihah al-Sittah, which translates to "The Authentic
Six".
Significance
Sunni Muslims view the six major hadith collections as their most important. They are, in order of authenticity:
[1]
1. Sahih Bukhari, collected by Imam Bukhari (d. 870), includes 7275 ahadith
2. Sahih Muslim, collected by Muslim b. al-Hajjaj (d. 875), includes 9200 ahadith
3. Sunan al-Sughra, collected by al-Nasa'i (d. 915)
4. Sunan Abu Dawood, collected by Abu Dawood (d. 888)
5. Jami al-Tirmidhi, collected by al-Tirmidhi (d. 892)
6. Sunan ibn Majah, collected by Ibn Majah (d. 887)
The first two, commonly referred to as the Two Sahihs as an indication of their authenticity, contain approximately
seven thousand ahadith altogether if repetitions are not counted, according to Ibn Hajar.
[2]
The authors
According to the Cambridge History of Iran:
[3] 
"After this period commences the age of the authors of the six
canonical collections of Sunni hadith, all of whom were Persian. The authors of the six collections are as follows:
1. Muhammad b. Isma'il al-Bukhari, the author of the Sahih Bukhari, which he composed over a period of sixteen
years. Traditional sources quote Bukhari as saying that he did not record any hadith before performing ablution
and praying. Bukhari died near Samarqand in 256/869-70.
2. Muslim b. Hajjaj al-Naishapuri, who died in Nishapur in 261/ 874-5 and whose Sahih Muslim is second in
authenticity only to that of Bukhari.
3. Abu Dawood Sulaiman b. Ash'ath al-Sijistani, a Persian but of Arab descent, who died in 275/888-9.
4. Muhammad b. 'Isa al-Tirmidhi, the author of the well-known as Sunan al-Tirmidhi, who was a student of Bukhari
and died in 279/892-3.
5. Abu 'Abd al-Rahman al-Nasa'i, who was from Khurasan and died in 303/915-16.
6. Ibn Majah al-Qazwini, who died in 273/886-7."
References
[1] "Various Issues About Hadiths" (http:/
 
/
 
www.
 
abc.
 
se/
 
~m9783/
 
n/
 
vih_e.
 
html). Abc.se. . Retrieved 2010-06-26.
[2] al-Nukat 'Ala Kitab ibn al-Salah, by Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalani, vol. 1, pg. 153, Maktabah al-Furqan, Ajman, U.A.E., second edition, 2003.
[3] S. H. Nasr(1975), “The religious sciences”, in R.N. Frye, the Cambridge History of Iran, Cambridge University Press

History of hadith
2
History of hadith
Traditions regarding the life of Muhammad and the early history of Islam were passed down both orally and written
for more than a hundred years after the death of Muhammad in 632. According to Muslims, the collection of hadith
or sayings by or about the prophet Muhammad was a meticulous and thorough process that began right at the time of
Muhammad. Needless to say hadith collection (even in the written form) began very early on – from the time of
Muhammad and continued through the centuries that followed.
[1] 
Thus, Muslims reject any collections that are not
robust in withstanding the tests of authenticity per the standards of hadith studies. This article goes through the
historical evolution of the hadith literature from its beginning in the 7th century to present day.
Writing in the Pre-Islamic Period
Prior to the advent of Islam, memorization was the primary means of conveyance of information amongst the
Arabs.
[2] 
There were, however, some instances of writing present at that time, including promissory notes, personal
letter, tribal agreements and some religious literature.
[3] 
There were very few Arabs that could read or write in the
beginning of Muhammad's era: The majority were unlettered, and according to Sunni traditions, so was
Muhammad.
[4]
Prophetic Period
According to Ibn Hajar, “During the Prophet’s lifetime and into the time of the Companions and older Followers, the
narrations of the Prophet were not transcribed in a systematic manner. This was due to two reasons. The first, was
that early on they had been prohibited from doing so, as has been established in Sahih Muslim,
[5] 
lest the hadith
become confused with the Quran. The second was due to expansive capability of their ability to memorize and
because the majority of them were unable to write.”
[6]
A possible explanation of aforementioned hadith is that “the majority of the companions were illiterate with only a
few individuals from them able to write. If they were to write, it was unrefined, not conforming to the written
alphabet. Thus, the prohibition was due to the fear of erring while writing.”
[7] 
Another is that “the prohibition was of
writing the Quran with other than it in one place so as to avoid the two from becoming mixed up confusing the one
reading it. As for writing in its entirety having been prohibited, then this was not the case as we see from another
hadith, 'Convey what I say.' Present within the command to convey is permission to write and record.”
[8]
Writing of hadith
Despite this, there are a number of hadith that indicate the permissibility if not encouragement to write down hadith.
From them:
• The hadith of Abd Allah ibn ‘Amr who said, “I used write everything I heard from the Prophet wanting to
preserve it. The Quraysh then prohibited me from doing so, saying, ‘Do you write down everything? And the
Prophet is human who speaks while angry and pleased?’ So I refrained from writing and then mentioned this to
the Prophet. He gestured to his mouth and said, ‘Write, by the one in whose hand is my soul! Nothing emanates
from this except the truth.’”
[9]
• Among the prisoners of war taken at the Battle of Badr those who were literate were released after each taught ten
Muslims how to read and write.
[4][10]
 Sahih Bukhari states that Abd-Allah ibn Amr wrote down his hadith.
[11]
• A man came to Muhammad and complained about his memory, saying: ‘O Messenger of Allah: We hear many
things from you. But most of them slip our minds because we cannot memorize them’. Muhammad replied: Ask
your right hand for help.
[12] 
Muhammad meant that he should write down what he heard.

