Biography of Imam al-Bukhari

Abou al-Houssayn ibn al-Mounadi said: ar-Ramadi died on the four remaining of rabi al-akhir, in the year two hundred sixty-five, having completed eighty-three years.

I said: we heard by his route several parts from Abd ar-Razzaq.

And there died therein: Ibrahim ibn al-Harith al-Baghdadi, Ibrahim ibn Hani an-Naysabouri, Sa'dan ibn Nasr al-Moukharimi, Salih ibn Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Ali ibn Harb, Abdallah ibn Muhammad ibn Ayyoub al-Moukharimi, the Qoudoua Abou Hafs an-Naysabouri, Haroun ibn Soulayman, and the awaited one Muhammad ibn al-Hasan; the Rafidites say: he did not die, but he vanished into the underground.

171 - Abou Abdallah al-Boukhari Muhammad ibn Ismail ibn Ibrahim (t, s)

son of al-Moughira ibn Bardzba, and it is said: Badhzba, a Boukharan word meaning: the ploughman.

Al-Moughira embraced Islam at the hand of the Yaman al-Joufi, governor of Boukhara; he was a Magian; and Ismail ibn Ibrahim sought knowledge.

We were informed by al-Hasan ibn Ali, Ja'far al-Hamdani informed us, Abou Tahir ibn Silafa informed us, Abou Ali al-Bardani informed us, Hennad ibn Ibrahim informed us, Muhammad ibn Ahmad the hafiz informed us, Abd ar-Rahman ibn Muhammad and Muhammad ibn al-Houssayn narrated to us, both saying:

Is'haq ibn Ahmad ibn Khalaf narrated to us that he heard al-Boukhari say: my father heard from Malik ibn Anas, saw Hammad ibn Zayd, and shook the hand of Ibn al-Moubarak with both hands.

I said: Abou Abdallah was born in chawwal of the year four and ninety and one hundred.

So said Abou Ja'far Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim al-Boukhari, the copyist of Abou Abdallah, in the book "Chamail al-Boukhari", the collection of his qualities, which is a huge volume.

Ahmad ibn Abi al-Khayr informed me, from Muhammad ibn Ismail at-Tarsousi, that Muhammad ibn Tahir the hafiz granted him license, and he said: Ahmad ibn Ali ibn Khalaf informed us, Abou Tahir Ahmad ibn Abdallah ibn Mihrawayh the Persian, the pedagogue, informed us, who came to us from Merv to visit Abou Abdallah as-Salami: Abou Muhammad Ahmad ibn Abdallah ibn Muhammad ibn Youssouf ibn Matar al-Firabri informed us: my grandfather narrated to me, and he said: I heard Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim, and he mentions the book, whose text I do not transmit, and it is by this chain.

Then Abou Abdallah, in what Ismail ibn Abd ar-Rahman informed us, Abdallah ibn Ahmad the faqih informed us in the year sixteen and six hundred, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Baqi informed us, Abou Bakr Ahmad ibn Ali informed us, Hiba Allah ibn al-Hasan the hafiz informed us,

Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Hafs informed us, Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Soulayman informed us, Khalaf ibn Muhammad informed us, Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn al-Fadl al-Balkhi narrated to us: I heard my father say: the eyes of Muhammad ibn Ismail lost sight in his youth; his mother saw in a dream Ibrahim the friend of Allah, peace be upon him, who said to her: O you, Allah has returned to your son his sight, for the abundance of your weeping, or the abundance of your invocations (al-Balkhi doubted); we awoke therefore, and Allah had returned his sight to him.

And by the previous chain up to Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim, he said: I said to Abou Abdallah: how did your affair begin?

He said: the memorization of hadith was inspired in me while I was at school.

I said: how old were you?

He said: ten years, or less; then I left school after ten, and I began going to adh-Dhakhili and others; one day, while he recited to the people, he said: Soufyan, from Abou az-Zoubayr, from Ibrahim; I said to him: Abou az-Zoubayr did not narrate from Ibrahim.

He rebuked me; I said to him: return to the original: he entered and looked into it, then went out and said to me: how is it, O young lad?

I said: it is az-Zoubayr ibn Adi, from Ibrahim; he therefore took the reed from my hand, corrected his writing, and said: you have spoken true.

It was said to al-Boukhari: how old were you when you corrected him?

He said: eleven years old; when I had passed sixteen years, I had memorized the books of Ibn al-Moubarak and Waki', and knew the words of these; then I went out with my mother and my brother Ahmad to Mecca; when I had performed the pilgrimage, my brother returned with her! and I stayed behind in the quest of hadith.

His masters and his students

He heard at Boukhara, before travelling, from: his mawla, above Abdallah ibn Muhammad ibn Abdallah ibn Ja'far ibn al-Yaman al-Joufi the mousnid, and from Muhammad ibn Salam al-Bikandi, and a group who were not among the great of his masters.

Then he heard at Balkh from: Maki ibn Ibrahim, who is among the earliest of his masters.

And he heard at Merv from: Abdan ibn Outhman, Ali ibn al-Hasan ibn Chaqiq, Sadaqa ibn al-Fadl, and a group.

And at Naysabour from: Yahya ibn Yahya, and a group.

And at ar-Rayy: Ibrahim ibn Moussa.

And at Bagdad, when he arrived in Iraq at the end of the year ten and two hundred, from: Muhammad ibn Isa ibn at-Tabba, Sourayj ibn an-Nou'man, Muhammad ibn Sabiq, and Affan.

And at Bassora from: Abou Asim an-Nabil, al-Ansari, Abd ar-Rahman ibn Hammad ach-Chou'aythi the companion of Ibn Awn, and from Muhammad ibn Ar'ara, Hajjaj ibn Minhal, Badl ibn al-Mouhabbir, Abdallah ibn Raja, and several.

And at Koufa from: Oubaydallah ibn Moussa, Abou Nou'aym, Khalid ibn Makhlad, Taliq ibn Ghannam, and Khalid ibn Yazid the reciter, among those who recited upon Hamza.

And at Mecca from: Abou Abd ar-Rahman the reciter, Khallad ibn Yahya, Hassan ibn Hassan al-Basri, Abou al-Walid Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Azraqi, and al-Houmaydi.

And at Medina from: Abd al-Aziz al-Ouwaysi, Ayyoub ibn Soulayman ibn Bilal, and Ismail ibn Abi Oways.

And in Egypt: Sa'id ibn Abi Maryam, Ahmad ibn Ichkab, Abdallah ibn Youssouf, Asbagh, and several.

And in Syria: Abou al-Yaman, Adam ibn Abi Iyas, Ali ibn Ayyach, and Bichr ibn Chou'ayb.

And he heard from: Abou al-Moughira Abd al-Qoudous, Ahmad ibn Khalid al-Wahbi, Muhammad ibn Youssouf al-Firyabi, Abou Mouhir, and numerous others besides them.

And his copyist Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim said: I heard him say: I entered Balkh, and they asked me to dictate for each of those whose hadith I had written: I therefore dictated a thousand hadiths for a thousand men among those I had written from.

He said: and I heard him a month before his death say: I have written from a thousand and eighty-eight men, and among them is none but a man of hadith; they used to say: faith is word and deed: it increases and decreases.

I said: the most ancient of his masters who narrated to him from the Taba'ites are: Abou Asim,

al-Ansari, Maki ibn Ibrahim, Oubaydallah ibn Moussa, Abou al-Moughira, and their likes.

And the middle ones of his masters who narrated to him from al-Awza'i, Ibn Abi Dhi'b, Chou'ba, Chou'ayb ibn Abi Hamza, and ath-Thawri.

Then another layer beneath them, like the companions of Malik, al-Layth, Hammad ibn Zayd, and Abou Awana.

And the fourth layer of his masters, like the companions of Ibn al-Moubarak, Ibn Ouyayna, Ibn Wahb, and al-Walid ibn Mouslim.

Then the fifth layer: Muhammad ibn Yahya adh-Dhouhli, from whom the many narrated and whom they deceived , and Muhammad ibn Abdallah al-Moukharimi, and Muhammad ibn Abd ar-Rahim Sa'iqa: these are his contemporaries.

And he heard from Abou Mouhir, and doubted his hearing, and said: outside the Sahih: Abou Mouhir narrated to us, or a man narrated to me from him.

And he narrated from Ahmad ibn Abd al-Malik ibn Waqid al-Harrani, whom he met in Iraq, without entering the peninsula.

And he said: I entered upon Mou'alla ibn Mansour ar-Razi at Bagdad in the year ten.

Many people narrated from him, among them: Abou Isa at-Tirmidhi, Abou Hatim, Ibrahim ibn Ishaq al-Harbi, Abou Bakr ibn Abi ad-Dunya, Abou Bakr Ahmad ibn Amr ibn Abi Asim, Salih ibn Muhammad Jazara, Muhammad ibn Abdallah al-Hadrami Moutayyan, Ibrahim ibn Ma'qil an-Nasafi, Abdallah ibn Najiya, Abou Bakr Muhammad ibn Ishaq ibn Khuzayma, Omar ibn Muhammad ibn Boujayr, Abou Qoraych Muhammad ibn Joum'a, Yahya ibn Muhammad ibn Sa'id, Muhammad ibn Youssouf al-Firabri the narrator of the Sahih, Mansour ibn Muhammad Mizbazda, Abou Bakr ibn Abi Dawoud, al-Houssayn and al-Qasim the two sons of al-Mahamili, Abdallah ibn Muhammad ibn al-Achqar, Muhammad ibn Soulayman ibn Faris, Mahmoud ibn Anbar an-Nasafi, and countless others.

And Mouslim narrated from him, outside his Sahih.

It is said that an-Nasa'i narrated from him the fasting in his Sunan, but it is not established; however an-Nasa'i cites in his book "al-Kouna" things from Abdallah ibn Ahmad al-Khaffaf, from al-Boukhari.

And our master Abou al-Hajjaj al-Mizzi arranged, according to his custom, in a dictionary the masters of al-Boukhari and his companions, and mentions people besides those I mentioned.

Al-Mou'ammal ibn Muhammad and others informed us that Abou al-Yumn the philologist informed them; Abou Mansour al-Qazzaz informed us, Abou Bakr al-Khatib informed us, at Naysabour Abou Bakr Ahmad ibn al-Hasan the qadi al-Harachi informed us: I heard Abou Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Ahmad al-Balkhi narrating from Muhammad ibn Youssouf al-Firabri that he used to say: ninety thousand men heard the book "Sahih" of Muhammad ibn Ismail, and there remains no one who narrates it but me.

Muhammad ibn Tahir al-Maqdisi said: a group narrated the Sahih of al-Boukhari, among them: al-Firabri, Hammad ibn Chakir, Ibrahim ibn Ma'qil, and Tahir ibn Muhammad ibn Makhlad an-Nasafiyan.

The emir the hafiz Abou Nasr ibn Makoula said: the last who narrated the Sahih of al-Boukhari is Abou Talha Mansour ibn Muhammad ibn Ali al-Bazdi, of the people of Bazda.

He was trustworthy; he died in the year nine and twenty and three hundred.

We were informed by Abou al-Ma'ali Ahmad ibn Ishaq al-Abarqouhi by my reading, we were informed by Abou Bakr Zayd ibn Hiba Allah al-Baghdadi, we were informed by Ahmad ibn al-Moubarak ibn Qafarjal, we were informed by Asim ibn al-Hasan, we were informed by Abd al-Wahid ibn Muhammad ibn Mahdi, al-Houssayn ibn Ismail al-Mahamili narrated to us in the year nine and twenty and three hundred: Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Boukhari narrated to us, Muhammad ibn Youssouf narrated to us, Soufyan narrated to us (meaning ath-Thawri), from Abou Bourda who said: my grandfather Abou Bourda informed me, from his father Abou

Moussa, who said:

The Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said: the believer for the believer is like the building: one part strengthens another.

And he interlaced his fingers; and he was seated when a man came to him, or a seeker of need, and he turned his face toward us and said: intercede, and you shall be rewarded; and let Allah judge by the tongue of His Messenger what He wills.

Abou al-Hasan Ali ibn Ahmad al-Hashimi informed us, at Bagdad Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Qati'i informed us, Muhammad ibn Oubaydallah al-Moujallid informed us, Muhammad ibn Muhammad az-Zaynabi informed us, Muhammad ibn Abd ar-Rahman al-Moukhallis informed us, Yahya ibn Muhammad ibn Sa'id narrated to us, Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Boukhari narrated to us, Hammad narrated to us, from Younous and Habib, and Yahya ibn Atiq, and Hicham, from Muhammad ibn Sirin, from Oumm Atiyya, who said: the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, commanded that the veiled women go out on the day of the feast.

It was said: and the menstruating one?

He said: they shall witness the good and the invocation of the Muslims.

These two hadiths are authentic, among the highest of what came to us of the narration of Abou Abdallah besides the Sahih.

As for the Sahih, it is the highest of what came to us of the six books, in the first time I heard hadith: and that was in the year two and ninety and six hundred.

What then do you think of its height today, when we are in the year fifteen and seven hundred!! If a man travelled a year's journey to hear it, he would not fail.

Indeed its height extends to the year thirty: it is the highest of the six books in chain to the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, for many hadiths; and that is because Abou Abdallah is the eldest of the group, the earliest in meeting the greats: he took from a group from whom the five imams narrate, from one man of them.

