Yūsuf ibn Yaʿqūb related to us; Abū al-Yaman al-Kindī related to us; Abū Manṣūr al-Qazzāz related to us; the ḥāfiẓ Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb related to me; Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Yaʿqūb related to us; Muḥammad ibn Naʿīm said:

I heard Khalaf ibn Muḥammad al-Bukhārī in that very place say: I heard Ibrāhīm ibn Maʿqal an-Nasafī say that Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Bukhārī said, “We were with Isḥāq ibn Rāhwayh when he remarked, ‘If only you would put together a concise book containing the authentic Sunnah of the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him).’ His words settled in my heart, and I therefore began compiling the Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaḥīḥ.”

We have also transmitted with a sound chain from Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān ibn Fāris, who said: I heard al-Bukhārī say, “I saw the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in a dream, as though I were standing in front of him with a fan in my hand, driving away flies from him. I asked one of the interpreters of dreams about it, and he told me, ‘You are fending falsehood away from him.’ That vision is what spurred me to compile the Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaḥīḥ.”

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū Dharr al-Harawī said: I heard Abū Haytham Muḥammad ibn Makkī al-Kushmihānī say: I heard Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf al-Firabrī say that al-Bukhārī declared, “I did not write a single ḥadīth in the Ṣaḥīḥ until I had first performed a ritual bath and prayed two rakʿahs.”

Abū ʿAlī al-Ghassānī reported that al-Bukhārī said, “I distilled the Ṣaḥīḥ from six hundred thousand ḥadīths.”

Al-Ismāʿīlī transmitted from him that he said, “I included in this book nothing but what is authentic, and what I left out of authentic material is even more.” Al-Ismāʿīlī commented, “Had he inserted every sound ḥadīth he possessed, he would, in a single chapter, have cited the narrations of a number of Companions and recorded each one’s chain when it met the standard, and the book would have become exceedingly large.”

Abū Aḥmad ibn ʿAdī said: I heard al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Bazzār say: I heard Ibrāhīm ibn Maʿqal an-Nasafī say: I heard al-Bukhārī state, “I placed in my Jāmiʿ only what is sound, and I omitted portions of that sound material so that the work would not become overly long.”

Al-Firabrī likewise said: I heard Muḥammad ibn Abī Ḥātim al-Bukhārī, the copyist, say: “I saw Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Bukhārī in a dream walking behind the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) as the Prophet walked ahead. Whenever the Prophet lifted his foot, al-Bukhārī placed his foot exactly where the Prophet’s foot had been.”

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū Aḥmad ibn ʿAdī said: I heard al-Firabrī say: I heard Najm ibn Fuḍayl—who was a man of keen understanding—relate a similar vision, saying that he too had seen it.

Abū Jaʿfar Maḥmūd ibn ʿAmr al-ʿUqaylī said: When al-Bukhārī completed his Ṣaḥīḥ, he presented it to Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī and others. They approved it and testified to its authenticity, except for four ḥadīths. Al-ʿUqaylī added: “The correct judgment in regard to them is the judgment of al-Bukhārī—they are authentic.”