As for the Ṣaḥīḥ, it was the highest-ranked of all the Six Books that had reached us when I first began listening to hadith—in the year 692 AH (1).

So what is your estimate of its elevation today, in the year 715 AH (2)? Were a man to travel an entire year merely to hear it, he would not be blameworthy for the effort.

Moreover, its lofty chain remained intact until the year 730 AH, and among the Six Books it retains the shortest sanad back to the Prophet ﷺ in a great many narrations. The reason is that Abū ʿAbd Allāh is the eldest of the compilers and the earliest to have met the senior scholars; he studied under a group of teachers from whom the other five Imams (3) transmit only through a single intermediary.

Mention of His Travels, His Pursuit of Knowledge, and His Writings

Muḥammad ibn Abī Ḥātim al-Bukhārī said: I heard Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl say, “I performed the pilgrimage, and my brother returned with my mother, while I stayed behind to seek hadith. When I reached the age of eighteen, I began compiling the legal cases and statements of the Companions and the Followers; that was during the days of ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Mūsā (4).

“I also composed the book al-Tārīkh at that time, beside the grave of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ on moonlit nights. Hardly a single name appears in the History without its anecdote, but I disliked making the book too long (5).”