His travels and his works

Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim al-Boukhari said: I heard Abou Abdallah Muhammad ibn Ismail say: I performed the pilgrimage, and my brother returned with my mother, and I stayed behind in the quest of hadith; when I had passed eighteen years, I began composing the judgments of the Companions and the Taba'ites and their sayings, and that was in the days of Oubaydallah ibn Moussa.

And I composed the book "Tarikh" then, at the grave of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, in the moonlit nights; and few are the names in the Tarikh without having a story, except that I disliked lengthening the book.

And I used to frequent the fuqaha of Merv while I was a child: when I came, I was shy to greet them; a pedagogue of its people said to me: how much have you written today?

I said: two, and I meant thereby two hadiths; those present at the session laughed.

An elder of them said: do not laugh: perhaps he will laugh at you one day!!

And I heard him say: I entered upon al-Houmaydi while I was eighteen years old, and there was between him and another a divergence in a hadith; when al-Houmaydi saw me he said: the one who will judge between us has come; they presented it to me, and I judged for al-Houmaydi against his contradictor: and had his contradictor persisted in his contradiction, then died upon his claim, he would have died a disbeliever.

We were informed by Abou Ali ibn Khallal, we were informed by Abou al-Fadl al-Hamdani, we were informed by as-Silafi, we were informed by Abou Ali al-Bardani and Ibn at-Touyouri, both saying:

Hennad ibn Ibrahim informed us, Muhammad ibn Ahmad Ghounjar informed us, Khalaf ibn Muhammad al-Khayyam informed us: I heard al-Fadl ibn Ishaq al-Bazzaz: Ahmad ibn Minhal the worshipper narrated to us, Abou Bakr al-A'yan narrated to us and said: we copied from al-Boukhari at the door of Muhammad ibn Youssouf al-Firyabi, and there was not on his face a single hair.

We said: how old are you?

He said: seventeen years.

And Khalaf al-Khayyam said: I heard Ibrahim ibn Ma'qil: I heard Abou Abdallah say: I was at Ishaq ibn Rahawayh, and one of our companions said: had you composed an abridged book of the sounans of the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him; that fell into my heart, and I set about composing this book.

And from .... that al-Boukhari said: I extracted this book from about six hundred thousand hadiths.

Al-Mou'ammal ibn Muhammad and others informed us, Abou al-Yumn al-Kindi informed us, Abou Mansour al-Qazzaz informed us, Abou Bakr al-Khatib narrated to me: Ali ibn Muhammad al-Attar narrated to me at ar-Rayy: I heard Abou al-Haytham al-Kouchmihani: I heard al-Firabri say: Muhammad ibn Ismail said to me: I did not place in my book "Sahih" a hadith without performing ghusl before that, and praying two rak'a.

We were informed by Ibn Khallal, we were informed by al-Hamdani, we were informed by as-Silafi, Abou Abdallah ar-Razi informed us, Abdallah ibn al-Walid narrated to us, Ahmad ibn al-Hasan ibn Boundar informed us, Abou Ahmad ibn Adi informed us: I heard al-Hasan ibn al-Houssayn al-Bazzaz: I heard Ibrahim ibn Ma'qil: I heard al-Boukhari say: I introduced into this book only what is authentic, and I left out of the authentic so that the book would not be long.

And Abou Ja'far Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim said: I said to Abou Abdallah: do you retain

all that you introduced into the work? He said: all that is in it is not hidden from me.

And I heard him say: I composed all my books three times.

And I heard him say: were these masters of mine published, they would not understand how I composed the Tarikh, nor recognize it; then he said: I composed it three times.

And I heard him say: Ishaq ibn Rahawayh took the book "Tarikh" I had composed, and introduced it to Abdallah ibn Tahir, and said: O emir, shall I not show you magic? He said: Abdallah looked into it, wondered at it, and said: I do not comprehend its composition.

And Khalaf al-Khayyam said: I heard Ishaq ibn Ahmad ibn Khalaf say: Muhammad ibn Ismail entered Iraq at the end of the year ten and two hundred.

And Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim said: I heard al-Boukhari say: I entered Bagdad eight times, and at each of those I kept company with Ahmad ibn Hanbal; he said to me at the last farewell I took from him: O Abou Abdallah, you leave knowledge and the people, and return to Khorassan?! He said: and it is now that I recall his saying.

And Abou Abd al-Hakim said: the first time al-Boukhari came to Naysabour was in the year nine and two hundred, and he came to it the last time in the year fifty and two hundred, and he stayed there five years narrating continually.

We were informed by Abou Hafs ibn al-Qawwas, we were informed by Abou al-Qasim ibn al-Harastani by reading before him in the year nine and six hundred while I was present: we were informed by Abou al-Hasan Ali ibn Moussallam the faqih, we were informed by al-Houssayn ibn Muhammad al-Khatib, we were informed by Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Ghassani, Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Adam narrated to me, Muhammad ibn Youssouf al-Boukhari narrated to us and said: I was with Muhammad ibn Ismail at his house one night, and I counted upon him that he rose and saddled, recalling things he annotated, eighteen times in one night.

And the copyist Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim said: Abou Abdallah, when I was with him on a journey, one house gathered us except sometimes in the summer heat; I saw him rise in one night fifteen to twenty times, at each of those taking the lamp, lighting a fire, saddling, then bringing out hadiths and annotating upon them.

And Ibn Adi said: I heard Abd al-Qoudous ibn Hammam say: I heard several of the sheikhs say: Muhammad ibn Ismail moved the headings of his collection between the grave of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, and his minbar, and he prayed for each heading two rak'a.

And he said: .... I heard al-Boukhari say: I composed the Sahih in sixteen years, and made it a proof between me and Allah, the Most High.

And Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim said: I heard Hani ibn an-Nadr say: we were at Muhammad ibn Youssouf (meaning al-Firabri) in Syria, and we amused ourselves in the manner of young men, hunting at ambush and the like; Muhammad ibn Ismail was with us, and he did not vie with us in anything we were in, and he applied himself to knowledge.

And Muhammad said: I heard an-Najm ibn al-Fudayl say: I saw the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, in sleep, as if walking, and Muhammad ibn Ismail walking behind him; whenever the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, raised his foot, Muhammad ibn Ismail set his foot in the place where the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, had raised his foot.

And he said: I heard Abou Abdallah say: an elder used to pass by us at the session of adh-Dhakhili, and I would report to him the authentic hadiths of what was presented to me, and report their saying to him: he would say to me one day: O Abou Abdallah, our chief is on a good path. And it reached me that Abou Abdallah drank a remedy of memorization called baladhour; I said to him one day in private: is there a remedy a man drinks and benefits from for memorization?

He said: I do not know; then he turned to me and said: I know nothing more beneficial for memorization than a man's zeal and assiduity of gaze.

He said: and that is because I was residing at Naysabour; books came to me from Boukhara, and I had kinswomen there who would have their salams read to me in the books; I wrote a letter to Boukhara, and wished to have my salam read to them: their names escaped me as I wrote my letter, and I did not have my salam read to them; how little leaves me of knowledge!

And he said: I heard him say: my writing of hadith was not like the writing of these.

When I wrote from a man, I asked him his name, his kunya, his lineage and his bearing of hadith, if the man was reliable.

And if he was not, I asked him to bring me his original and his copy.

As for the others, they care not what they write, nor how they write.

And he said: I heard al-Abbas ad-Douri say: I never saw anyone more skilled in the seeking of hadith than Muhammad ibn Ismail: he left no root nor branch without uprooting it.

Then he said to us: leave nothing of his speech unwritten.

And he said: one of the rulers wrote to Abou Abdallah concerning a need of his, and he invoked much for him.

Abou Abdallah wrote to him therefore: salam upon you: I thank Allah toward you, than whom there is no deity; as to what follows: your letter reached me and I understood it, and in its house are brought

judgment and peace.

And he said: I heard Ibrahim al-Khawwas, begging alms, say: I saw Abou Zur'a like a child seated before Muhammad ibn Ismail, asking him about the defects of hadith.

His memory and his knowledge

Muhammad ibn Ahmad Ghounjar said in "Tarikh Boukhara": I heard Abou Amr Ahmad ibn Muhammad the reciter: I heard Mahib ibn Soulaym: I heard Ja'far ibn Muhammad al-Qattan the imam of Karmi-niyya say: I heard Muhammad ibn Ismail say: I wrote from a thousand sheikhs and more, from each of them ten thousand and more; I have no hadith but that I recall its chain.

Ghounjar said: Muhammad ibn Imran al-Jourjani narrated to us: I heard Abd ar-Rahman ibn Muhammad al-Boukhari: I heard Muhammad ibn Ismail say: I met more than a thousand men of the people of the Hijaz, Iraq, Syria and Egypt; I met them many times: the people of Syria, Egypt and the peninsula twice, and the people of Bassora four times; and in the Hijaz six years; and I cannot count how many times I entered Koufa and Bagdad with my narrators of Khorassan, among them: Maki ibn Ibrahim, Yahya ibn Yahya, Ibn Chaqiq, Qoutayba, Chihab ibn Mou'mar; and in Syria: al-Firyabi, Abou Mouhir, Abou al-Moughira, Abou al-Yaman; and he named people.

Then he said: I never saw one of them differ on these

things: that religion is word and deed, and that the Quran is the speech of Allah.

And the copyist Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim said: I heard Hashid ibn Ismail and another say: Abou Abdallah al-Boukhari frequented with us the sheikhs of Bassora while a boy, and did not write, until days passed upon that; we said to him: you frequent with us and do not write: what do you do then?

He said to us one day, after sixteen days: you have much insisted upon me: present to me then what you two have written.

We brought out to him what we had: more than fifteen thousand hadiths; he read them all from the back of his heart, until we corrected our books according to his memorization.

Then he said: do you think I frequent idly, and waste my days?! We knew therefore that none preceded him.

He said: and I heard them both say: the people of knowledge among the Bassorians raced behind him in the quest of hadith while he was a young man, until they overcame him against himself, and seated him on a part of the road: thousands gathered about him, most of them writing from him.

And he was a young man whose face had not yet appeared.

And the hafiz Abou Ahmad Abdallah ibn Adi said: I heard several sheikhs relate that Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Boukhari came to Bagdad; the people of hadith heard of him, gathered, and prepared a hundred hadiths: they reversed their texts and their chains, made the text of this one the chain of that one and the chain of this one the text of that one, and handed to each

one ten hadiths to present to al-Boukhari in the session; the people gathered, and one of them was designated, and he asked al-Boukhari about a hadith of his ten, and he said: I do not know it.

And he asked him about another, and he said: I do not know it.

And so on until he finished his ten.

The fuqaha looked at one another, and said: the man has understood.

And whoever did not know judged al-Boukhari incapable; then another was designated, who did as the first had done.

And al-Boukhari kept saying: I do not know it.

Then the third, and up to the complete ten, ten persons; and he added to them nothing but: I do not know it.

When he knew they had finished, he turned to the first of them and said: as for your first hadith, it is thus; and the second thus; and the third thus, up to the ten: he returned each text to its chain.

And he did the like with the others.

The people acknowledged his memorization.

Ibn Sa'id, whenever he mentioned him, would say: the butting ram.

And Ghounjar said: Mansour ibn Ishaq al-Asadi narrated to us: I heard Abdallah ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim az-Zaghouni: I heard Youssouf ibn Moussa al-Marwarroudhi say: I was at Bassora in its great mosque, when I heard a crier calling: O people of knowledge, Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Boukhari has arrived; they rose seeking him, and I was with them; we saw a young man praying behind a column.

When he finished the prayer, they fixed their gaze on him, and asked him to hold for them a session of dictation: he agreed to them.

On the morrow gathered close to such and such thousands, and he sat for the dictation and said: O people of Bassora, I am a young man, and you asked me to narrate to you; I shall narrate to you hadiths from the people of your land, from which you will all profit.

Then he said: Abdallah ibn Outhman ibn Jabala

ibn Abi Rawwad, your countryman, narrated to us, and he said: my father narrated to me, from Chou'ba, from Mansour and others, from Salim ibn Abi al-Ja'd, from Anas: that a Bedouin came to the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, and said: O Messenger of Allah, a man loves a people; and he mentions the hadith.

Then he said: this one is not with you: what you have is from other than Mansour, from Salim.

And he dictated a session upon this pattern, saying in each hadith: Chou'ba narrated this hadith with you thus: as for the narration of so-and-so, it is not with you; or: this is its meaning.

Youssouf said: my entry to Bassora was in the days of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Malik ibn Abi ach-Chawarib.

And the copyist Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim said: Abou Abdallah read to us the book "al-Hiba", and said: in the hiba of Waki' there is only two musnad hadiths, or three.

And in the book of Abdallah ibn al-Moubarak five or thereabouts. And in this book of mine five hundred

hadiths or more.

And he said: I heard Abou Abdallah say: I meditated on the companions of Anas: three hundred came to me in an hour.

He said: and I heard him say: I never came upon anyone but that his profit by me was greater than my profit by him.

He said: and I heard Soulaym ibn Moujahid: I heard Abou al-Azhar say: at Samarcand there were four hundred seekers of hadith: they gathered for seven days and wished to test Muhammad ibn Ismail: they inserted the chain of Syria into the chain of Iraq, and the chain of the Yaman into the chain of the two sanctuaries: they caught him in no flaw, neither in the chain nor in the text.