History of hadith
3
• When Rafi‘ ibn Khadij asked Muhammad whether they could write what they heard from him, the answer came:
Write, no harm!.
[13] 
Another sources quotes Muhammad advising: "Record knowledge by writing."
[14]
• During the conquest of Mecca, Muhammad gave a sermon. A man from the Yemen, named Abu Shah, stood up
and said: "O Allah’s Messenger! Please write down these [words] for me!" Muhammad ordered: "Write for Abu
Shah!"
[15]
• Muhammad sent a letter which contained commandments about the blood money for murders and injuries and the
law of retaliation to Amr ibn Hizam.
[16] 
This letter was handed down to his great grandson, Abu Bakr ibn
Muhammad.
[4] 
Among other things, like some of his letters other head of states , some scroll transferred to Abu
Rafi was handed down to Abu Bakr ibn ‘Abd Al-Rahman ibn Harith, belonging to the first generation after the
Companions.
[4]
Ibn Hajar summarized the different ways in which scholars have sought to reconcile those hadith prohibiting the
writing of hadith and those permitting it, in the first of which he said, “The reconciliation between the two is that the
prohibition was particular to the time in which the Quran was being sent down so that it would not become mixed up
with other than it and the permission was during other than that time."
[17]
Post-prophetic period
During the caliphate of Abu Bakr, the Muslim nation had to deal with the rebellion of several apostates. In all
likelihood, the apostates began to forge hadiths to suit their purposes. For this reason, Abu Bakr, and his successor,
Umar, were very strict in their acceptance of hadiths as authentic, for fear of accepting a forged hadith.
[18]
Among Sunnis, Umar ibn al-Khattab is the primary locus for many accounts about hadith collection. He is portrayed
by Sunnis as desiring to initiate this project but unwilling to do so, fearing that Muslims might then neglect the
Qur'an.
[19] 
Umar is also said by Sunnis that, due to fear and concerns, he sometimes warned people against careless
narration of hadith.
[4]
Muslim historians say that it was the caliph Uthman (the third caliph, or successor of Muhammad, who had formerly
been one of Muhammad's secretary's), encouraged Muslims to write down the hadith as Muhammad (in some
instances) had encouraged Muslims to do likewise during his lifetime 
[20][21][22][23]
. Uthman's labors were cut short
by his assassination, at the hands of aggrieved people who had come to the capital to seek redressal from the Caliph
for the wrongs done by his secretary, Merwan ibn Hakam, on 17 June 656 A.D{
[24]
}.The Muslim community
(ummah) then fell into a prolonged civil war, termed the Fitna by Muslim historians. After the fourth caliph, Ali ibn
Abi Talib, was assassinated, control of the Islamic empire was seized by the Umayyad dynasty in 660A.D/40
A.H.{
[25]
} Illustrating the importance hadith in a written format had earned, Ibn Abbas left behind a camel-load of
books, which mostly contain what he had heard from Muhammad and other Sahaba.
[4][26]
Of the many companions, Abu Hurairah taught hadith to students, one of whom was Hammam ibn Munabbih. Ibn
Munabbih wrote down these hadith, the original manuscripts of which are present even to this day in the libraries of
Berlin, Beirut and Damascus.
[27]
Starting the first Islamic civil war of the 7th century, those receiving the hadith started to question the sources of the
saying, something that resulted in the development of the Isnad.
[19]
 Muhammad ibn Sirin (d. 110/728) stated
[19]
:
"[the traditionalists] were not used to inquiring after the isnad, but when the fitna occurred they said: Name us
your informants. Thus if these were Ahl al-Sunna their traditions were accepted, but if they were heretics, their
traditions were not accepted."

