al-Imam Muslim wa Sahihuhu

al-Imam Muslim wa Sahihuhu (Arabic: الإمام مسلم وصحيحه, "Imam Muslim and His Sahih") is a treatise on Hadith literature by the Saudi scholar Abd al-Muhsin al-Abbad, authored while teaching at the College of Sharia at the Islamic University of Medina and published in the university's journal al-Imam Muslim wa Sahihuh…+1. The work provides a biographical study of Imam Muslim (Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj, d. 261 AH / 875 CE) alongside an analytical examination of the methodology, structure, and scholarly status of his canonical hadith collection, Sahih Muslim al-Imam Muslim wa Sahihuh…+1.

Biography of Imam Muslim

The first part of the treatise outlines the life and scholarly career of Abu al-Husayn Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj al-Qushayri al-Naysaburi al-Imam Muslim wa Sahihuh…. It notes that he began hearing hadith in 218 AH and traveled widely across Iraq, the Hijaz, Sham, and Egypt al-Imam Muslim wa Sahihuh…. Al-Abbad highlights ten of Muslim's most frequent authorities in the Sahih, including Abu Bakr Ibn Abi Shaybah, Abu Khaythama Zuhayr ibn Harb, Muhammad ibn al-Muthanna, and Qutayba ibn Sa'id, noting that al-Bukhari also transmitted directly from nine of them al-Imam Muslim wa Sahihuh….

The author examines Muslim’s close discipleship under al-Bukhari in Nishapur, offering two reasons for why Muslim did not transmit directly from al-Bukhari in his Sahih: the desire for shorter chains of transmission (‘uluww al-isnad) by narrating directly from shared teachers, and the fact that al-Bukhari had already independently gathered those sound narrations al-Imam Muslim wa Sahihuh…. The section also lists notable students who narrated from him—such as Ibn Khuzaymah, Abu al-Fadl Ahmad ibn Salamah, and al-Tirmidhi (who transmitted a single hadith from him in his Jami‘)—followed by assessments from classical critics and a catalog of twenty of Muslim's writings al-Imam Muslim wa Sahihuh…+2. It concludes with his death on a Sunday evening in late Rajab 261 AH and his burial in Nasrabad, outside Nishapur, at an age reported as either fifty-five or fifty-seven al-Imam Muslim wa Sahihuh….

Analysis of Sahih Muslim

The second part investigates the composition and methodological framework of Sahih Muslim. Muslim composed the book in response to a request for a concise compilation of authentic prophetic traditions without excessive repetition, spurred further by concerns over individuals disseminating weak and objectionable reports to the public al-Imam Muslim wa Sahihuh…+1. The compilation took fifteen years, selected out of 300,000 heard narrations, and was reviewed with Abu Zur'ah al-Razi al-Imam Muslim wa Sahihuh…+1.

Al-Abbad addresses several structural and technical dimensions of the collection:

• Rank and Introduction: Sahih Muslim ranks second in authenticity among hadith books after Sahih al-Bukhari al-Imam Muslim wa Sahihuh…. The treatise examines the theological and methodological preface (Muqaddimah) prefixed by Muslim, analyzing his division of narrators into tiers and his criterion regarding mu‘an‘an (transmission via ‘an) reports requiring only contemporaneity (mu‘asarah) rather than proven physical meeting (talaqi) al-Imam Muslim wa Sahihuh…+1.
• Organization and Hadith Counts: Muslim arranged the material topically without adding chapter titles (tarajim), leaving subsequent commentators—such as al-Nawawi—to supply them al-Imam Muslim wa Sahihuh…. The book contains approximately 4,000 hadiths without repetitions (and 12,000 with repetition according to Ahmad ibn Salamah), while Muhammad Fu'ad Abd al-Baqi's modern numbering identified 3,033 non-repeated hadiths al-Imam Muslim wa Sahihuh…. Suspended chains (ta‘liqat) occur in only fourteen places al-Imam Muslim wa Sahihuh….
• Defense Against Criticisms: Al-Abbad responds to classical criticisms directed at around 160 narrators in the collection, explaining that these transmissions primarily appear in supporting chains (mutaba‘at and shawahid) or involve narrators whose sound transmissions occurred prior to memory loss al-Imam Muslim wa Sahihuh…+1. He also addresses the one hundred hadiths unique to Muslim that were critiqued by al-Daraqutni and others, noting that most objections were resolved by commentators such as al-Nawawi al-Imam Muslim wa Sahihuh….
• Comparison with al-Bukhari: The treatise contrasts Muslim's approach with that of al-Bukhari, emphasizing Muslim's practice of gathering all textual paths and variations in a single place and specifying exact wordings among co-teachers, in contrast to al-Bukhari's dispersion of traditions across chapters to extract legal derivations al-Imam Muslim wa Sahihuh…+1.

The treatise concludes by highlighting that the two Sahihs do not encompass all authentic hadith, presenting the seven hierarchical tiers of authentic narrations and defining the terminology and literature of mutually agreed-upon traditions (al-muttafaq ‘alayh) al-Imam Muslim wa Sahihuh…+2.