The Six Authentic Books Of Hadith: An Introduction to the Sources and Methodology of Hadith Scholars

Not all Sunni Muslim jurisprudence scholars agree on the addition of Ibn Majah. In particular, the Malikis and Ibn al-Athir consider al-Muwatta' to be the sixth book.[4] The reason for the addition of Ibn Majah's Sunan is that it contains many Hadiths which do not figure in the other five, whereas all the Hadiths in the Muwatta' figure in the other Sahih books.[4]

The first two, commonly referred to as the Two Sahihs as an indication of their authenticity, contain approximately seven thousand hadiths altogether if repetitions are not counted, according to Ibn Hajar.α[15]

The Six Authentic Books Of Hadith

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According to the Cambridge History of Iran:[16] "After this period commences the age of the authors of the six canonical collections of Sunni hadith, all of whom were Persian, except Imam Malik. The authors of the six collections are as follows:

He studied in Nisapoor, and when he grew up he traveled to Iraq and the Hijaaz to learn hadeeth. He heard ahaadeeth from many shaykhs, and many scholars of hadeeth narrated from him. The most famous of his books is his Saheeh which is known as Saheeh Muslim. This is one of the six reliable books of hadeeth. He spent nearly fifteen years compiling this book, which is second only to Saheeh al-Bukhaari in status and in the strength of its ahaadeeth. Many scholars have written commentaries on his Saheeh.

He was a famous hafiz and the author of the book of hadeeth called al-Sunan. He was born in Qazwayn, after which he was named, in 209 AH. He travelled to Iraq, Basrah, Kufa, Baghdad, Makkah, Syria, Egypt and al-Rai to write down hadeeth. He wrote three books during his travels: a book on Tafseer; a book on history, in which he compiled the reports of men who had written down reports of the Sunnah from the time of the Sahaabah until his own time; and his book al-Sunan.If You want to Buy It for Your Home Library- Here is the LinkIf You want to Read it Free Online ,You can Read it HERE

The majority of the Darul `Ulooms (Islamic seminaries) around the globe require students to study `the six authentic books` of Hadith in the final year of the [6-8 year] degree programme before graduating as `ulama (Islamic scholars). But what are these `six authentic books` (as-Sihāh as-Sittah)?

The third and the fourth century witnessed the compilation of hundreds of books on Hadith (Prophetic traditions). Some of them gained more popularity than others did. Subsequently, the Hadith scholars began to research and write on the biographies of the narrators who had been mentioned in a certain book [and later on, in a combination of books], so that later scholars could easily determine the status of each Hadith. Nevertheless, Abd al-Ghani ibn Abd al-Wahid al-Maqdisi (d. 600 AH.) compiled a dictionary of narrators called `al-Kamāl`. This work included all the narrators whose Ahadith (plural of Hadith) were recorded in any of the six books, i.e. Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, Sunan al-Nasa`i, Sunan Abi Dawud, Sunan al-Tirmidhi and Sunan Ibn Majah. This work was remarkable and thus became the basis for other future works on biographies of narrators. Thus we can see that it was not ought to be only `Six Principal Works` but, since their narrators were discussed in a single book, these six books began to seem as a single unit and were began to be mentioned together by later on Hadith scholars.

These `Six Principal Works` are also known as `the Six Authentic Books` of Hadith. It does not mean that every Hadith found in these six books is authentic and unquestionably reliable, but that the majority of them are acceptable and authentic, except for Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim in which all are authentic. Hence, each Hadith from the remaining four books is tested based on its own merit and not as a Hadith quoted from one of the authentic six books.

This book is generally considered the most authentic: second only to The Glorious Qur`an. The author selected 9,082 [or excluding the repetitions, 2,062] out of about 600,000 narrations to include in this compilation. The book is arranged according to topics under separate headings, majority of which are extracts from the Qur`an, and some from different Ahadith. The book is also unique in the strict conditions that were laid down to include a Hadith in this book, namely; that each narrator should be of a very high grade of character, accuracy, trustworthiness, memory, literary and academic standard; and that there should be positive evidence of the meetings and learning and teaching between the narrators. The author of this book is Abu Abdillah Muhammad ibn Ismail ibn Ibrahim ibn al-Mughirah ibn Bardizbah al-Ju`fi al-Bukhari. He was born on 13th Shawwal 194 AH. in Bukhara and he died on the night of Eid in 256 AH. He was of Persian origin. He was blind during infancy; however, his eyesight was restored by the virtue of his mother`s supplication. His mother had brought him up after his father, a Hadith scholar himself, who died while Imam al-Bukhari was an infant. He began the study of Hadith even before ten years of age. The likes of Is`haq bin Rahawayh and `Ali ibn al-Madini are amongst the 1080 Hadith scholars from whom Imam al-Bukhari recorded Ahadith. His travels included going to Syria, Egypt, Jazirah, Hijaz, Iraq and Nishapur. He once became penniless and thus had to live for some time eating the leaves of wild plants.