History of hadith
4
The beginning of systematic hadith collection
The beginning of the systematic collection and compilation of hadith began during the time of the second generation
of Muslims, that of the Followers. Muhammad ibn Muslim ibn Ubaydullah, commonly known as ibn Shihab
al-Zuhri, was a prolific and prominent hadith narrator from the Followers whom Ibn Hajar identified as a tabi'i.
[28]
According to Ibn Hajar, “Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri was the first to compile hadith at the beginning of the first century
after the Migration acting on the order of Umar ibn AbdulAziz. It was after this that the compilation, then the
authoring of books of hadith became commonplace, resulting in much good.”
[29]
Ummayad rule was interrupted by a second civil war (the Second Fitna), re-established, then ended in 758, when the
Abbasid dynasty seized the caliphate, to hold it, at least in name, until 1517 (the last Caliph was Al-Mutawakkil III
1508–1517, in Cairo and not in Baghdad).
Muslim historians say that hadith collection and evaluation continued during the first Fitna and the Umayyad period.
However, much of this activity was presumably oral transmission from early Muslims to later collectors, or from
teachers to students.
The scholars of the Abbasid period were faced with a huge corpus of miscellaneous traditions, some of them flatly
contradicting each other. Many of these traditions supported differing views on a variety of controversial matters.
Scholars had to decide which hadith were to be trusted as authentic narrations and which had been invented for
various political or theological purposes. For this purpose, they used a number of techniques in hadith studies. In AH
134 (751/752), paper was introduced into the Muslim world.
[30]
Generally, Umar II is credited with having ordered the first collection of hadith material in an official manner,
fearing that some of it might be lost. Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad ibn Hazm and Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri, are among those
who compiled hadiths at `Umar II’s behest.
[19]
Early written hadith collections
List of collections of hadith, in chronological order:
1.
1. Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri
2.
2. Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad ibn Hazm
3. Musannaf of ibn Jurayj — ?-? CE
4. Musannaf of Ma`mar bin Rashid — ?-? CE
5. Sahifah Hammam ibn Munabbih — 670–720 CE
6. Musannaf of `Abd al-Razzaq al-San`ani — c. 700 CE
7. Muwatta of Malik bin Anas — 760–795 CE
8.
8. Sufyan al-Thawri
Canonical texts
The efforts culminated with the six canonical collections after having received impetus from the establishment of the
sunna as the second source of law in Islam, particularly through the efforts of the famous jurist Muhammad ibn Idris
al-Shafi'i.
[19]
The method of criticism and the conclusions it has reached have not changed significantly since the ninth century.
Even much of modern Muslim scholarship, while continuing to debate the validity or authenticity of individual
hadiths or perhaps the hadiths of a particular transmitter, employs the same methods and biographical materials.
[19]
The classification of Hadith into sahih (sound), hasan (good) and da'if (weak) was firmly established by Ali ibn
al-Madini (d. 234 AH).
[31] 
Later, al-Madini's student Muhammad al-Bukhari authored a collection that he stated
contained only sahih hadith.
[31]
 al-Tirmidhi was the first traditionist to base his book on al-Madini's
classification.
[31]

History of hadith
5
Contemporary Analysis
In 1848, Gustav Weil, noted that Muhammad al-Bukhari deemed only 4,000 of his original 300,000 hadiths to be
authentic.He was soon followed by Aloys Sprenger, who also suggests that many of the hadiths cannot be considered
authentic.
[19] 
However, this demonstrates a limited understanding by Non Muslims, of Bukhari's criterion for his
Sahih. This is clarified by other statements of Bukhari in which he made it clear that he considered all of the hadith
in his authentic, but not all authentic hadith are included in his Sahih. Al-Dhahabi quoted Bukhari as saying, "I have
memorized one hundred thousand authentic hadith and two hundred thousand that are not authentic.'
[32]
Ignaz Goldziher was a large contributor of innovative theories to the West. The subsequent direction the Western
debate took, a direction which has focussed on the role of hadiths in the origin and development of early Muslim
jurisprudence, is largely due to the work of Joseph Schacht.
[19] 
The Common-Link Theory, invented by Joseph
Schacht and widely accepted in modern scholarship, argues that hadith authorities knowingly and purposefully
placed traditions in circulation with little care to support these hadiths with satisfactory isnads (chains of
transmitters). G. H. A. Juynboll, Michael Cook and other Schachtians subsequently embraced and elaborated upon
this theory. In 2006, Fahad A. Alhomoudi in his thesis “On the Common-Link Theory”
[33] 
challenges the accuracy of
Schacht’s founding theory. Because of the interconnectedness of Schacht’s many theses about hadith and Islamic
law, the findings of Alhomoudi’s thesis did not only challenge the significant Common-Link Theory in legal hadith
studies, but also open the door for scholars to question other important theories held by Schacht and his followers
with regard to larger issues in Islamic legal history.
The Turkish government's Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı has commissioned a team of scholars at Ankara University to
draft a new compilation of hadith that would omit numerous hadith considered historically inauthentic by these
scholars.
[34]
References
[1] Refuting The Argument From Hadith In Which The Prophet Says "Do Not Write Down Anything From Me Except Qur'an" (http:/
 
