# Imam Bukhari's own practice: transmission by meaning, hidden names, a Khariji narrator

- URL: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/x6sffyrljey/s/9/
- Date: 2018-08-30 · Kind: lesson · Transcript tier: machine · Recording: BukhariGate Part 1: Sahih Bukhari is NOT so Sahih -Mufti Abu Layth (47:51–58:29)
- Status: general teaching
- Watch from the start of the segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6SfFYRljeY&t=2871s
- Recording page: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/x6sffyrljey/

**Topics:** Sahih al-Bukhari (BukhariGate); Narrator criticism; Authenticating hadith

**Summary (not a quotation; machine-made, unchecked):** Imam Bukhari set a gold standard but did not always apply it: he transmitted by meaning, hid the names of problematic teachers and narrated from a Khariji who praised Ali's killer. Mufti Abu Layth's quarrel is not with Bukhari himself but with how the book is treated.

**Checked position (checked by two independent reviews, not by the channel):** Mufti Abu Layth says Imam Bukhari set a gold standard for authenticity but did not always apply it himself, since he transmitted by meaning, concealed the names of problematic teachers and narrated from a Khariji, so the narrators of his book are not all beyond question.

**Evidence, his words at 53:32:** “my problem per se is not with imam buhari imam buhari even though he didn't stick by his rules and to be fair he also bent the rules just like people before him” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6SfFYRljeY&t=3212s)

## Longer summary

Turning to Imam Bukhari himself, Mufti Abu Layth shows a page of Siyar A'lam al-Nubala where the governor of Bukhara asks Bukhari whether hadith he heard in one region and wrote down in another were recorded verbatim, and Bukhari falls silent; the margin notes that he permitted transmission by meaning. From al-Dhahabi's Mizan al-I'tidal he cites that Bukhari concealed the names of teachers others found problematic, referring to Muhammad ibn Yahya [?] simply as Muhammad or by a grandfather's name, so that the reader cannot tell which Muhammad is meant, a practice he says is noted in volume twelve page 275 of the same author [?] and for which Imam Muslim criticised him. He says his quarrel is not with Bukhari, whose requirement that two narrators be shown to have met he admires as a gold standard, but that Bukhari did not always apply it: al-Daraqutni's work on Bukhari's lapses [?] finds around 217 hadith that fall short of sahih, and Bukhari narrates from Imran ibn Hittan [?], a Khariji who praised the killer of Ali in poetry. He rejects the argument of Abu Dawud and others that Khawarij are reliable because they regard lying as a sin, noting that Ibn Abi Hatim records Khawarij admitting that they fabricated hadith when it suited them, and says anyone who justifies murder will not baulk at lying.

## Sources and names cited

- Imam al-Bukhari
- Siyar A'lam al-Nubala
- Mizan al-I'tidal
- al-Dhahabi
- Muhammad ibn Yahya al-Dhuhli [?]
- Imam Muslim
- al-Daraqutni
- Imran ibn Hittan [?]
- Abu Dawud
- Ibn Abi Hatim
- riwaya bil-ma'na (transmission by meaning)
- tadlis
- Khawarij

## Transcript (machine tier, 47:51–58:29)

[47:36] we are now suffering the hadith about women lacking intellect the hadith about women being uh majority of the inhabitants of the hellfire that was actually in there so you you've got and i've shown this previously that right so that this is this is exactly why people then have a problem with islam because they're like see that's that hadith that i stood on the on the door on the gates of hell and i saw the majority of those who the inhabitants of the hellfire were women what nonsense

[48:16] why women let's be honest like the majority of crime and the majority of warfare bloodshed all of these things is done by men so these kind of hadith you can clearly see people have fabricated them they or they've misunderstood them now that's just touching up on imam bukhari himself there's some important points to note you see first of all imam bukhari himself used to allow bill he would allow people to transmit hadith with meaning and he would do that himself as well

[48:54] so this is a page from sir alam in nubula there's the reference where you have the governor of bukhara he's having a discussion ibn jaffar with uh imam buhari and he tells him look imam bukhari says hadith in s but i wrote them when i reached sham so entirely different region and many a hadith i heard in shan sham is like where palestine syria jordan these parts are he says many a hadith i heard in

[49:32] sham but i wrote them in egypt so he says i said was that with its entirety like did you actually remember it spot on verbatim and he says he went silent so he became um like kind of like so here in the commentary writes that this is very clear sorry in the hamish in the margin