And al-Firabri said: I heard Abou Abdallah say: I never humbled myself before anyone except before Ali ibn al-Madini, and I sometimes marveled before him.

And the governor of Boukhara Ahmad ibn Abi Ja'far said: Muhammad ibn Ismail said one day: such a hadith I heard at Bassora I wrote in Syria; and such a hadith I heard in Syria I wrote in Egypt.

I said to him: O Abou Abdallah, in its full truth? He said: he fell silent.

And Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim said: I heard Abou Abdallah say: I did not sleep last night until I counted how many hadiths I introduced into my works: about two hundred thousand musnad hadiths.

And I heard him say: I never copied a tale: I memorized it.

And I heard him say: I composed the book "al-I'tisam" in one night.

And I heard him say: I know nothing that is needed but that it is in the Book and the Sunna.

I said to him: knowing all of that is possible.

He said: yes.

And I heard him say: I was at Naysabour sitting in the great mosque; Amr ibn Zurara and Ishaq ibn Rahawayh went to Ya'qoub ibn Abdallah, governor of Naysabour, and informed him of my place; he apologized to them and said: our doctrine, when an unknown who is not known to us is brought to us, is to detain him until his affair becomes clear.

One of them said to him: it reached me that he said to you: you do not pray well: how then do you sit?

He said: were such a thing said to me, I would not rise from that session without narrating ten thousand hadiths, on the prayer specifically.

And I heard him say: I was at the session of al-Firyabi, and he said: Soufyan narrated to us, from Abou Ourwa, from Abou al-Khattab, from Anas:

that the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, used to go round his wives in one ghusl.

No one in the session recognized Abou Ourwa, nor Abou al-Khattab.

I said: as for Abou Ourwa, he is Ma'mar; and Abou al-Khattab, Qatada.

He said: ath-Thawri used to do that: he gave the kunyas of the famous ones.

Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim said: Raja the hafiz arrived and went to Abou Abdallah, and said to him: what have you prepared for my arrival, when it reached you? and upon what have you meditated?

He said: I have not renewed meditation, nor prepared for that: if you wish to ask about something, do so.

They began competing in things, and Raja remained not knowing where he was.

Then Abou Abdallah said to him: do you wish more? He said, out of shame before him: yes.

He said: ask if you wish?

He set upon the names of the companions of Ayyoub, and counted about thirteen, and Abou Abdallah was silent.

When he finished, Abou Abdallah said to him: you have gathered all; Raja thought he had done something, and said to Abou Abdallah: O Abou Abdallah, there is much good there.

Abou Abdallah falsified seven or eight of those to him, and made strange to him more than sixty.

Then Raja said to him: how many have you retained of the black turban?

He said: bring: how many have you retained, you?

Then he said: we narrate about forty

hadiths.

Raja was ashamed of that, and his saliva dried.

Muhammad said: I heard Abou Abdallah say: I entered Balkh, and the people of hadith asked me to dictate for each one whose hadith I had written.

I therefore dictated a thousand hadiths for a thousand men among those I had written from.

And Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim said: Abou Abdallah said: Ishaq ibn Ibrahim was asked about the one who divorced in forgetfulness.

He fell silent a long while, meditating, and the matter became confused upon him.

I myself said: the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said: Allah, Mighty and Majestic, has passed over my community what her souls speak of so long as she acts not upon it nor speaks.

What is meant is only the confronting of these three: the deed and the heart, or the speech and the heart; and that he did not believe in his heart.

Ishaq said: you have strengthened me, and he gave fatwa accordingly.

And Muhammad said: I heard Muhammad ibn Ismail say: when Ismail ibn Abi Oways made his selection from his book, he copied those hadiths and said: these hadiths, Muhammad ibn Ismail selected them from my hadith.

And Muhammad said: I heard al-Firabri say: I saw Abdallah ibn Munir writing from al-Boukhari.

And I heard him say: I am among the disciples of Muhammad ibn Ismail, and he is the teacher.

I said: and al-Boukhari narrated in his Sahih hadiths from Abdallah ibn Munir, from Yazid ibn Haroun, and a group.

And he was ascetic and worshipful, to the point that al-Boukhari said: I never saw his like.

I said: and he and the imam Ahmad died in one year.

Muhammad said: and I heard Abou Bakr al-Madini at Chach, in the time of Abdallah ibn Abi Araba, say: we were at Naysabour at Ishaq ibn Rahawayh, and Abou Abdallah in the session; Ishaq passed over a hadith beneath which was the Companion Ata al-Kaykharani.

Ishaq said: O Abou Abdallah, what is Kaykharan? He said: a village of the Yaman; Mou'awiya ibn Abi Soufyan sent this man, and Abou Bakr called him thus; he was forgotten toward the Yaman, and passed by Kaykharan, and Ata heard from him two hadiths.

Ishaq said to him: O Abou Abdallah, it is as if you witnessed those people.

And Ibn Adi said: Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Qoumsi narrated to me: I heard Muhammad ibn Khumrawayh: I heard Muhammad ibn Ismail say: I memorize one hundred thousand authentic hadiths, and I memorize two hundred thousand inauthentic hadiths.

He said: and I heard Abou Bakr al-Kalwadani say: I never saw the like of Muhammad ibn Ismail: he would take the book from the scholars, cast one glance upon it, and memorize at once most of the endings of the hadiths.

Muhammad ibn Youssouf al-Firabri said: I heard Abou Ja'far Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim the copyist say in the additions appended to the qualities of Abou Abdallah (I say: and they are not included in the narration of Ibn Khalaf ach-Chirazi), he said:

I heard Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Boukhari say: I did not sit for hadith until I knew the authentic from the sick, nor until I had meditated on most of the books of opinion, nor until I had entered Bassora five times or thereabouts, without leaving there an authentic hadith unwritten, except what did not appear to me.

And Ghounjar said in "his Tarikh": Abou Amr Ahmad ibn Muhammad the reciter narrated to us: Abou Bakr Muhammad ibn Ya'qoub ibn Youssouf al-Bikandi narrated to us: I heard Ali ibn al-Houssayn ibn Asim al-Bikandi say: Muhammad ibn Ismail came to us; we gathered at his place.

One of us said: I heard Ishaq ibn Rahawayh say: it is as if I look at seventy thousand hadiths of my book.

Muhammad ibn Ismail said: do you wonder at this?! Perhaps in this time there is one who looks at two hundred thousand hadiths of his book.

And he meant thereby only himself.

The praise of the imams

Abou Ja'far Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim said: I heard some of my companions say:

I was at Muhammad ibn Salam when Muhammad ibn Ismail entered upon him; when he went out, Muhammad ibn Salam said: whenever this boy enters upon me I remain bewildered: he clothes me with the matter of hadith and other; and I do not cease fearing while he has not gone out.

Abou Ja'far said: I heard Abou Omar Soulaym ibn Moujahid say: I was at Muhammad ibn Salam al-Bikandi, and he said: had you come earlier you would have seen a boy who memorizes seventy thousand hadiths.

He said: I went out in his quest until I caught up with him.

He said: are you the one who says: I memorize seventy thousand hadiths?

He said: yes, and more; and I come to you with no hadith of the Companions and the Taba'ites but that I make known to you the birth of most of them and their death and their abodes; and I narrate no hadith of the hadith of the Companions or the Taba'ites but that I have an original of that which I memorize firmly, from the Book of Allah and the sunna of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him.

And Abou Ja'far said: some of my companions narrated to me that Abou Abdallah al-Boukhari went to Abou Ishaq as-Sourmari on his return; when he left him, Abou Ishaq said: whoever wishes to look at a faqih in his right and his truth, let him look at Muhammad ibn Ismail, and he seated him at his side.

And Abou Ja'far said: one of my companions said to me: I was at Muhammad ibn

Salam when Muhammad ibn Ismail entered upon him, at his return from Iraq: he informed him of the trial of the people, and of the affairs Ibn Hanbal and others had done.

When he left him, Muhammad ibn Salam said to those present: do you see the virgin more modest than this one?

And Abou Ja'far said: I heard Yahya ibn Ja'far say: could I add to the life of Muhammad ibn Ismail of my own life I would do so: my death would be the death of one man, and his death the vanishing of knowledge.

He said: and I heard Yahya ibn Ja'far (who is al-Bikandi) say to Muhammad ibn Ismail: but for you I would not enjoy living in Boukhara.

And he said: I heard Muhammad ibn Youssouf say: we were at my father Raja, who is Qoutayba; he was asked about the divorce of the drunken, and he said: here are Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Ibn al-Madini and Ibn Rahawayh whom Allah has guided to you, and he pointed to Muhammad ibn Ismail.

The doctrine of Muhammad was that, when one is overcome in intellect so as not to remember what he says in his drunkenness, nothing of his affair is licit upon him.

Muhammad said: and I heard Abdallah ibn Sa'id ibn Ja'far say: when Ahmad ibn Harb an-Naysabouri died, Muhammad and Ishaq rode to follow his funeral.

I would hear the people of knowledge of Naysabour looking, and saying: Muhammad is more of a faqih than Ishaq.

And he said: I heard Omar ibn Hafs al-Achqar: I heard Abdan say: I never saw with my own eyes a young man more perceptive than this one, and he pointed with his hand to Muhammad ibn Ismail.

And he said: I heard Salih ibn Mismar al-Marwazi: I heard Nou'aym ibn Hammad say: Muhammad ibn Ismail is the faqih of this community.

And he said: I heard Ibrahim ibn Khalid al-Marwazi say: Moussaddad said: do not choose against Muhammad ibn Ismail, O people of Khorassan.

And he said: I heard Moussa ibn Qoraych say: Abdallah ibn Youssouf said to al-Boukhari: O Abou Abdallah, look into my books, and inform me of what falls in them.

He said: yes.

And Muhammad said: Muhammad ibn Ismail narrated to me and said: when I entered upon Soulayman ibn Harb he would say: make clear to us the errors of Chou'ba.

He said: and I heard him say: the people of hadith gathered and asked me to plead for Ismail ibn Abi Oways that he might increase their recitation: I did; Ismail therefore called the slave girl, ordered her to bring out a purse of dinars, and said: O Abou Abdallah, distribute it among them.

I said: they only wanted the hadith.

He said: I have answered you for what you asked of addition; but I love that this be joined to it, that your effect may appear in them.

And he said: Hashid ibn Ismail narrated to me and said: when Muhammad ibn Ismail arrived at Soulayman ibn Harb, Soulayman looked at him and said: this one will one day have a voice.

And Khalaf al-Khayyam said: Ishaq ibn Ahmad ibn Khalaf narrated to us: I heard Ahmad ibn Abd as-Salam say: we mentioned the saying of al-Boukhari about Ali ibn al-Madini (meaning: I never humbled myself except before Ali ibn al-Madini), and Ali said: leave this one: Muhammad ibn Ismail never saw his like.

And Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim said: I heard Abou Abdallah say: the companions of Amr ibn Ali al-Fallas reminded me of a hadith, and I said: I do not know it; they rejoiced at that and went to Amr and informed him.

He said: "a hadith that Muhammad ibn Ismail does not know is not a hadith."

And Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim said: I heard Hashid ibn Abdallah say: Abou Moss'ab az-Zouhri said to me: Muhammad ibn Ismail is among us more of a faqih and more perceptive of hadith than Ahmad ibn Hanbal.

He was told: you have exceeded the bound.

He said to the man: had you lived in Malik's time, and looked at his face and the face of Muhammad ibn Ismail, you would have said: both are one in fiqh and hadith.

He said: and I heard Hashid ibn Ismail say: I heard Ishaq ibn Rahawayh say: write from this young man (meaning al-Boukhari): had he been in al-Hasan's time, the people would have needed him, for his knowledge of hadith and his fiqh.

He said: and I heard Ali ibn Houjr say: Khorassan has brought forth three: Abou Zur'a, Muhammad ibn Ismail, and Abdallah ibn Abd ar-Rahman ad-Darimi; and Muhammad, in my sight, is the most perceptive of them, the most knowing and the most of a faqih.

He said: and I presented to Ali ibn Houjr the book of Abou Abdallah; when he read it he said: how did you leave that ram?

I said: well.

He said: I know not his like.

And Ahmad ibn ad-Daw said: I heard Abou Bakr ibn Abi Chayba and Muhammad ibn Abdallah ibn Noumayr say: we never saw the like of Muhammad ibn Ismail.

And from Abdallah ibn Ahmad ibn Hanbal: I heard my father say: Khorassan never brought forth the like of Muhammad ibn Ismail.

And Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Bouchanji said: I heard Boundar Muhammad ibn Bachchar in the year eight and twenty and two hundred say: there never came to us the like of Muhammad ibn Ismail.

And Hashid ibn Ismail said: I was at Bassora; I heard of the arrival of Muhammad ibn Ismail; when he arrived, Boundar said: today has entered the master of the fuqaha.

And Muhammad said: I heard Abou Abdallah say: Muhammad ibn Bachchar said to me: my garment does not touch my skin, for instance, until you return to me: I fear you find in my hadith something that makes me ill.

When I returned, he looked at my hadith: his soul was at ease, and he was secure from what he feared.

And Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim said: I heard Ibrahim ibn Khalid al-Marwazi say: I saw Abou Ammar al-Houssayn ibn Hourayth praising Abou Abdallah al-Boukhari, and saying: to my knowledge I never saw his like: it is as if he was created only for hadith.

And Muhammad said: I heard Mahmoud ibn an-Nadr Abou Sahl ach-Chafi'i say: I entered Bassora, Syria, the Hijaz and Koufa, and saw their scholars: whenever the mention of Muhammad ibn Ismail ran, they preferred him to themselves.

And he said: I heard Muhammad ibn Youssouf say: when I entered Bassora I went to Boundar, and he said to me: from where are you? I said: from Khorassan.

He said: from which of it?

I said: from Boukhara.

He said: do you know Muhammad ibn Ismail?

I said: I am of his kin.

He carried me thereafter above the people.

Muhammad said: and I heard Muhammad ibn Ismail say: when I entered Bassora I went to the session of Boundar; when his gaze fell upon me, he said: from where is the youth?

I said: of the people of Boukhara.

He said to me: how did you leave Abou Abdallah?

I held my peace; they said to him: may Allah have mercy on you: this is Abou Abdallah; he rose therefore, took my hand, embraced me, and said: welcome to the one I have prided myself in for years.

He said: and I heard Hashid ibn Ismail: I heard Muhammad ibn Bachchar say: no man more knowing of hadith ever entered Bassora than our brother Abou Abdallah.

He said: when he wished to depart, Muhammad ibn Bachchar bade him farewell and said: O Abou Abdallah, our meeting-place is the gathering: we shall not meet again.

And the hafiz Abou Qoraych Muhammad ibn Joum'a said: I heard Muhammad ibn Bachchar say: the memorizers of the world are four: Abou Zur'a at ar-Rayy, ad-Darimi at Samarcand, Muhammad ibn Ismail at Boukhara, and Mouslim at Naysabour.

And Muhammad ibn Omar ibn al-Ach'ath al-Bikandi said: I heard Abdallah ibn Ahmad ibn Hanbal: I heard my father say: memorization ended at four of the people of Khorassan: Abou Zur'a ar-Razi, Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Boukhari, Abdallah ibn Abd ar-Rahman as-Samarqandi, and al-Hasan ibn Chouja al-Balkhi.

Ibn al-Ach'ath said: I related this to Muhammad ibn Aqil al-Balkhi, who disparaged the mention of Ibn Chouja.

I said to him: why is he not famous?

He said: because he was not granted length of life.

I said: this Ibn Chouja travelled and heard: Maki ibn Ibrahim, Oubaydallah ibn Moussa, Abou Mouhir.

And he died in the year four and forty.

And Nasr ibn Zakariyya al-Marwazi said: I heard Qoutayba ibn Sa'id say: the youths of Khorassan are four: Muhammad ibn Ismail, Abdallah ibn Abd ar-Rahman (meaning ad-Darimi), Zakariyya ibn Yahya ad-Dahli, and al-Hasan ibn Chouja.

And Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim said: I heard Ja'far al-Firabri say: I heard Abdallah ibn Munir say: I am among the disciples of Muhammad ibn Ismail, and he is my teacher, and I saw him writing from Muhammad.

And Muhammad said: Hashid ibn Abdallah ibn Abd al-Wahid narrated to us: I heard Ya'qoub ibn Ibrahim ad-Dawraqi say: Muhammad ibn Ismail is the faqih of this community.

From Abou Ja'far the mousnid, who said: the memorizers of our time are three: Muhammad ibn Ismail, Hashid ibn Ismail, and Yahya ibn Sahl.

And Muhammad said: Ja'far ibn Muhammad al-Firabri narrated to me and said: a man of the companions of Abdallah ibn Munir, may Allah have mercy on him, went to Boukhara for a need of his.

When he returned, Ibn Munir said to him: did you meet Abou Abdallah?

He said: no.

He drove him away therefore and said: there is no good in you after that: you came to Boukhara and did not go to Abou Abdallah Muhammad ibn Ismail.

And Muhammad said: I heard Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn Salam say: I attended upon Abou Bakr ibn Abi Chayba, and I saw a man saying in his session: Abou Bakr looked with Abou Abdallah into the hadiths of Soufyan, and knew them all; then Muhammad turned to him and made strange to him two hundred hadiths.

Abou Bakr thereafter used to say: that generous youth (al-bazal is the old camel): he means here the one perceptive of knowledge, the brave.

And I heard Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn Salam say: the ancients among the people of hadith, like Sa'id ibn Abi Maryam, Nou'aym ibn Hammad, al-Houmaydi, Hajjaj ibn Minhal, Ismail ibn Abi Oways, al-Adani, al-Hasan al-Khallal at Mecca, Muhammad ibn Maymoun the companion of Ibn Ouyayna, Muhammad ibn al-Ala, al-Achajj, Ibrahim ibn al-Moundhir al-Hizami, Ibrahim ibn Moussa al-Farra, feared Muhammad ibn Ismail, and conceded to him over themselves in knowledge and insight.

And Muhammad said: Hatim ibn Malik the copyist narrated to me? He said: I heard the scholars of Mecca say: Muhammad ibn Ismail is our imam, our faqih and the faqih of Khorassan.

And Muhammad said: I heard my father, may Allah have mercy on him, say: Muhammad ibn Ismail used to frequent Abou Hafs Ahmad ibn Hafs al-Boukhari while young; I heard Abou

Hafs say:

this is a clever young man: I hope he will have fame and mention.

And Muhammad said: I heard Abou Sahl Mahmoud ach-Chafi'i say: I heard more than thirty scholars of the scholars of Egypt say: our need from this world is meditation upon the "Tarikh" of Muhammad ibn Ismail.

And Muhammad said: Salih ibn Younous narrated to me, who said: Abdallah ibn Abd ar-Rahman (meaning ad-Darimi) was asked about the hadith of Salim ibn Abi Hafsa, and he said: we wrote it with Muhammad, and Muhammad says: Salim is weak.

He was told: what do you say?

He said: Muhammad sees more clearly than I.

He said: and Abdallah ibn Abd ar-Rahman was asked about the hadith of Muhammad ibn Ka'b: the liar lies only out of contempt for himself.

And he was told: Muhammad claims this is authentic, and he said: Muhammad sees more clearly than I: his concern is meditation upon hadith, and I am occupied, ill; then he said: Muhammad is the cleverest of the creatures of Allah: he comprehended of Allah what He commanded and forbade in His book and on the tongue of His prophet; when Muhammad recites the Quran, he occupies his heart, his sight and his hearing, meditates on its similitudes, and knows its lawful and unlawful.

And he said: Soulayman ibn Moujallid wrote to me: I asked Abdallah ibn Abd ar-Rahman as-Samarqandi about Muhammad, and he said: Muhammad ibn Ismail is the most knowing of us, the most of a faqih among us

and the most astute of us, and the most assiduous of us in seeking.

And he said: I heard Abou Sa'id the pedagogue say: I heard Abdallah ibn Abd ar-Rahman say: Muhammad's seeking of hadith was not like our seeking: when he meditated on a man's hadith he drew out its marrow.

And he said: Ishaq the copyist of Abdallah ibn Abd ar-Rahman narrated to me and said: Abdallah asked me for the book "al-Adab" of the works of Muhammad ibn Ismail, and said: carry it that I may meditate on it; he took the book from my hand and kept it three months; when I took it back from him, I said: did you see in it any filler, or a weak hadith?

Ibn Ismail said: he recites to the people only the authentic hadith: and would one fault Muhammad?!

And he said: I heard Abou at-Tayyib Hatim ibn Mansour al-Kissi say: Muhammad ibn Ismail is a sign of the signs of Allah, in his perception and his penetration of knowledge.

He said: and I heard Abou Amr al-Moustanir ibn Atiq say: I heard Raja the hafiz say: the excellence of Muhammad ibn Ismail over the scholars is like the excellence of men over women.

A man said to him: O Abou Muhammad, all that at once?!

He said: he is a sign of the signs of Allah walking upon the back of the earth.

He said: and I heard Muhammad ibn Youssouf say: Abou Abdallah asked Abou Raja al-Baghlani (meaning Qoutayba) for the extraction of the hadiths of Ibn Ouyayna,

and he said: since I wrote them I have presented them to no one: if you devote yourself and meditate on them, and annotate the error among them, do so; otherwise I shall not narrate with them: for I am not certain that there is not some error in them, and that is because the crowd was great, and the people would present their books for correction, some correcting others; and I left my book as it was. Al-Boukhari rejoiced at that and said: you have been favored.

Then he took to coming to him every day at the dawn prayer, and looked into it until the time of his going out to the session, and annotated the error found in it.

And I heard al-Boukhari refute one day a hadith of Abou Raja.

He said: O Abou Abdallah, this is what the people of Bagdad wrote from me, and it bears the mark of Yahya ibn Ma'in and Ahmad ibn Hanbal: I cannot change it.

Abou Abdallah said to him: those wrote from you because you were passing through; and I have written this from several, as I tell you: I wrote it from Yahya ibn Boukayr, and from Ibn Abi Maryam, and from the copyist of al-Layth from al-Layth. Abou Raja returned therefore, understood his word, and submitted to him.

He said: and I heard Muhammad ibn Youssouf say: Zakariyya ad-Dahli and al-Hasan ibn Chouja used to walk, at Balkh, with Abou Abdallah to the sheikhs, in veneration and honor of him.

He said: and I heard Hashid ibn Ismail say: I saw Ishaq ibn Rahawayh seated upon the couch, and Muhammad ibn Ismail with him; and Ishaq saying: Abd ar-Razzaq narrated to us, until he passed over a hadith: Muhammad rejected it, and he returned to the word of Muhammad.

Then I saw Amr ibn Zurara and Muhammad ibn Rafi at Muhammad ibn Ismail, asking him about the defects of hadith: when they rose, they said to those present: let not Abou Abdallah deceive you: he is more of a faqih than we, more knowing and more perceptive.

He said: and I heard Hashid ibn Abdallah say: we were at Ishaq, and Amr ibn Zurara was there; he was dictating to al-Boukhari, and the people of hadith were writing from him, and Ishaq saying: he perceives more than I.

And Muhammad was at that time a young man.

He said: Muhammad ibn Youssouf narrated to me and said: we were with Abou Abdallah at Muhammad ibn Bachchar; Muhammad ibn Bachchar asked him about a hadith, and he answered him, and he said: this one is the most of a faqih of the creatures of Allah in our time.

And he pointed to Muhammad ibn Ismail.

He said: and I heard Soulaym ibn Moujahid say: were Waki, Ibn Ouyayna and Ibn al-Moubarak alive, they would have needed Muhammad ibn Ismail.

He said: and I heard Abou Abdallah say: Ismail ibn Abi Oways said to me: look into my books, and what I own is yours, and I am thankful to you as long as I live.

And he said: Abou Amr al-Kirmani said to me: I heard Amr ibn Ali as-Sayrafi say: Abou Abdallah is my friend: there is not in Khorassan his like.

I related to Mahyar, at Bassora, from Qoutayba ibn Sa'id that he said: people have come to me from the east of the earth and its west: none ever came to me like Muhammad ibn Ismail; and Mahyar said: he spoke true.

I myself saw him with Yahya ibn Ma'in, the two of them together frequenting

Muhammad ibn Ismail, and I saw Yahya yielding to him in knowledge.

And he said: I heard Abou Sa'id al-Achajj, and he came out to us on a cold morning, shivering with cold, and said: do you have among you anything like this cold?

I said: the like of that comes in autumn and spring, and sometimes we spend the night with the river flowing, and at dawn we need the axe to break the ice.

He said to me: from which Khorassan are you?

I said: from Boukhara.

His son said to him: he is from the homeland of Muhammad ibn Ismail; and he said to him: when there comes to you the one through whom intercession is sought, acknowledge his right: he is an imam.

And he said: I heard Ahmad ibn Abdallah ibn Thabit ach-Chachi: I heard Ismail ibn Abi Oways say: none took from me what Muhammad took from me: he looked at my books, saw them worn, and said to me: will you permit me to renew them?

I said: yes.

He therefore brought out most of my hadith with this defect.

And he said: I heard Abou Ishaq al-Marwazi say: I entered upon Ali ibn Houjr at the time Abdallah ibn Abd ar-Rahman bade him farewell, and I heard him say: say of the adab of Abdallah ibn Abd ar-Rahman what you will, and say of the knowledge of Muhammad what you will.

And he said: I heard Muhammad ibn al-Layth say: Abdallah and Muhammad were mentioned before him, and he heard some of the group preferring Abdallah over Muhammad, and said: if you advance him, advance him in poetry and Arabic; but advance him not before him in knowledge.

And he said: I heard Hashid ibn Ismail say: Abdallah ibn Abd ar-Rahman used to slip to me hadiths among his hadiths that were difficult for him, asking me to present them to Muhammad, and he wished that Muhammad not know; whenever I presented something to him he would say: from where did this come?

And from Qoutayba, who said: had Muhammad been among the Companions he would have been a sign.

And Muhammad ibn Youssouf al-Hamdani said: we were at Qoutayba ibn Sa'id when a long-haired man called Abou Ya'qoub came, who asked him about Muhammad ibn Ismail: he bowed his head, then raised it to heaven, and said: O you there, I meditated in hadith, meditated in opinion, sat with the fuqaha, the ascetics and the worshippers: since I gained understanding I never saw the like of Muhammad ibn Ismail.

