Imam al-Bukhari

Imam al-Bukhari was a great scholar of hadith (muhaddis), born in Bukhara in 810 and died in 870. Sources differ on the exact days of his birth and death, so we give only the years. A muhaddis is a scholar who works with hadith. When false hadiths appeared, scholars began to check them against reliable sources. Al-Bukhari tested hadiths by strict rules and separated reliable (sahih) from unreliable ones; he was the first to introduce this method. His best-known book is “Al-jome’ as-sahih”; he spent about 16 years on it and chose 7397 hadiths from over 600,000. He is said to have refused to teach at the emir’s palace, and he died in the village of Hartang near Samarkand.