[50:06] you see he sees that it is permissible and that's as you can see that's in sierra alam in in volume 21 page four double one now that's an example that bukhari did used to see these things as permitted and that does add to part of the problem another thing is even bukhari himself saw it permissible if the motivation was there to to kind of do tadlis to hide the names of people so the the reader can't tell who he's talking about now this is an example of uh

[50:43] this is from mizanle of imam the habi right there is now there's an example of uh the egyptian is a person says in you've got here in volume 2 page 440 to 442 he says he did transmit from him in his

[51:10] he used to just say abdullah wouldn't give his full name because he knew people would find problems with him then zahabi goes on to say zahabi goes on to say one of his teachers who is very famous [Music] who became a bit problematic because some people started also deeming him for a moment as a deviant as well so imam bukhari would transmit from him

[51:42] he would get so much he would transmit from him in some places over 30 times his name was muhammad yahya now but check this out how imam bukhari would actually refer to him so he would refer to him he would use the name either just muhammad so you don't know which muhammad it was because he's got many teachers as muhammad or muhammad abdullah which was his grandfather's name and he wasn't known by that name or muhammad which was a greater grandfather

[52:20] now so when he would just say muhammad so he would use his grandfather his great-grandfather's name because nobody knew uh who that was when he would use the name muhammad you would have no idea is he talking about muhammad ibn yahya is he talking a muslim muhammad mohammed [Music]

[52:55] these are all muhammads that he transmits from so when he's saying just muhammad you don't know who he's talking about and he would do that on purpose that be said as you can see that look he would do that allah okay and that's in his volume 12 page two 275 of allah so even imam buhari didn't always stick by his rules okay so you've got to remember that now imam muslim this is why he criticizes him as well

[53:32] but that said my problem per se is not with imam buhari imam buhari even though he didn't stick by his rules and to be fair he also bent the rules just like people before him um but by and large he he he his theory came up with a gold standard okay like he he said that for a hadith to be sahih he added these extra layers these conditions by by saying that you can't just say like he said that basically when you have two people in a chain like let's say abdullah heard from umar how do we know because they're

[54:12] contemporaries he said that's not enough we have to have evidence that they actually met and heard from each other which is amazing which is amazing i i i like that standard he brought although he didn't always apply it he didn't always apply let me give you an example this is this book uh is a book by dar khutni it is known as zamat people disagree whether there were two books or one book but the point is they're written together published together in here you will see now darkne brings he finds problematic

[54:51] probably over about 217 or over around approximately that many hadith inside bukhari which he says are massively uh problematic and invalid so he and then there's some debate in some are worse than others and some may not be that bad but he finds them all to have fallen short of being sahih okay so these are some of the the problems another thing you see is imam bukhari's teacher so who is imam bukhari taking from as well so some occasions he would take from people who were really weird like he would take like so one of his teachers as you can see here

[55:30] this is page 403 in his uh that uh bukhari took from the teacher uh imran ibn um so so he takes from sorry from this rawi from uh ibn umar now this is a person who he uses sorry um as an acceptable rawi so people what i'm trying to highlight here are is that imam bukhari himself didn't always live up to his conditions why because this person imran ibn was a an extremist khawaris were those people who were savage they were like literally like isis to the power of ten they in that age i mean they are the

[56:09] forefathers of ice they were ruthless they hated uh most of the companions they declared them kaffir they said if anybody committed a sin they would kill them they were literally like that so this person imran ibn is a hariji and you see what's interesting is you've got here from hafiz as well even though they say he himself didn't participate in the killing but he was one of the key sympathizers and used to write poetry uh praising them and encouraging them and even

[56:49] hafiz here mentions um you've got he he says which one of the hawaiis they were kana i'm who praised the murderer of satan ali in poetry and then and yet the scholar said but we accept him in hadith because some scholars like abu dawud and others said you know these khawaris they're so upstanding when it comes to hadith

[57:27] because they believe this to be a sin that's stupid because anybody who can justify murder how on earth what on earth is is a lie if you can justify murder nothing else matters i mean lying it doesn't even it's not even a blip on the radar but wait there even under this person's commentary that what abu dawood said that the hawari because they used to see lying as haram we accept their hadith he said that doesn't that's not true because ibn bihatim

[58:06] transmits from some of the scholars like ibn he and others that that they openly admitted later on if they desired something had ethan look that they actually used to make up hadith and duh that's no surprise i mean i don't know why they're so shocked about that if if i if i if i can justify murder lying is a piece of cake so that is to show that first of all even imam buhari himself yes his standard did beat the other

## Cite

Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment X6SfFYRljeY/s/9. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/x6sffyrljey/s/9/

Not a fatwa: these answers were given to specific people at specific times. Ask a qualified scholar about your own situation.