Page 98 - The Importance of the Ahl Al-Sunnah

HARUN YAHYA

of these were examined as part of his own work. This work,
the result of sixteen years of intellectual labor, is regarded as
the most reliable collection of hadiths in the history of Islam.
Titled al-Jami‘ al-Sahih, it was later abridged by Imam az-Zubaidi
under al-Tajrid al-Sarih (Summarized Sahih al-Bukhari), which
contains more than 2,000 hadiths.
Imam al-Bukhari died in 256 AH, leaving behind a work that
would act as a guide for Muslims for many centuries to come.
His place in the honored tradition of the Islamic scholars is
engraved in stone and his mighty efforts can never be erased.

Imam Muslim
Imam Muslim was born in Nishapur in 204 AH, and began
studying the hadiths in his early teens. Like all great scholars, he
was not afraid to set out on voluminous journeys to seek
knowledge and wisdom; he carried out profound inquiries into
the subject by visiting Iraq, Hijaz, Egypt, and Damascus. He ben-
efited from sources of hadiths and other related works on the
tradition of Allah’s Final Messenger (saas). Wherever he went,
his efforts increased him in knowledge and he openly stated
that he was most influenced by the work of Imam al-Bukhari.
In his works on the subject of the hadiths, Imam Muslim
employed his skills by relaying the sayings and actions of the
Prophet (saas) exactly as they had been narrated, not altering a
single letter in case this led to misunderstandings amongst the
believers. He collected an impressive 300,000 authentic hadiths
and retained only 3,030 of them in his famous collection (Jami‘)
known as Sahih Muslim. This book is now regarded as the second
most trustworthy collection of hadiths after the Sahih al-Bukhari.
His Sahih has served the Islamic world for hundreds of years as
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