THE HADITH OF Mohammed
By Sahih Bukhari
Introduction to Translation
of Sahih Bukhari
Abu Abdullah Muhammad bin Ismail bin Ibrahim bin al-Mughira al-Ja'fai, also known as Sahih Bukhari, was born in 194 A.H. and died in 256 A.H. His collection of Hadith is considered the most authoritative of several collections of the Hadith of Mohammed. He spent sixteen years compiling his collection of 2,602 Hadith (9,082 with repetition). His criteria for acceptance into the collection were the most stringent of all the scholars of ahadith.
Sahih Bukhari's collection of Hadith, or sayings and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad, are also known as The Sunnah. That which is approved by the quoting of a Hadith is called Sunnat.
Bukhari lived about two centuries after the Prophet's death and worked intensely to collect his version of ahadith. Each Hadith in his collection was checked for compatibility with the Qur'an, and the veracity of the chain of reporters had to be painstakingly established. It is actually possible to prove that the Hadith are more closely examined for veracity than the Koran itself. This is because of the many witnesses produced for each Hadith. For this reason, Bukhari's collection of Hadith is recognized by the overwhelming majority of the Islamic world to be one of the most authentic collections of the Sunnah of the Prophet.
It is important to realize, however, that Bukhari's collection is not complete: there are other scholars who worked as Bukhari did and collected other authentic reports. You may want to read our collection taken from Haji Fazlul Maulana of Lahor, Pakistan, another ancient collection still widely accepted as Sunnat.
If you browse these Hadith for a while, you will see that the Islam of Mohammed, and the Sunnat laws of his day, are vastly different from Islamic life today. The Islam of Mohammed's day was totally Arab, filled with superstition and Bedouin mysticism, and you will discover that Islam was very very simple as to the application of life. Islam today is highly secularized and twisted by the modern Mullahs and Islamic high powers. Modern Islam is only a shadow of the original religion delivered in Mecca by Mohammed.