Sahih al-Bukhari

About the Author

Muhammad ibn Abu Abdullah ibn Ismail al-Bukhari, born in the Central Asian city of Bukhara (in modern-day Uzbekistan) in 810, was of Persian descent. His father, Ismail, was a well-respected scholar of Hadith in his own right. Ismail died when al-Bukhari was still an infant, leaving a sizable fortune to the boy, his mother, and his older brother, Abdullah. Like other children of his time and place, al-Bukhari’s elementary education took place at home, under his mother’s tutelage. At the age of eleven, he went on to study Hadith with the local masters of Bukhara. In his late teens, he undertook the pilgrimage to Mecca with his mother and older brother, in the year 827. This voyage began the odyssey of studying and teaching Hadith throughout the Muslim empire that would occupy the next four decades of al-Bukhari’s life. He is said to have written his first two books at the age of eighteen, while living in Medina. While numerous books are attributed to al-Bukhari, the most important is his Sahih, to which he is believed to have dedicated a quarter of his life. After nearly four decades of travel studying and teaching, in 864 al-Bukhari settled in the village of Khartank, near his birthplace of Bukhara. He died in Khartank in 870.