And Hashid ibn Ismail said: I heard Qoutayba say: the standing of Muhammad ibn Ismail among the Companions, for his truth and piety, was as that of Omar among the Companions.

And Hashid ibn Ismail said: I heard Ahmad ibn Hanbal say: there never came to us from Khorassan the like of Muhammad ibn Ismail.

And it was narrated to me from Abou Hatim ar-Razi that he said: Muhammad ibn Ismail is the most knowing of those who entered Iraq.

And Abou Abdallah al-Hakim said: Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Boukhari is the imam of the people of hadith: he heard at Boukhara Haroun ibn al-Ach'ath and Muhammad ibn Salam, and named people of his masters.

Then he said: I heard Abou at-Tayyib Muhammad ibn Ahmad the recaller: I heard Abou Bakr Muhammad ibn Ishaq ibn Khuzayma say: I never saw beneath the canopy of heaven one more knowing of the hadith of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, nor firmer in memorizing it, than Muhammad ibn Ismail.

Then al-Hakim said: I heard Muhammad ibn Ya'qoub the hafiz say: I heard my father say: I saw Mouslim ibn al-Hajjaj before al-Boukhari, asking him questions like a child.

Then he said: I heard al-Hasan ibn Ahmad ach-Chaybani al-Mou'addal: I heard Ahmad ibn Hamdoun say: I saw Muhammad ibn Ismail at the funeral of Sa'id ibn Marwan, and Muhammad ibn Yahya adh-Dhouhli asking him about the names, the kunyas and the defects, and Muhammad ibn Ismail passing through him like the arrow, as if he recited: {Say: He is Allah, the One} (sourate al-Ikhlas, verse 1).

We were informed at Boukhara by Muhammad ibn Khalid al-Moutawwa'i: Mousabbih ibn Sa'id al-Boukhari narrated to us: I heard Abdallah ibn Abd ar-Rahman as-Samarqandi say: I saw the scholars of the Hijaz and the two Iraqs: I never saw among them, all together, one who gathered like Muhammad ibn Ismail.

And Muhammad ibn Hamdoun ibn Roustam said: I heard Mouslim ibn al-Hajjaj, who came to al-Boukhari and said: let me kiss your two feet, O teacher of teachers, lord of the muhaddiths, physician of hadith in its defects.

And Abou Isa at-Tirmidhi said: I never saw, neither in Iraq nor in Khorassan, in the meaning of defects, the Tarikh and the knowledge of chains, one more knowing than Muhammad ibn Ismail.

And Abou Isa at-Tirmidhi said: Muhammad ibn Ismail was at Abdallah ibn Munir; when he rose from him he said to him: O Abou Abdallah, may Allah make you the ornament of this community.

At-Tirmidhi said: he was answered therein.

I say: Ibn Munir is among the great of the ascetics. He said: .... It is said: when al-Boukhari returned from Iraq, on the last return, the people met him, thronged upon him, and went to the utmost of devotion toward him.

He was told of that, and said: how then had you seen the day of our entry to Bassora?

And Abou Ali Salih ibn Muhammad Jazara said: Muhammad ibn Ismail sat at Bagdad, and I dictated to him: there gathered in his session more than twenty thousand.

And Abd al-Mou'min ibn Khalaf an-Nasafi said: I asked Abou Ali Salih ibn Muhammad about ad-Darimi, Muhammad ibn Ismail and Abou Zur'a, and he said: the most knowing of them of hadith is Muhammad, and the firmest in memorization among them Abou Zur'a.

And Ishaq ibn Zabrak said: I heard Muhammad ibn Idris ar-Razi say in the year seven and forty and two hundred: there shall come to you a man from Khorassan, of whom none more firm in memorization ever went out of it, and who never entered Iraq more knowing than he.

Al-Boukhari therefore came to us.

And Abou Sa'id Hatim ibn Muhammad said: Moussa ibn Haroun the hafiz said: were the people of Islam to gather to raise up another like Muhammad ibn Ismail they could not do it.

And Abou al-Abbas Muhammad ibn Abd ar-Rahman the faqih ad-Daghouli said: the people of Bagdad wrote to al-Boukhari:

the Muslims are well so long as you remain for them ... and after you there is no good when you are missed

And Abou Bakr al-Khatib said: Abou Zur'a was asked about Ibn Lahi'a, and said: Abou Abdallah Muhammad ibn Ismail left him.

And he was asked about Muhammad ibn Houmayd, and said: Abou Abdallah left him.

That was mentioned to Abou Abdallah, and he said: his devotion to us is old.

Al-Khatib said: and the goldsmith al-Abbas ibn al-Fadl ar-Razi was asked: which of the two is better, Abou Zur'a or Muhammad ibn Ismail?

He said: I met Muhammad ibn Ismail between Houluwan and Bagdad, and returned with him one stage; I strove to bring a hadith he would not know: I could not, while I marveled at Abou Zur'a by the number of his hairs.

And Ahmad ibn Sayyar said in "his Tarikh": Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Joufi sought knowledge, sat with the people, travelled for hadith, strove in it and became perceptive,

and he was of good knowledge and good memorization, and he practiced fiqh.

Abd ar-Rahman ibn Abi Hatim said: I saw my father unfolding the praise of Ahmad ibn Sayyar, and mentioning him by knowledge and fiqh.

And Omar ibn Hafs al-Achqar mentioned, and he said: when Raja ibn Mourajja came to Boukhara intending departure to Chach, he lodged at the frontier post, and our sheikhs went to him, and I went among those who went to him; he asked me about Abou Abdallah Muhammad ibn Ismail: I informed him of his well-being, and I said: perhaps he will come to you presently; he therefore dictated to us, and the session ended, and he did not come.

On the second day he did not come to him.

On the third day Raja said: Abou Abdallah does not deem us worthy of visiting: pass by us to him, that we may fulfill his right: for I am departing (and he was like spittle upon him); we came to him therefore with our company, and Raja said: O Abou Abdallah, I longed for you, and I desire that you mention something of hadith: for I am departing.

He said: whatever you wish.

Raja presented to him therefore something of the hadith of Ayyoub, and Abou Abdallah answered until Raja ceased presenting.

He said to Abou Abdallah: you see there remains something we did not mention; Muhammad therefore began presenting, and Raja saying: who narrated this? and Abou Abdallah bringing its chain, until I had presented about seventeen hadiths.

And Raja changed greatly, and there came from Abou Abdallah a look at his face: he perceived the change in him, and cut off the hadith.

When Raja went out, Muhammad said: I wished to present him double what I had presented, except that I feared something would enter him: so I refrained.

And Khalaf ibn Muhammad said: I heard Abou Amr Ahmad ibn Nasr al-Khaffaf say: Muhammad ibn Ismail is more knowing of hadith than Ishaq ibn Rahawayh and Ahmad ibn

Hanbal and others than they by twenty degrees; and whoever says anything of him, upon him from me are a thousand curses.

Then he said: Muhammad ibn Ismail, the pious, the pure, the scholar whose like I never saw, narrated to us.

And it was narrated from al-Houssayn ibn Muhammad known as Oubayd al-Ijl, who said: I never saw the like of Muhammad ibn Ismail, and Mouslim ibn al-Hajjaj did not reach Muhammad ibn Ismail.

And I saw Abou Zur'a and Abou Hatim listening to Muhammad, whatever he said, sitting at his side; and the story of Muhammad ibn Yahya was mentioned to Oubayd al-Ijl, and he said: what has he to do with Muhammad ibn Ismail? Muhammad ibn Ismail was a nation of the nations, and he was more knowing than Muhammad ibn Yahya of such and such, and he was sound and eminent: he excelled in everything.

And Abou Hamid Ahmad ibn Hamdoun the dyer said: I heard Mouslim ibn al-Hajjaj, who came to al-Boukhari: he kissed between his two eyes and said: let me kiss your two feet.

Then he said: "Muhammad ibn Salam narrated to you, Makhlad ibn Yazid al-Harrani narrated to us: Ibn Jurayj informed us, from Moussa ibn Oqba, from Souhayl, from his father, from Abou Hourayra, from the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, concerning the expiation of the session: what then is its defect?"

Muhammad ibn

Ismail said: this is a beautiful hadith, and I know nothing in the world of this chain other than this one hadith in this chapter; except that it is defective: Moussa ibn Ismail narrated to us, Wouhayb narrated to us, Souhayl narrated to us the word of Awn ibn Abdallah; Muhammad said: and this is more fitting, for no hearing of Moussa ibn Oqba from Souhayl is ever mentioned.

Mouslim said to him: none hates you but the envious; and I bear witness that in the world there is not your like.

And Muhammad ibn Ya'qoub ibn al-Akhram said: I heard our companions say: when al-Boukhari came to Naysabour, four thousand men met him mounted on horses, besides whoever rode a mule or a donkey, and besides the footmen.

And Abdallah ibn Hammad al-Amuli said: I would I were a hair in the chest of Muhammad ibn Ismail.

And Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim said: I heard Hashid ibn Ismail and another say: the people of knowledge at Bassora raced behind al-Boukhari in the quest of hadith, while he was a young man, until they overcame him against himself, and seated him on a part of the road: thousands gathered about him, most of them writing from him.

They said: and Abou Abdallah was at that time a young man whose face had not yet appeared.

Al-Hasan ibn Ali informed me: Abdallah ibn Omar informed us, Abd al-Awwal ibn Isa informed us, Abdallah ibn Muhammad al-Ansari informed us, Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Mahdawi informed us: I heard Khalid ibn Abdallah al-Marwazi: I heard Abou Sahl Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Marwazi: I heard Abou Zayd al-Marwazi the faqih say: I was sleeping between the Rokn and the Maqam, and I saw the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, who said to me: O Abou Zayd, until when do you study the book of ach-Chafi'i and study not my book?

I said: O Messenger of Allah, and what is your book?

He said: the Jami of Muhammad ibn Ismail.

I found a transmitted benefit from Abou al-Khattab ibn Dihya that the lying Raml woman said: al-Boukhari is unknown; none narrated from him but al-Firabri.

Abou al-Khattab said: by Allah, he lied in this and uttered falsehood and swallowed the stone: but al-Boukhari is famous for knowledge and its bearing; there is consensus upon his memorization and his acumen; he traversed the lands and sought narration and chain.

A group of the scholars narrated from him, until he said: as for his book, he presented it to the hafiz of his time Abou Zur'a, who said: your book is entirely authentic except three hadiths.

His worship and his piety

Al-Hakim said: Muhammad ibn Khalid al-Moutawwa'i narrated to us, Mousabbih ibn Sa'id narrated to us

and said: Muhammad ibn Ismail completed, in ramadan, by day, each day one completion, and stood after the tarawih every three nights one completion.

And Bakr ibn Munir said: I heard Abou Abdallah al-Boukhari say: I hope to meet Allah and He not take me to account for having backbitten anyone.

I say: he spoke true, may Allah have mercy on him; and whoever looks at his speech in jarh and tadil knows his piety in speech concerning people, and his fairness toward the one he weakens: for what he says most is: the hadith is munkar, they fell silent about him, it requires examination; and the like. And he rarely said: so-and-so

is a liar, or: he fabricated hadith.

Until he said: when I say: so-and-so requires examination in his hadith, he is suspect and weak.

And this is the meaning of his word: let Allah not take me to account for having backbitten anyone; and that, by Allah, is the utmost of piety.

The copyist Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim said: I heard him (meaning al-Boukhari) say: I shall have no opponent in the Hereafter; I said: some people hold grudge against you in the book "Tarikh" and say: in it is the backbiting of people; he said: we only narrated that as narration, not saying it of ourselves: the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said: evil is the servant of kinship: meaning the hadith of Aisha.

And I heard him say: I never backbit anyone since I knew that backbiting harms its people.

He said: and Abou Abdallah prayed at the late night hour thirteen rak'a, and he did not wake me at each standing.

I said: you burden yourself, and you do not wake me.

He said: you are a young man, and I do not wish to spoil your sleep.

And Ghounjar said: Abou Amr Ahmad ibn al-Muqri narrated to us: I heard Bakr ibn Munir say: Muhammad ibn Ismail prayed one night, and a hornet stung him seventeen times.

When he finished the prayer he said: look how he stung me.

And Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim said: Muhammad ibn Ismail was invited to the orchard of some of his companions; when he prayed dhouhr with the people, he rose in supererogation; when he finished his prayer he lifted the hem of his shirt and said to some of those with him: look: do you see anything beneath my shirt? And behold, a hornet had stung him in sixteen or seventeen places, and his body was swollen from that.

Some of the people said to him: why did you not leave the prayer the first time it stung you?

He said: I was in a soura, and I wished to complete it!!

And he said: I heard Abdallah ibn Sa'id ibn Ja'far say: I heard the scholars of Bassora say: there is nothing in the world like Muhammad ibn Ismail in knowledge and rectitude.

And Abou Ja'far Muhammad ibn Youssouf the copyist said: Abdallah ibn Hammad al-Amuli narrated to us and said: I would I were a hair in the chest of Muhammad ibn Ismail.

