that any sound narration should elude al-Bukhari and Muslim. (1)(2)
Al-Hakim said: I heard Abu ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Sulami relate:
“I saw an elderly man, fair of face and well dressed, wearing a handsome cloak and a turban whose tail he had let fall between his shoulders.
People said, ‘This is Muslim.’
The officials of the ruler then advanced and declared, ‘The Commander of the Faithful has ordered that Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj be the imam of the Muslims.’
They therefore brought him forward in the congregational mosque; he pronounced the opening takbir and led the people in prayer.
Ahmad ibn Salamah said, ‘I was with Muslim while he was compiling his Sahih for fifteen years. (3)
It comprises twelve thousand hadiths. (4)’
I say: He is counting the repeated reports; thus, when he says, ‘Qutaybah narrated to us,’ and elsewhere, ‘Ibn Rumh informed us,’ they are reckoned as two separate hadiths, whether their wording is identical or differs by a single word.
The hāfiẓ Ibn Mandah said: I heard the hāfiẓ Abu ʿAli al-Naysaburi say, ‘Under the vault of heaven there is no book more authentic than the book of Muslim.’
(1) The original manuscript reads: “and Muslim” with the nominative ending, which is incorrect.
(2) The report is found in Jami al-Usul, 1/188, with the wording: “yathbut” (he affirms). If, however, the author intended by this report what we have already recorded in the two Sahih collections, that is debatable, for many authentic hadiths escaped both Imams and were later supplied by other compilers of sahih material such as Ibn Khuzayma, Ibn Hibban and others.
(3) Introduction to Sahih Muslim, commentary of al-Nawawi, p. 14: “sixteen years.”
(4) The total number of non-repeated hadiths in Sahih Muslim is 3,033. The same information is cited in Tadhkirat al-Huffaz, 2/589.
(5) Sources: Tarikh Baghdad, 3/101; Wafayat al-Ayan, 5/194; Tadhkirat al-Huffaz, 2/589; Jami al-Usul, 1/188; and Ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya wa-l-Nihaya, 11/33. Ibn Kathir states there, in his biography of Muslim: “He is the author of the Sahih, which, according to most scholars, comes immediately after Sahih al-Bukhari in rank.” Scholars of the Maghrib and the eastern scholar Abu Ali al-Naysaburi, however, preferred Sahih Muslim over Sahih al-Bukhari. If by this preference they mean that Muslim avoided almost all hanging isnads (mu‘allaqat) and presented each hadith in full in one place without breaking it up as al-Bukhari often does, their view is understandable.