I said, “Muslim merely followed in Bukhari’s footsteps, scrutinised his learning, and emulated him. When Bukhari arrived in Nishapur toward the end of his life, Muslim attached himself to him and kept attending his sessions.”

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar, in his commentary on Nukhbat al-Fikr while explaining why Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī is given precedence over Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, writes: “The scholars unanimously agree that Bukhari was more eminent than Muslim and more versed in the science of ḥadith. Muslim was his disciple, his graduate, and continued to benefit from him and trace his footsteps until al-Dāraquṭnī said: ‘Had it not been for Bukhari, Muslim would neither have set out nor arrived.’” End quote.

Although Imam Muslim studied under Imam Bukhari, kept close company with him, and benefited greatly from him, he did not transmit anything from him in his Ṣaḥīḥ. It seems—Allah knows best—that Muslim, may Allah have mercy on him, did so for two reasons:

First: His aspiration for a loftier isnād (chain of transmission). Muslim shared many teachers with Bukhari; had he reported from Bukhari what Bukhari had taken from those teachers, his chain would have grown longer by the addition of another narrator. Seeking the highest possible isnād and greater proximity to the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, Muslim therefore transmitted directly from those very teachers the reports Bukhari had taken from them.

Second: Imam Muslim, may Allah have mercy on him, was distressed by some scholars’ practice of blending weak ḥadith with sound ones without distinguishing between them. He therefore focused his efforts on isolating the authentic from the inauthentic, as he explained in the introduction to his Ṣaḥīḥ. Thus, whatever authentic material Bukhari already possessed spared him additional labour, for Bukhari had also gathered only sound reports with extreme caution and meticulous verification.