Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Ismā‘īl ibn Ibrāhīm ibn al-Mughīrah ibn Bardizbah al-Ju‘fī al-Bukhārī or Bukhārī commonly referred to as Imam al-Bukhari or Imam Bukhari, was a Persian Islamic scholar who was born in Bukhara (the capital of the Bukhara Region (viloyat) of Uzbekistan).
Background
Muhammad ibn Isma'il al-Bukhari al-Ju'fi was born after the Jumu'ah prayer on Friday, 19 July 810 (13 Shawwal 194 AH) in the city of Bukhara in Transoxiana (in present-day Uzbekistan).
Al-Bukhari was born at Bukhara into a family of Persian origin.
His father, Ismail ibn Ibrahim, a scholar of hadith, was a student and associate of Malik ibn Anas. Some Iraqi scholars related hadith narrations from him.
Education
He studied the Islamic traditions at the age of eleven, and at sixteen he made a pilgrimage to Mecca.
In the course of his travels, which lasted sixteen years, he collected more than 300, 000 traditions concerning the acts and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad and his companions.
Career
He was the compiler of the "Sahih, " one of the six canonical collections of traditions (hadiths) in Sunnite Islam that report the sayings and actions of the prophet Mohammed.
At the age of 10 he began to memorize traditions.
His prodigious memory became evident early for he is reported to have corrected his teachers and the traditions written down by his companions.
During the following 16 years he visited the centers of learning in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, and Persia, collecting as well as transmitting traditions.
Al-Bukhari claimed to have received traditions from over 1, 000 traditionists, and his fame as a scholar grew rapidly.
In Nishapur he attracted larger crowds than the leading scholar of tradition, who out of jealousy accused al-Bukhari of heresy.
He had to leave and returned to Bukhara, where he completed his famous Sahih.
Students came from all parts of the Moslem world to hear him.
The governor encouraged other scholars to charge al-Bukhari with heresy and expelled him from the city.
Al-Bukhari left for Khartank, near Samarkand, where he lived until his death on August 1, 870.
The "Sahih" The title of al-Bukhari's collection of traditions, Sahih, means "sound, " and it refers to his precept of including only traditions which he considered as being of certain authenticity according to his own rigid criteria.
Al-Bukhari is reported to have chosen his "sound" traditions from among some 600, 000.
His collection contains 7, 397 traditions with complete chains of transmission, of which 4, 635 are repetitions.
The great mass of the traditions relate sayings or actions of the prophet Mohammed, though a few relate statements of his Companions.
The work is divided into 97 books subdivided into 3, 450 chapters, in which the traditions are arranged according to subject matter.
The greater part deals with the ritual and legal matters of Islamic law, though some sections deal with questions of theology, Koran exegesis, and the life of Mohammed.
Since many traditions were relevant to more than one subject, they were repeated in other chapters.
Al-Bukhari has sometimes been criticized for stretching the meaning of traditions for his purpose.
A few chapters contain titles without traditions, indicating that he did not find any well-authenticated ones relevant to the subject.
Religion
The titles show al-Bukhari to be independent in his doctrine of any of the Sunnite schools of the law.
Views
Muhammad ibn Ismail al- Bukhari Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Bukhari was a Moslem traditionist.
Bukhari has been claimed as a follower of the Hanbali school of thought within Islamic jurisprudence, although members of the Shafi'i and Ẓāhirī schools levy this claim as well.
Historical evidence suggests that Bukhari's legal positions were similar to those of the Zahiris and Hanbalis of his time, given the fact that Bukhari rejected qiyas and other forms of ra'y completely. Bukhari's positions have even been compared to those of Ibn Hazm.
Al-Dhahabi said that Imam Bukhari was a mujtahid, a scholar capable of making his own ijtihad without following any Islamic school of jurisprudence in particular.