And Abou Amr Ahmad ibn Nasr al-Khaffaf said: Muhammad ibn Ismail, the pious, the pure, the scholar whose like I never saw, narrated to us.

I prepared this for classification.

And al-Hakim said: Muhammad ibn Hamid al-Bazzaz narrated to us: I heard al-Hasan ibn Muhammad ibn Jabir: I heard Muhammad ibn Yahya adh-Dhouhli, at the arrival of al-Boukhari to Naysabour, say: go to this righteous man, and hear from him.

And Ibn Adi said: I heard Abd al-Qoudous ibn Abd al-Jabbar as-Samarqandi say: Muhammad came to his relatives at Khartank, and I heard him invoke one night, when he finished his obligatory portion: O Allah, the earth has straitened upon me despite its breadth: take me therefore to You.

The month was not complete before he died.

And we mentioned that, when he composed the Sahih, he prayed two rak'a at each heading.

And al-Khatib narrated, by his chain, from al-Firabri, who said: I saw the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, in sleep, and he said to me: where do you intend?

I said: I intend Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Boukhari, and he said: convey to him the salam from me.

And Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim said: we rode one day to the hunt, and we were at Firabr: we went out to the road that leads to the bridge.

We began shooting, and the arrow of Abou Abdallah struck the peg of the bridge that is over the river of Warada, and the peg split.

When Abou Abdallah saw it he dismounted, took the arrow out of the peg, and abandoned the hunt.

And he said to us: return.

We returned with him to the house, and he said to me: O Abou Ja'far, I have toward you a need: will you fulfill it?

I said: your command is obedience.

He said: a weighty need, and he was breathing heavily.

He said to those with us: go with Abou Ja'far until you aid him in what I asked of him.

I said: what need is it?

He said to me: do you guarantee fulfilling it?

I said: yes, upon my head and my eye.

He said: you must go to the master of the bridge, and say to him: we have damaged the peg, and we wish that you permit us to set up a substitute, or that you take its price,

and that you absolve us of what was from us; and the master of the bridge was Houmayd ibn al-Akhdar al-Firabri.

He said to me: convey to Abou Abdallah the salam, and say to him: you are absolved of what was from you; and all my kingdom is yours, may you be ransomed; and were I to say: my life, I would be lying, only that I did not wish you to be buried in a peg or in my kingdom.

I conveyed his message to him: his face brightened and shone, he showed joy, recited that day to the strangers about five hundred hadiths, and gave in alms three hundred dirhams.

He said: and I heard him say to Abou Ma'shar the blind: absolve me, O Abou Ma'shar.

He said: from what?

He said: I narrated one day a hadith, and looked at you, and you were delighted with it, you moving your head and hand: I smiled at that.

He said: you are absolved, may Allah have mercy on you, O Abou Abdallah.

He said: and I saw him lie on his back one day, and we were at Firabr composing the book "Tafsir".

And he wearied himself that day with the abundance of bringing out hadith.

I said to him: I see you say: I never establish anything without knowledge, since I gained understanding: what then is the benefit of lying down?

He said: we wearied ourselves today, and this is a defile of the defiles: I feared an event of the enemy's affair might occur, and I wished to rest and take a stance: if the enemy surprised us we would be ready.

He said: and he often rode to the hunt, and to my knowledge I never saw him, in all my keeping of his company, miss the target of his arrow but twice: he struck the mark every time, and none outran him.

He said: and I heard him say: I never ate leek, nor the qanabira.

I said: and why that?

He said: I feared to harm those with me with their stench.

I said: and likewise raw onion?

He said: yes.

He said: and Muhammad ibn al-Abbas al-Firabri narrated to me, and said: I was sitting with Abou Abdallah al-Boukhari at Firabr in the mosque, and I brushed from his beard a grain the size of a barley corn which I remember; I wished to cast it in the mosque, and he said: cast it outside the mosque.

He said: and he dictated to me one day much hadith, fearing my boredom, and said: ease your soul: the people of amusements are in their amusements, the people of crafts in their crafts, the merchants in their trades, and you are with the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, and his companions.

I said: nothing of that, may Allah have mercy on you, except that I see the good fortune for myself in it.

He said: and I heard him say: I never wished to utter a speech in which this world is mentioned without beginning with the praise of Allah and glorification of Him.

And some of his companions said to him: they say you attacked so-and-so.

He said: glory to Allah! I never mentioned anyone in evil except saying: unwittingly; and the name of so-and-so shall not leave my sheet on the Day of Resurrection.

He said: some of his companions hosted him in an orchard of theirs, and hosted us with him; when we sat, the master of the orchard marveled at his orchard: for he had made sessions in it, and made the water flow

in its channels.

He said to him: O Abou Abdallah, what do you see?

He said: this is the life of this world.

He said: Abou Abdallah had a debtor who cut him off much wealth; it reached him that he had come to Amol, while we were with him at Firabr: we said to him: you should cross over and take him with your wealth.

He said: it is not for us to frighten him.

Then his debtor learned of his place at Firabr: he therefore left for Khwarezm, and we said: it would befit you to say to Abou Salama al-Kouchani, the tax-collector of Amol, to write to Khwarezm for his seizure and the extraction of your right from him.

He said: were I to take a letter from them they would covet a letter from me: and I do not sell my religion for my world.

We strove therefore: he did not take until the ruler spoke for us without his command.

He wrote therefore to the governor of Khwarezm.

When Abou Abdallah was informed of that, he felt great distress.

And he said: be not more merciful to me than I am to myself.

And he wrote a letter, and appended those letters with letters, and wrote to some of his companions at Khwarezm that none approach his debtor except in good.

His debtor returned therefore to Amol, and set out toward the region of Merv.

The merchants gathered, and the ruler was informed that Abou Abdallah had gone out in quest of his debtor.

The ruler wished to deal harshly with his debtor: Abou Abdallah disliked that, and made peace with his debtor on condition that he give him each year ten dirhams, some small sum.

And the wealth was twenty-five thousand.

He did not receive of that wealth a single dirham, nor more.

He said: and I heard Abou Abdallah say: I never engaged in buying anything nor selling it.

I said to him: how, when Allah has made sale lawful?

He said: because of what is in it of increase, decrease and mixing: I feared that, were I to engage in it, I might become like others.

I said: who then managed your affair in your travels and your transactions?

He said: I was spared that.

He said: and I heard Muhammad ibn Khidach say: I heard Ahmad ibn Hafs say: I entered upon Abou al-Hasan (meaning Ismail), father of Abou Abdallah, at his death, and he said: I know of my wealth neither a dirham of the unlawful, nor a dirham of the doubtful.

Ahmad said: my soul then grew small within me at that.

Then Abou Abdallah said: the truest of what a man says is at death.

He said: Abou Abdallah rented a lodging and stayed long in it, and I heard him say: I never wiped my member against the wall, nor against the ground, in that lodging.

He was told: why? He said: because the lodging belongs to another.

He said: and Abou Abdallah said to me one day at Firabr: it reached me that a slave-trader has come with slave girls: will you come with me?

I said: yes; we went to him therefore, and he brought out slave girls beautiful as the morning.

Then came out from behind them a Khazar slave girl, unlovely, covered with fat: he looked at her, touched her chin and said: buy this one for us from him.

I said: this one is unlovely and unsuitable, and those we looked at could be bought for the price of this one.

He said: buy this one: for I have touched her chin, and I do not wish to touch a slave girl and then not buy her.

He bought her therefore for five hundred dirhams, according to what the people of knowledge say.

Then she did not cease to be with him until he brought her out with him to Naysabour.

And Ghounjar said: Abou Amr Ahmad ibn Muhammad the reciter informed us: I heard Bakr ibn Munir (and Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim mentioned its meaning, and the wording is Bakr's), who said: merchandise was brought to al-Boukhari which his son Ahmad sent him; some of the merchants gathered at him.

They sought it with a profit of five thousand dirhams.

He said: withdraw this night.

On the morrow other merchants came to him, and sought the merchandise with a profit of ten thousand. He said: I have intended to sell it to those who came yesterday.

And Ghounjar said: Ibrahim ibn Hamd al-Malahimi narrated to us: I heard Muhammad ibn Sabir ibn Katib: I heard Omar ibn Hafs al-Achqar say: we were with al-Boukhari at Bassora, writing; then we missed him for days, then found him in a house, unclothed, having exhausted what he had: we gathered dirhams for him and clothed him.

And Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim said: I heard Abou Abdallah say: it does not befit the Muslim to be in a state such that, when he invokes, he is not answered.

The wife of his brother, present with me, said to him: have you verified that, O elder, of yourself? or have you tried it?

He said: yes: I invoked my Lord, Mighty and Majestic, twice, and He answered me: I shall not love to invoke after that, lest it diminish my good deeds, or hasten for me in this world.

Then he said: what need has the Muslim of lying and stinginess?!!

And Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim said: I heard al-Boukhari say: I went out to Adam ibn Abi Iyas, and my provision failed me, until I took to eating herbs, without informing anyone.

On the third day there came to me a man I did not know: he handed me a purse of dinars and said: spend on yourself.

And Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim said: I heard al-Houssayn ibn Muhammad as-Samarqandi say: Muhammad ibn Ismail was distinguished by three qualities, besides the praiseworthy qualities that were in him: he was sparing of speech, he did not covet what the people had,

and he did not busy himself with the affairs of people: all his occupation was in knowledge.

And he said: I heard Soulaym ibn Moujahid say: none remains who teaches the people hadith by portions but Muhammad ibn Ismail, and I saw Soulaym ibn Moujahid ask Abou Abdallah to narrate to him each day three hadiths, and explain to him their meanings, their interpretations and their defects.

He agreed to him according to the length of his stay.

And he stayed on that visit a week.

And I heard Soulaym say: I never saw with my eyes, in sixty years, one more of a faqih, nor more devout, nor more ascetic in this world, than Muhammad ibn Ismail.

Abd al-Majid ibn Ibrahim said: I never saw the like of Muhammad ibn Ismail: he made even between the strong and the weak.

His generosity and his asceticism

Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim said: he had a plot of land he rented each year for seven hundred dirhams.

The renter would sometimes carry from it to Abou Abdallah one gourd or two, for Abou Abdallah was fond of the ripe gourd, and preferred it at times to the melon: he would therefore give the man each year a hundred dirhams for carrying him at times the gourds.

He said: and I heard him say: I used to earn each month five hundred dirhams, and I spent all of that in the quest of knowledge.

I said: how far between one who spends on this manner, and one who was empty of wealth, then amassed and earned by knowledge, until it gathered for him.

Abou Abdallah said: {What is with Allah is better and more lasting} (sourate ach-Choura, verse 36).

He said: we were at Firabr, and Abou Abdallah was building a ribat in what adjoins Boukhara; many people gathered to aid him in that, and he carried the bricks; I said to him: you are spared this, O Abou Abdallah; and he said: this is what benefits us.

Then he took to carrying the baskets with him, and he had slaughtered a cow for them; when the pots were ready, he called the people to the food, and there were a hundred persons or more, and he did not know that so many would gather; and we had brought out with him from Firabr bread for three dirhams or less: we set it before them, and everyone present ate, and there remained a good loaf.

And bread at that time was five loaves to the dirham.

He said: it sometimes happened that the day came upon Abou Abdallah and he ate not in it a dry morsel: he ate at times two or three almonds.

And he avoided the seasonings of pots, like chickpeas and others; he said to me one day, like one amusing himself with his companion: O Abou Ja'far, we need, in the year, much of something.

I said to him: about how much?

He said: I need in the year four thousand dirhams, or five thousand dirhams.

He said: and he gave much in alms: he took the hand of the needy one of the people of hadith, and handed him from twenty to thirty, less or more, without anyone perceiving it.

And his purse never left him.

And I saw him hand to a man, time after time, a purse in which were three hundred dirhams (and the man informed me afterward of the number in it); he wished to invoke, and Abou Abdallah said to him: be gentle, and busy yourself with another hadith, so that none know of it.

He said: and I had bought a lodging for nine hundred and twenty dirhams, and he said: I have toward you a need: will you fulfill it?

I said: yes, and may I not see.

He said: you must go to Nouh ibn Abi Chaddad the goldsmith, and take from him a thousand dirhams, and carry them to me: I did.

He said to me: take it for yourself, and spend it on the price of the lodging.

I said: I have accepted it from you and thanked you.

We returned to writing, and we were composing the Jami.

After a while I said: a need has come upon me that I dare not raise to you: he thought I coveted addition.

He said: be not shy of me, and inform me of what you need: for I fear being taken to task because of you.

I said to him: how so?

He said: because the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, made brotherhood between his companions.

And he mentioned the hadith of Sa'd and Abd ar-Rahman.

I said to him: I absolve you of all you say, and I give you the wealth you presented to me: I mean the half.

And that is because he said: I have slave girls and a wife, and you are unmarried: it behooves me to give you the half, that we may be equal in wealth and other, and I gain over you therein.

I said to him: you have done, may Allah have mercy on you, more than that, when you brought me down from yourself in what you brought down none, and I took with you the place of a son; then he retained my first hadith and said: what is your need?

I said: will you fulfill it?

He said: yes, and I shall be glad of it.

I said: here is the thousand: you command its acceptance, and spend it in part of what you need: and he accepted it, for he had guaranteed me the fulfillment of my need.

Then we sat thereafter two days for the composition of the Jami, and we wrote of it that day much until dhouhr; then we prayed dhouhr, and returned to writing without having eaten anything: he saw me, near to al-asr, troubled and distressed, and imagined boredom in me.

My grief was only that I could not stand, and I bent over in concern for the grief.

Abou Abdallah entered the house, and brought out to me a purse in which were three hundred dirhams, and said: since you did not accept the price of the lodging, you must spend this in part of your needs.

He pressed me: I did not accept.

Then after some days, we wrote until dhouhr also, and he handed me

twenty dirhams.

He said: you must spend these on buying greens and the like.

I bought with them what I knew would suit him, sent them to him, and returned.

He said to me: may Allah brighten your face: there is no guile in you: it does not befit us to harm ourselves.

I said to him: you have gathered the good of this world and the Hereafter: what man treats his servant as well as you treat me? were I not to know this, I would know nothing more.

Abdallah ibn Muhammad as-Sarfi heard saying: I was with Abou Abdallah at his house, and a slave girl came, wishing to enter the house: she stumbled over an inkwell before him, and he said to her: how do you walk?

She said: if there is no path, how shall I walk?

He spread his two hands therefore, and said to her: go: I have freed you.

He was told afterward: O Abou Abdallah, did the slave girl anger you?

He said: if she angered me, I have contented myself with what I did.

And the hafiz Abdallah ibn Adi said: I heard al-Hasan ibn al-Houssayn al-Bazzaz say: I saw Muhammad ibn Ismail, an elder thin of body, neither tall nor short.

And Ghounjar said: Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Houssayn at-Tamimi narrated to us: Abou Ya'la at-Tamimi narrated to us: I heard, in Egypt, Jibril ibn Mikail say: I heard al-Boukhari say: when I reached Khorassan I was afflicted with partial blindness: a man taught me to shave my head and cover it with khitmi.

I did so, and Allah returned my sight to me.

And the copyist Muhammad said: Abou Abdallah entered the bath at Firabr, and I was myself at the bath's dressing-room, keeping watch over his garments; when he came out I handed him his garments: he put them on; then I handed him the boots, and he said: you have touched in it a hair of the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him.

I said: in what place of the boot is it?

He did not inform me.

I imagined it was in his leg, between the leather and the lining.

The affair with adh-Dhouhli

Abou Abdallah al-Hakim said: I heard Muhammad ibn Hamid al-Bazzaz say: I heard al-Hasan ibn Muhammad ibn Jabir say: I heard Muhammad ibn Yahya say to us, when Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Boukhari came to Naysabour: go to this righteous man, and hear from him.

The people went to him, and applied themselves to hearing from him, until the flaw appeared in the session of Muhammad ibn Yahya: he therefore envied him after that, and spoke about him.

And Abou Ahmad ibn Adi said: several of the sheikhs mentioned to me that, when Muhammad ibn Ismail came to Naysabour, the people gathered upon him; some of the sheikhs of Naysabour of that time envied him when they saw the people's turning toward him and their gathering upon him, and he said to the people of hadith: Muhammad ibn Ismail says the utterance of the Quran is created: test him then in the session.

When the people came to the session of al-Boukhari, a man rose to him and said: O Abou Abdallah, what do you say of the utterance of the Quran: is it created or uncreated?

Al-Boukhari turned away from him and answered him not.

The man said: O Abou Abdallah; and he repeated the word to him: he turned away from him; then he spoke the third time: al-Boukhari turned to him and said:

"The Quran is the speech of Allah, uncreated; and the deeds of the servants are created; and the trial is innovation."

The man clamored therefore, the people clamored, and they dispersed from him.

And al-Boukhari sat in his house.

Al-Moussallam ibn Muhammad al-Qaysi and others informed us, saying: Zayd ibn al-Hasan informed us, Abd ar-Rahman ibn Muhammad informed us, Ahmad ibn Ali al-Khatib informed us, Abou Bakr Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Ghalib al-Barqani informed us, Abou Bakr al-Isma'ili informed us, Abdallah ibn Muhammad ibn Sayyar informed us: Muhammad ibn Mouslim Khachnam narrated to me and said: Muhammad ibn Ismail was asked at Naysabour about the utterance, and said: Oubaydallah ibn Sa'id narrated to me (meaning Abou Qoudama), from Yahya ibn Sa'id, who is al-Qattan, who said: all the deeds of the servants are created.

They passed over him therefore, and said to him thereafter: will you retract this saying, until we return to you?

He said: I shall not, unless you come with a proof for what you say stronger than my proof.

And Muhammad ibn Ismail's steadfastness amazed me.

And al-Hakim said: Abou Bakr Muhammad ibn Abi al-Haytham al-Moutawwa'i narrated to us, at Boukhara: Muhammad ibn Youssouf al-Firabri narrated to us: I heard Muhammad ibn Ismail say: as for the deeds of the servants, they are created.

Ali ibn Abdallah narrated to us: Marwan ibn Mou'awiya narrated to us: Abou Malik narrated to us, from Ribi'i, from Houdayfa, who said:

The Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said: Allah makes every maker and his making.

And upon it he said: and I heard Oubaydallah ibn Sa'id say: I heard Yahya ibn Sa'id

say: I have not ceased hearing our companions say: the deeds of the servants are created.

Al-Boukhari said: their movements, their voices, their earning and their writing are created.

As for the recited Quran, the clear, established in the codices, inscribed and written, deposited in the hearts: it is the speech of Allah, not created.

Allah the Most High said: {Nay, it is clear verses in the breasts of those given knowledge} (sourate al-Ankabout, verse 49).

And Abou Hamid al-A'machi said: I saw Muhammad ibn Ismail at the funeral of Abou Outhman Sa'id ibn Marwan, and Muhammad ibn Yahya asking him about the names, the kunyas and the defects of hadith, and Muhammad ibn Ismail passing through him like the arrow.

Not a month passed on this before Muhammad ibn Yahya said: whoever used to frequent his session must not frequent us: for they wrote to us from Bagdad that he spoke of the utterance; we forbade him, and he did not cease: draw not near him; and whoever draws near him, let him draw not near us. Muhammad ibn Ismail remained here a while, then went out to Boukhara.

And Abou Hamid ibn ach-Charqi said: I heard Muhammad ibn Yahya adh-Dhouhli say:

"The Quran is the speech of Allah, uncreated, from all its aspects, and wherever it is turned: whoever holds to this is free of need from the utterance and every other speech concerning the Quran; and whoever claims the Quran is created has disbelieved, and left the faith; his wife is separated from him: he is offered repentance; if he repents, otherwise his neck is struck, and his wealth is made booty among the Muslims, and he is not buried in their graveyards; and whoever suspends, saying: I say not created nor uncreated, has matched disbelief; and whoever claims my utterance of the Quran is created, this one is an innovator: let him not be sat with nor spoken to.

And whoever, after this, goes to Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Boukhari: accuse him: for none attends his session but one who is upon a doctrine like his."

And al-Hakim said: Muhammad ibn Abi al-Haytham informed us, at Boukhara: al-Firabri informed us: al-Boukhari narrated to me, and said: I meditated on the speech of the Jews, the Christians and the Magians: I never saw anyone more astray in their disbelief than the Jahmites; and I feign ignorance of whoever does not declare them disbelievers.

And Ghounjar said: Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Hadir al-Absi narrated to us: al-Firabri narrated to us: I heard al-Boukhari say: the Quran is the speech of Allah, uncreated; and whoever says: created, he is a disbeliever.

And al-Hakim said: Tahir ibn Muhammad the copyist narrated to us: I heard Muhammad ibn Chadhil say: when rupture fell between Muhammad ibn Yahya and al-Boukhari, I entered upon al-Boukhari, and said: O Abou Abdallah, what is our stratagem in what is between you and Muhammad ibn

Yahya: everyone who frequents you is driven away?

He said: how envy assails Muhammad ibn Yahya in knowledge; and knowledge is the provision of Allah: He gives it to whom He wills.

I said: is it this question that is related of you?

He said: O my son, this is an ill-omened question: I saw Ahmad ibn Hanbal, and what befell him in this question; I fixed upon myself not to speak in it.

I said: the question is that the utterance is created: al-Boukhari was asked about it, and suspended in it; when he suspended and argued that our deeds are created, relying on that, adh-Dhouhli imagined that he directed the question of the utterance: he therefore spoke of it, and he and others seized him by the necessary of his word.

And al-Boukhari said, in the account Ghounjar narrated in "his Tarikh": Khalaf ibn Muhammad ibn Ismail narrated to us: at Boukhara I heard Abou Amr Ahmad ibn Nasr an-Naysabouri al-Khaffaf say: we were one day at Abou Ishaq al-Qaysi, with us Muhammad ibn Nasr al-Marwazi; there ran the mention of Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Boukhari, and Muhammad ibn Nasr said: I heard him say: whoever claims I said: my utterance of the Quran is created, is a liar: for I did not say it.

I said to him: O Abou Abdallah, the people have waded into this and multiplied in it.

He said: there is nothing but what I say.

Abou Amr al-Khaffaf said: I came therefore to al-Boukhari, and debated with him over some hadiths until his soul was content, and I said: O Abou Abdallah, here is someone relating of you that you said this opinion.

He said: O Abou Amr, retain what I say to you: whoever claims, of the people

of Naysabour, Qoumis, ar-Rayy, Hamadhan, Houluwan, Bagdad, Koufa, Bassora, Mecca and Medina, that I said: my utterance of the Quran is created, is a liar: for I said it not, only that I said: the deeds of the servants are created.

And Abou Sa'id Hatim ibn Ahmad al-Kindi said: I heard Mouslim ibn al-Hajjaj say: when Muhammad ibn Ismail came to Naysabour I never saw governor nor scholar do for him what the people of Naysabour did: they met him two and three stages out.

Muhammad ibn Yahya said in his session: whoever wishes to meet Muhammad ibn Ismail tomorrow, let him meet him.

Muhammad ibn Yahya and the general body of scholars met him: he lodged at the house of the Boukharans, and Muhammad ibn Yahya said to us: ask him nothing of doctrine: for if he answers against what we are upon, rupture will fall between us and him; then will rejoice over us every Harurite, and every Rafidite, and every Jahmite, and every Murjiite of Khorassan.

He said: the people thronged upon Muhammad ibn Ismail until the roof and the house were full; on the second or third day a man rose to him and asked him about the utterance of the Quran.

He said: "Our deeds are created, and our utterances are of our deeds."

Divergence fell between them: some of the people said: he said: my utterance of the Quran is created; and some said: he did not say it; they quarreled therefore, and the people of the house gathered and expelled them.

And al-Hakim said: Abou Abdallah Muhammad ibn Ya'qoub ibn al-Akhram informed us: I heard Ibn Ali al-Makhaldi: I heard Muhammad ibn Yahya say: this Boukhari has made appear the view of the utteranceists; and the utteranceists, in my sight, are worse than the Jahmites.

And he said: I heard Muhammad ibn Salih ibn Hani: I heard Ahmad ibn Salama say: I entered upon al-Boukhari, and said: O Abou Abdallah, this is a man well received in Khorassan, especially in this city, and he has persisted in this hadith until none of us can speak to him of it: what do you see?

He seized his beard therefore, then said: {And I entrust my affair to Allah: Allah sees the servants} (sourate Ghafir, verse 44). O Allah, You know I did not intend remaining at Naysabour in arrogance nor in pride, nor seeking leadership; but my soul refused me returning to my homeland because of the preponderance of opponents; and this man aimed at me with envy when Allah granted it to me, nothing else.

Then he said to me: O Ahmad, I depart tomorrow, that you may be rid of his speech on my account.

He said: I informed several of our companions: and by Allah, none followed him out but I.

I was with him when he went out of the town, and he stayed at the gate of the town three days to mend his affair.

He said: and I heard Muhammad ibn Ya'qoub the hafiz say: when al-Boukhari settled

in Naysabour, Mouslim ibn al-Hajjaj multiplied his frequenting of him.

When there fell between adh-Dhouhli and al-Boukhari what fell in the question of the utterance, and he proclaimed against him and forbade the people from him, most of the people cut off from him except Mouslim.

Adh-Dhouhli said one day: whoever says the utterance, it is not lawful for him to attend our session.

Mouslim therefore took a cloak over his turban, rose above the heads of the people, and sent to adh-Dhouhli what he had written about him, on the back of a camel.

And Mouslim made appear the view of the utterance, not concealing it.

He said: and I heard Muhammad ibn Youssouf the muezzin: I heard Abou Hamid ibn ach-Charqi say: I attended the session of Muhammad ibn Yahya adh-Dhouhli, and he said: whoever says: my utterance of the Quran is created, let him not attend our session; Mouslim ibn al-Hajjaj rose from the session.

Ahmad ibn Mansour ach-Chirazi narrated it from Muhammad ibn Ya'qoub, and he added: and Ahmad ibn Salama followed him.

Ahmad ibn Mansour ach-Chirazi said: I heard Muhammad ibn Ya'qoub al-Akhram: I heard our companions say: when Mouslim and Ahmad ibn Salama rose from the session of adh-Dhouhli, adh-Dhouhli said: this man shall not dwell with me in the town.

Al-Boukhari feared therefore, and travelled.

And Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim said: a man came to Abdallah al-Boukhari and said: O Abou Abdallah, so-and-so declares you a disbeliever!