This book comprises of 50 sub-books (kitab) with altogether, includes 3,956 traditions. It was completed in 270 AH. This book has 3 distinguishing features: 1. The Prophetic traditions are collected systematically; 2. It mentions the legal opinions of early scholars concerning the subject of the Hadith mentioned; 3. It discusses the quality, grading [authentic or good or weak] and defect [if any] of the traditions. It is the famous work of Abu Isa Muhammad ibn Isa ibn Sawra ibn Musa al-Tirmidhi. He was born in 209 A.H and died in 279 AH. He most likely began his foreign travels for study in 235 AH. and returned to his hometown before 250 AH. His teachers included Imam Bukhari, Imam Muslim and Imam Abu Dawud. However, he was greatly influenced by Imam al-Bukhari in particular.

This book comprises of 32 sub-books, 1,500 chapters and 4,341 narrations (3002 of which have been recorded also by the authors of the other five books). It is of the lowest grade of the six books in its authenticity. However, it is unique in its beautiful arrangement of sub-books and chapters and in containing very little repetition. The author`s name was Abu Abdillah Muhammad ibn Yazid ibn Abdillah ibn Majah al-Rib`i al-Qazwini. He was born in 209 AH. in Qazvin, a city in Iran, and died in 273 AH. His travels for study included journeying to Khurasan, Rayy, Iraq, Syria, Hijaz, Egypt and other places. His teachers include Muhammad al-Tanafasi (d. 233 AH.).

HilalPlaza.com carries both the Arabic and English versions of the major Ahadith books. (You can find all the relevant links at the end of this note.) These books include all the 6 authentic collection of Ahadith referred to in Arabic as "Al-Kutub Al-Sittah", which translates as"The Authentic Six". These six books are the works of 6 Islamic scholars who, a few years after Prophet Muhammad's death collected "hadith" (the prophet's sayings and traditions) and painstakingly compiled the ones that they could attribute directly to Prophet Muhammad. After the Quran, these 6 books form the cornerstone of the Muslim (Sunni) faith and traditions as they provide a further elaboration of the Quran's sayings and commandments. Books that form part of the authentic six collection are the following:

Below, you can find links for both Arabic and English version of ALL the six authentic books. These also include other derivative books including 40 Hadith by Nawwawi (his selection of 40 ahadith), Riyadh-us-Saleheen, and Fath-ul-Bari (Explanation and interpretation of the Sahih Bukhari Books).

Having the "Authentic Six" books (along with the Quran) as part of one's Islamic library can be an asset and a long term investment. We all know that there is a better likelihood of us increasing our knowledge of these sayings and traditions if the books are visible and physically available in close proximity. Besides, these books are not commonly available in every bookstore nor are easily available in western libraries. It may therefore be worth investing to keep the Prophet's sayings and traditions alive by making them part of your Islamic library at home.

The Hadith section on the HilalPlaza.com site also contains many more Ahadith books that you can browse. You can also find some of the same books in other languages as well. Additionally, if there are books that you would like and don't find them on the site, please drop us an e-mail and we can try to get those for you as well.

Similarly, in the beginning of Al-Mowatta' it is narrated from Muhammad Ibn Edris (died in 204 A.H); the Imam of the Shafe'I sect: "No book has appeared on the surface of the earth after the Quran to be more authentic than the book of Malek!"

Al-Soyouti in his commentary on 'Taqrib Al-Nawawi' in response to why the author has said: "The first author in purely authentic Hadith is Al-Bukhari", although the works of Malek and Ahmad (Ibn Hanbal) were published before the book of Al-Bukhari? Al-Soyouti Said: Malek did not collect the authentic Hadith only. Rather he compiled the Ahadith that their chians of narrators are either cut or unknown." 3

The 'