'Sahih Muslim' (
Arabic: صØÙŠØ مسلم, ''á¹£aḥīḥ muslim'') is one of the
Sunni Six Major Hadith collections, collected by
Imam Muslim. It is the second most famous hadith collection among Muslims, although dismissed as unauthentic by
Shia Muslims
Collection
Prophet Muhammad's sayings and deeds are called
sunnah and are transmitted through
hadith.
Imam Muslim (full name Abul Husain Muslim bin al-Hajjaj al-Nisapuri) was born in 202
A.H. and died in 261 A.H. He traveled widely to gather his collection of ahadith, including to Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Egypt. Out of 300,000 ahadith which he evaluated, only 4,000 approximately were extracted for inclusion into his collection based on stringent acceptance criteria. Each report in his collection was checked for compatibility with the
Qur'an, and the veracity of the chain of reporters had to be painstakingly established. Muslim was a student of
Bukhari and
Ahmad ibn Hanbal.
It is important to realize, however, that Imam Muslim never claimed to collect all authentic traditions. He tried to collect only traditions that all Muslims should agree on its accuracy. There are other scholars who worked as Muslim did and collected other authentic reports. After
Sahih Bukhari, this is the most authentic hadith collection in the
Sunni perspective.
According to
Munziri, there are a total of 2200 hadiths (with no repetition) in Sahih Muslim. This would bring the total of Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim to 3000 hadiths. According to most Hadith scholars
[1], there are 1400 authentic hadiths that are reported in other books (mainly the
Six major Hadith collections).
Content
Among its content can be found:
★
Hadith of the pond of Khumm
★
Hadith of the two weighty things
★
Hadith of the Twelve Successors
★
Hadith of the Cloak
★
Hadith of Mubahela
★
Hadith of loving and hating Ali
★
Hadith of the pen and paper
★
Hadith of Jesus praying behind Mahdi
★
Hadith of position
★
Hadith of Umar's speech of forbidding Mut'ah
★
Hadith of Uthman's modesty
★
Hadith of Umar and foretelling
★
Hadith of Persians and knowledge
★
Hadith of Abu Bakr leading the prayer
★ Some hadith regarding
Aisha's age at marriage.
The
Hadith of Qur'an and Sunnah is not included here.
Views
Muslims have differing view of this collection.
Sunni, regard this collection as second most authentic in strength of their
Six major Hadith collections,
[2] containing only
Sahih hadith, an honor it shares only with
Sahih Bukhari, both being referred to as the
Two Sahihs.
Shia Muslims dismiss many parts of it as fabrications or untrustworthy.
Commenteries and translations
★
Fath al-Mulhim
★
Takmilat Fath al-Mulhim
★
Al Minhaj Be Sharh Sahih Muslim
★
Sahih Muslim (Siddiqui)
★
Summarized Sahih Muslim
See also
★
List of Sunni books
References
1. The number of authentic hadiths (Arabic), ''Muhammad Amin'', retrieved May 22, 2006
2. http://www.abc.se/~m9783/n/vih_e.html
External links
★
Arabic text of Muslim's book
★
English translation
★
Islamic Awareness, On The Nature Of Hadith Collections Of Imam Al-Bukhari & Muslim