He said: the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said: when a man

says to his brother: O disbeliever, one of the two has returned upon him.

And many of his companions said to him: some people fall upon you.

He said: {The plotting of the devil is ever weak} (sourate an-Nisa, verse 76), and he recited also: {But the evil plot encompasses none but its own people} (sourate Fatir, verse 43).

Abd al-Majid ibn Ibrahim said to him: why do you not invoke Allah against these who wrong you, attack you and overwhelm you?

He said: the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said: endure until you meet me at the basin; and he said, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him: whoever invokes against his wrongdoer has already sought redress.

Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim said: and I heard him say: never did any one of the dregs of the people attack us but he was struck with a calamity and was not spared; and whenever the ignorant promised themselves to scheme against us, I saw of my night, in sleep, a fire lit then extinguished, with no benefit taken from it: I interpret therefore the word of the Most High: {Every time they kindle the fire of war, Allah extinguishes it}

(sourate al-Ma'ida, verse 64).

And his battle-cry, by night, when I came to him at the end of his coming from Iraq, was: {If Allah helps you, none can overcome you; and if He forsakes you, who is he that can help you after Him} (sourate Al Imran, verse 160), the verse.

And Ahmad ibn Mansour ach-Chirazi said: I heard al-Qasim ibn al-Qasim: I heard Ibrahim the copyist of Ahmad ibn Sayyar say: when al-Boukhari came to Merv, Ahmad ibn Sayyar met him among those who met him, and Ahmad said to him: O Abou Abdallah, we do not contradict you in what you say; but the common folk cannot bear this from you.

Al-Boukhari said: I fear the Fire: I am asked of a thing I know to be true, that I say other than it.

Ahmad ibn Sayyar departed from him.

And Abd ar-Rahman ibn Abi Hatim said in "the Jarh and the Tadil": Muhammad ibn Ismail came to ar-Rayy in the year fifty and two hundred, and my father and Abou Zur'a heard from him; they left his hadith when Muhammad ibn Yahya wrote to them that he made appear among them, at Naysabour, that his utterance of the Quran is created.

I say: whether they left his hadith or left it not, al-Boukhari is trustworthy, secure, cited as proof in the world.

His trial with the emir of Boukhara

Ahmad ibn Mansour ach-Chirazi narrated, and said: I heard some of our companions say: when Abou Abdallah came to Boukhara, tents were pitched for him a league from the town, and the general body of the people of the town met him, until no known man remained but he met him; dinars and dirhams and much sugar were scattered upon him, and he remained days.

He said: thereafter Muhammad ibn Yahya adh-Dhouhli wrote to Khalid ibn Ahmad, emir of Boukhara: this man has made appear contravention of the Sunna.

He read his letter to the people of Boukhara, and they said: we do not part from him; the emir therefore ordered him to leave the town, and he left.

Ahmad ibn Mansour said: some of our companions related to me from Ibrahim ibn Ma'qil an-Nasafi, who said: I saw Muhammad ibn Ismail on the day he was expelled from Boukhara: I advanced to him, and said: O Abou Abdallah, what do you see of this day, of the day when was scattered upon you what was scattered?

He said: I care not, if my religion is safe.

He said: he went out therefore to Bikand, and the people marched with him in two parties: a party with him, and a party against him,

until the people of Samarcand wrote to him, and asked him to come to them: he came until he reached some villages of Samarcand, and there fell among the people of Samarcand, because of him, a trial: a people wishing to bring him into the town, and a people not wishing that, until they agreed that he enter them: the news of that reached him, and what had happened among them because of him: he went out therefore intending to ride.

When he was settled upon his mount, he said: O Allah, choose for me, thrice; then he fell dead. The people of Samarcand were informed, and they all attended him.

This account is odd and discontinuous: and the authentic is what comes against it.

Ghounjar said in "his Tarikh": I heard Abou Amr Ahmad ibn Muhammad the reciter: I heard Bakr ibn Munir ibn Khalid ibn Askar say: the emir Khalid ibn Ahmad adh-Dhouhli, governor of Boukhara, sent to Muhammad ibn Ismail: carry to me the book "Jami" and the "Tarikh" and the other of them, that I may hear from you.

He said to his messenger: I do not abase knowledge, nor carry it to the doors of people: if you have need of some of it, attend at my mosque, or at my house; and if this does not please you, you are a ruler: forbid me then the session, that I may have excuse with Allah on the Day of Resurrection: for I do not conceal knowledge, by the word of the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him: whoever is asked of knowledge and conceals it shall be bridled with a bridle of fire; and this was the cause of estrangement between them.

And al-Hakim said: I heard Muhammad ibn al-Abbas ad-Dabbi: I heard Abou

Bakr ibn Abi Amr the hafiz al-Boukhari say: the cause of the estrangement of Abou Abdallah was that Khalid ibn Ahmad adh-Dhouhli, the emir, lieutenant of the Tahirids at Boukhara, asked that he come to his house, to read the Jami and the Tarikh to his sons: he refused attending upon him; he wrote to him to hold a session for his sons, attended by none but them: he refused, and said: I single out no one.

The emir therefore sought the aid of Harith ibn Abi al-Warqa and others, until they spoke of his doctrine and expelled him from the town: he invoked against them; not a month passed but the order of the Tahirids came that it be proclaimed against Khalid in the town: it was proclaimed against him upon donkeys.

As for Harith, he was tried by his family, and saw in them what description lets pass.

And as for so-and-so, he was tried by his sons, and Allah showed him in them the calamities.

And al-Hakim said: Khalaf ibn Muhammad narrated to us: Sahl ibn Chadawayh narrated to us and said: Muhammad ibn Ismail dwelt at the alley of the dehqan, and a group frequented him, making appear the marks of the people of hadith: the single iqama, raising the hands in prayer, and other.

Harith ibn Abi al-Warqa and others said: this is a seditious man: he corrupts this city against us; and Muhammad ibn Yahya expelled him from Naysabour, though he is the imam of the people of hadith: they therefore argued against him with Ibn Yahya, and sought against him the aid of the ruler in his banishment from the town: he was expelled.

And Muhammad ibn Ismail was devout: he avoided the rulers and entered not upon them.

Al-Hakim said: I heard Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Wasil al-Bikandi: I heard my father say: Allah graced us with the going out of Abou Abdallah and his staying with us, until we heard from him these books; otherwise, who would reach him, and his staying in these regions: Firabr

and Bikand? these traces remained in them, and the people graduated by him.

I say: Khalid ibn Ahmad the emir; al-Hakim said: he had at Boukhara traces all praiseworthy, except his hostility to al-Boukhari: for it is a stumble, and a cause of the passing of his rule.

He heard: Ishaq ibn Rahawayh, Oubaydallah ibn Omar al-Qawariri, and a band.

Narrated from him at Hamadhan: Abd ar-Rahman al-Jallab; and at Merv: Ali ibn Muhammad al-Azraq; and he had inclined to Ya'qoub ibn al-Layth: when he performed the pilgrimage they detained him at Bagdad until his death, in his year, which is the year nine and sixty and two hundred.

His death

Ibn Adi said: I heard Abd al-Qoudous ibn Abd al-Jabbar as-Samarqandi say: Muhammad ibn Ismail came to Khartank (a village two leagues from Samarcand), and he had relatives there: he lodged with them, and I heard him one night invoking, when he finished the night prayer: O Allah, the earth has straitened upon me despite its breadth, take me therefore to You; and the month was not complete before he died; and his grave is at Khartank.

And Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim said: I heard Abou Mansour Ghalib ibn Jibril, upon whom Abou Abdallah lodged, and he said:

he stayed with us days, then fell ill, and the illness grew severe upon him, until he sent a messenger to the city of Samarcand for the expulsion of Muhammad; when he returned,

he readied himself for riding: he put on his two boots, wrapped his turban; when he walked the space of twenty paces or near, while I held his arm and a man took with me, leading him to the mount that he might ride it, he said, may Allah have mercy on him: release me: I am weak; he invoked invocations therefore, then lay down; he passed away, may Allah have mercy on him, and there flowed from him sweat beyond description: the sweat did not settle until we had dressed him in his garments.

And of what he said to us and bequeathed to us: that you shroud me in three white garments, in which is no shirt nor turban: we did that.

When we buried him there exhaled from the soil of his grave a precious scent, sweeter than musk: that lasted days; then there rose white bands in the sky, elongated, at the foot of his grave; the people kept coming and wondering; as for the soil, they would raise it from the grave until the grave appeared, and we could not keep the grave with guards: we were overcome upon ourselves; we therefore set upon the grave a latticed wood, none being able to reach the grave: they would raise what was around the grave of soil, without reaching the grave; as for the scent of perfume, it continued many days until the people of the town talked of it and wondered at it; and his affair appeared before his opponents after his death, and some of his opponents went out to his grave, and made appear repentance and regret for the blameworthy doctrine they had set about.

Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim said: Abou Mansour Ghalib ibn Jibril lived after him but little: and he bequeathed to be buried at his side.

And Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Makki al-Jourjani said: I heard Abd al-Wahid ibn Adam at-Tawawisi say:

"I saw the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, in sleep, with him a group of his companions, and he stood in a place; I greeted him, and he returned the salam to me.

I said: why do you stand, O Messenger of Allah?

He said: I await Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Boukhari; and after some days his death reached me: I looked, and behold, he had died in the hour in which I saw the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him."

And Khalaf ibn Muhammad al-Khayyam said: I heard Mahib ibn Soulaym al-Karmi-ni say:

"Al-Boukhari died among us on the night of the feast of breaking, in the year six and fifty, having reached sixty-two years; and he was alone in a house: we found him in the morning, dead."

And Ibn Adi said: I heard al-Hasan ibn al-Houssayn al-Bazzaz al-Boukhari say:

"Al-Boukhari died on Saturday night, the night of the breaking, at the time of the isha prayer, and was buried on the day of the breaking after the dhouhr prayer, in the year six and fifty and two hundred, and he lived sixty-two years less thirteen days."

And Muhammad ibn Abi Hatim said: I heard Abou Dhar say:

"I saw Muhammad ibn Hatim al-Khalqani in sleep, and he was of the companions of Muhammad ibn Hafs; I asked him, knowing he was dead, about my sheikh, may Allah have mercy on him: did you see him?

He said: yes, I saw him, and he is such: and he pointed toward a roof among the roofs of the house.

Then I asked him about Abou Abdallah Muhammad ibn Ismail.

He said: I saw him, and he pointed to the heaven with a gesture that all but fell from it for the height of his pointing."

And Abou Ali al-Ghassani said: we were informed by Abou al-Fath Nasr ibn al-Hasan as-Sakti as-Samarqandi, who came to us at Belensia in the year four and sixty and four hundred, and he said: rain became scarce among us at Samarcand in some years: the people prayed for rain again and again, and were not watered; a righteous man, known for uprightness, came to the qadi of Samarcand and said to him: I saw a dream I present to you.

He said: and what is it?

He said: I see that you go out, and the people go out with you, to the grave of the imam Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Boukhari, and his grave is at Khartank, and we pray for rain there: perhaps Allah will water us.

He said: the qadi said: well have you seen.

The qadi went out therefore, and the people with him; the qadi prayed for rain with the people, and the people wept at the grave, and sought intercession by its inhabitant: Allah, the Most High, therefore sent the sky with great, abundant water, for which the people remained at Khartank seven days or thereabouts, none being able to reach Samarcand for the abundance of rain; and between Khartank and Samarcand are about three miles.

And al-Khatib said in "his Tarikh": we were informed at Naysabour by Abou Bakr Ahmad ibn al-Hasan the qadi al-Harachi: I heard Abou Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Ahmad the faqih al-Balkhi (h); al-Khatib said: I heard Ahmad ibn Abdallah as-Saffar al-Balkhi say: I heard Abou Ishaq al-Moustamli narrating from Muhammad ibn Youssouf al-Firabri that he used to say: ninety thousand men heard the book "Sahih" of Muhammad ibn Ismail, and there remained none who narrates it but me.

Mention of the Companions for whom al-Boukhari extracted but narrated from none of them but one:

Mirdas al-Aslami; from him Qays ibn Abi Hazim; Hazn al-Makhzoumi; his son Abou Sa'id al-Moussayyab ibn Hazn alone narrated from him; Zahir ibn al-Aswad; his son Majza'a narrated from him; Abdallah ibn Hicham ibn Zouhra the Qurashi; his grandson Zouhra ibn Ma'bad narrated from him; Amr ibn Taghlib; al-Hasan al-Basri narrated from him; Abdallah ibn Thalaba ibn Sou'ayr; az-Zouhri narrated his word; Sounayn Abou Jamila as-Soulami; az-Zouhri narrated from him; Abou Sa'id ibn al-Mou'alla; Hafs ibn Asim alone narrated from him; Souwayd ibn an-Nou'man al-Ansari ach-Chajari; Bouchayr ibn Yasar alone narrated hadith from him; Khoula bint Thamir; an-Nou'man ibn Abi Ayyach narrated from her: I summed them: ten.

Section:

The "Tarikh" of al-Boukhari embraces about forty thousand and more; and his book on "the weak" is below seven hundred persons; and those he extracted for in his Sahih below two thousand.

Abou Bakr al-Hazimi said that; and his Sahih is very abridged. And