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call-to-monotheism.
 
com/
refuting_the_argument_from_hadith_in_which_the_prophet_says__do_not_write_down_anything_from_me_except_qur_an__)
[2] Abridged from al-Hadith wa al-Muhaddithoon, pg. 39.
[3]
[3] Studies in Early Hadith Literature, al-'Athami, pg. 2.
[4] "When where the traditions recorded?" (http:/
 
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[5] Sahih Muslim, 42:7147 (http:/
 
/
 
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7147).
Other sources for the hadith:
•
Musnad Ahmad, vol. 3, pgs. 12, 21, 39 and 56
•
Sunan al-Darimi, vol. 1, pgs. 130 and 450
•
Sahih Muslim, vol. 2, pg. 1366, no. 3004
•
al-Nasa'i in Al-Sunan al-Kubraa, vol. 2, pg. 1240, no. 7954 and elsewhere.
[6] Hadi al-Sari, 1:6 according to the page numbering of the Maktabah al-Salafiyah edition.
[7] Ibn Qutaibah in Mukhtalif al-Hadith, pg. 412.
[8] al-Baghawi in Sharh al-Sunnah, vol. 1, pg. 295, al-Maktab al-Islami, Beirut.
[9] Collected in the Musnad of Ahmad (10\15-6\ 6510 and also nos. 6930, 7017 and 1720), Sunan Abu Dawud (Mukhtasar Sunan Abi Dawud
(5\246\3499) and elsewhere.
[10] Ibn Sa'd, Tabaqat, 2.22.
[11] Bukhari, “‘Ilm,” 39.
[12] Tirmidhi, “‘Ilm,” 12.
[13] Hindi, Kanz al-‘Ummal, 10.232.
[14] Darimi, “Muqaddima,” 43.
[15] Abu Dawud, “‘Ilm,” 3; al-Tirmidhi, “‘Ilm,” 12.
[16] Darimi, “Diyat,” 12.
[17] Fath al-Bari, vol. 1, pg. 208).
[18] Siddiqi, Muhammad (1993). Hadith Literature. 32: The Islamic Texts Society. pp. 32. ISBN 0-946621-38-1.
[19] "PAR246 Hadith Criticism" (http:/
 
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6
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[20] ^ Tirmidhi, “‘Ilm,” 12.
[21] ^ Hindi, Kanz al-‘Ummal, 10.232.
[22] ^ Darimi, “Muqaddima,” 43.
[23] ^ Abu Dawud, “‘Ilm,” 3; al-Tirmidhi, “‘Ilm,” 12.
[24]
[24] Ameer Ali Syed, A Short History of Saracens
[25]
[25] Tabari, vol.ii, p4; cf. Masudi, vol. v, p.14
[26] M. ‘Ajjaj al-Khatib, op. cit. 352.
[27] An Introduction to the Conservation of Hadith – In the light of the Sahifah of Hammam ibn Munabbih by Dr Muhammad Hamidullah, IBT
publishers, 2003
[28] Taqrib al-Tahthib, pg. 440, no. 6296, Mu'assasah al-Risalah, Beirut, first edition, 1999.
[29] Fath al-Bari, vol. 1, pg. 208.
[30] Mit-Ejmes (http:/
 
/
 
web.
 
mit.
 
edu/
 
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www/
 
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issues/
 
200310/
 
br_lane.
 
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[31] "Imaam Tirmidhi's Contribution – Chapter Four" (http:/
 
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Retrieved 2010-03-21.
[32] Tathkirah al-Huffath, vol. 2, pg. 556.
[33]
[33] On the Common-Link Theory, Fahad A. Alhomoudi, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada,Copyright 2006 All rights reserved.
[34] Pigott, Robert (2008-02-26). "Europe | Turkey in radical revision of Islamic texts" (http:/
 
/
 
news.
 
bbc.
 
co.
 
uk/
 
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