As for what has been transmitted from Abū ʿAlī (1) al-Naysābūrī (2) to the effect that he said, “Under the canopy (3) of heaven there is no book more authentic than the compilation of Muslim” (4), he did not expressly declare it to be sounder than Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī. He merely denied the existence of any work whose authenticity surpasses that of Muslim’s, for what is negated (5) is precisely the additional degree of soundness implied (6) by the comparative form (7) afʿal—that is, a superiority that would distinguish another collection, which already shares Muslim’s level of authenticity, by that added strength (8) over it (9); he did not deny the possibility of equality.
The same is true of the report from certain Western scholars that they preferred Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim to Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī (10): their preference pertains to the smoothness of its wording and the excellence of its arrangement and ordering.
No one among them made it explicit that this preference related to greater authenticity—and even if
(1) The words “Abi Ali” are absent from MS T.
(2) This refers to Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn ʿAli ibn Yazid al-Naysaburi, the hadith master (d. 349 AH). See al-Khatib, Tarikh Baghdad, 8:622.
(3) MS W reads “adimu” (nominative), an obvious slip.
(4) Cf. Ibn Manda, Shurut al-Aʾimma, p. 71; al-Khatib, al-Jamiʿ li-Akhlaq al-Rawi, 2:185; Taqyid al-Muhmal, 1:54.
(5) MS K has “al-nafi.”
(6) MSS J, D, H, T, Y, and M read “yaqtadihi” with an initial ya; MS K shows both ta and ya; the word is left unpointed in A and L.
(7) The word “sighatu” (verbal form) is omitted in MS T.
(8) MSS W and Z read “tamtazu”; in A, H, and L the word lacks diacritical points.
(9) The word “alayhi” does not appear in MS Y.
(10) This alludes to Abu Marwan al-Tubani’s remark: “Some of my teachers preferred Muslim’s collection to al-Bukhari’s.” See Qadi ʿIyad, Ikmal al-Muʿlim, 1:80; Ibn Khallafun, al-Muʿlim bi-Shuyukh al-Bukhari wa Muslim, p. 28; and al-Tujibi, Barnamaj, p. 93. Al-Tujibi also reports that Ibn Hazm preferred Sahih Muslim to al-Bukhari because, apart from its introduction, it contains nothing but consecutively arranged sound hadiths with no extraneous material.