Muslim Abu al-Husayn Muslim
Muslim Abu al-Husayn Muslim
Circa 821-875
Hadith collector
Traveling Scholar . Muslim Abu al-Husayn Muslim was one of the most important early traditionists, or compilers of hadiths. His best known work is al-Jami al-Sahih, which stands with the Sahih al-Eukhan as one of the two most authoritative collections. In fact, some scholars consider Muslim’s work the most reliable collection. Like al-Bukhari, Muslim began gathering hadiths at an early age and traveled widely in Iraq, Syria, the Hijaz, and Egypt in order to hear traditions from the masters. In compiling and carefully sifting a body of 300,000 alleged hadiths, he followed the meticulous method of checking the veracity of the isnad, or links reaching back to the Prophet Muhammad. Muslim’s collection comprises approximately 3,000 hadiths, not counting variant versions. Modern historians find his collection to be the most useful of the six authoritative collections because texts concerning aspects of Islamic legal concepts are clustered together and not repeated in various chapters and because his method of organization allows historians to trace and analyze traditions.
Sources
J. Robson, “Hadith,” in Encyclopedia of Islam, CD-ROM version (Leiden: Brill, 1999).
Abdul Hamid Siddiqi, trans., Sahih Muslim, 4 volumes (Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1980).