"I have recorded Hadiths I heard from no less than one thousand highly reliable scholars. I do not have a single Hadith without having its chain of transmission." These are the words of Muhammad ibn Ismaeel Al-Bukhari, the man who took Hadith scholarship to its pinnacle. Furthermore, he declares that he may know ten thousand Hadiths reported by a particular reporter, but he abandons them because that reporter is classified by other scholars as unreliable. Moreover, Al-Bukhari may consider a reporter unreliable, although some other scholars of Hadith accept him as reliable. This tells us much about Al-Bukhari’s meticulous scholarship. He did not rely only on the views of his predecessors. He studied each reporter’s case individually so as to be able to classify them according to his own high standards. In all this, his overriding concern was always reporting only what is highly authentic of the Prophet’s statements.
It has to be remembered that the Muslim state went through some troubled times, particularly after the assassination of the third and fourth Caliphs, Uthman and Ali (may God be pleased with them both). Political troubles led to divisions, with groups trying to acquire some sort of religious cover to boost their popular standing. Several such groups resorted to the fabrication of Hadiths to assert their false claims. Later, deviant beliefs resorted to the same methods in support of their erring trends. Hence, it was necessary to sift the true from the false in what is attributed to the Prophet. Scholars relied on ensuring that each Hadith should be reported by highly reliable transmitters, whose integrity, faith and sound learning were beyond doubt.
Thus, a whole scholarly discipline of studying and grading reporters of Hadith developed. It attained its perfection at the hands of Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 241 A.H.) and Yahya ibn Maeen (d. 233), both of whom were among Al-Bukhari’s teachers. This discipline, which is unknown in other cultures, is the pride of Islamic scholarship.
That Al-Bukhari learnt Hadith and heard it from such a large number of scholars and reporters speaks volumes for his tireless efforts to attain mastery of this area of scholarship. However, the ones who had the greatest influence on him were four. 1) Ali ibn Al-Madini (d. 234) who was one of the most knowledgeable of Hadith scholars of all times; 2) Ahmad ibn Hanbal, the founder of one of the four major schools of Islamic Fiqh, who combined the study of Hadith with that of Islamic jurisprudence and attained a very high degree in both; 3) Isshaq ibn Rahaweih (d. 238) described by Ahmad ibn Hanbal as a great Imam and a top scholar; and 4) Yahya ibn Maeen, one of the best critics of Hadith authenticity ever.
How would Al-Bukhari compare with these four? To start with, we say that Al-Bukhari could not have achieved the remarkable degree of excellence without having met them, studied under them and benefited by their scholarship. In fact, he was full of respect for all four, and benefited a great deal by their knowledge. Once in his early career, Al-Bukhari was asked: "What would you like best?" He said: "My dearest wish is to visit Iraq while Ali ibn Al-Madini is alive, so that I would sit with him and learn from him." When this wish was fulfilled and Al-Bukhari was a frequent visitor to Ibn Al-Madini, he said: "I never felt myself to be as small as I feel when I am in his presence." The complement was returned with a better one. Ibn Al-Madini was full of praise for Al-Bukhari. When it was reported to him that Al-Bukhari said that he had never seen anyone like him, Ibn Al-Madini said: "Al-Bukhari has never seen anyone like himself."
Similarly Ahmad ibn Hanbal was full of admiration. Al-Bukhari said: "I have visited Baghdad eight times, all to sit with Ahmad ibn Hanbal and learn from him. When I bid him farewell the last time I saw him, he said to me, ‘You leave this place with all the scholarship that is here, and you travel to Khurasan!’ Now, I remember his words." This shows the strong relationship between the two great scholars. The teacher, Ahmad, wanted Al-Bukhari to stay with him, and the younger scholar, Al-Bukhari remembers those words regretting that he did not stay longer with his teacher.
But Al-Bukhari was no ordinary student learning at the hands of top scholars. He had exceptional gifts of his own. His amazingly sharp memory stood him in good stead. Many are the reports which speak of it as exceptional. Perhaps the one that illustrates his ability to memorize quickly whatever he wished to learn dates back to one of his early visits to Baghdad. A number of scholars who had heard amazing stories about him felt that they needed to test him, but could not determine how. After some discussion, they agreed on a plan. They chose ten from among themselves, and assigned to each one ten Hadiths, switching over their chains of transmission. Thus, in each case, they would give a complete chain of transmission to the wrong Hadith text.
When Al-Bukhari sat in the mosque to teach, one of them stood up and asked him about a Hadith, with the changed sanad or chain of transmission. Al-Bukhari said: "I do not know this one." He then asked him about another, with a similar switch over, but Al-Bukhari gave the same reply. When he had gone through his ten Hadiths, he sat down and another one stood up to ask him about his Hadiths. Al-Bukhari continued to give the same answer: "I do not know this one." After a short while, the scholars on the game signaled to each other that "the man has understood." But they went on with their test, until the last of the ten finished his ten deliberately misquoted Hadiths.
Al-Bukhari then said to the first man: "Your first Hadith was the following, recounting the text with the erroneous chain; but this is wrong. Its correct version is as follows." He stated the Hadith with the correct chain of transmission. He then mentioned the second Hadith and went through all ten, mentioning the wrong transmission, before attaching it to its correct one. He then called the second man and corrected all ten of his Hadiths, and continued until he quoted all hundred Hadiths with the wrong chains and the correct ones. All scholars who took part in this test acknowledged his high standing and were full of admiration.
What is exceptional in this story is not the fact that he understood it all after a few misquotes. It would have been exceptional that he could remember the hundred Hadiths and repeat them all. But he did a much more amazing thing, which is to recount them all with the wrong chains of transmission attached to each one of them. Thus he repeated all one hundred errors, after hearing them once, with the correct version of each one of them.
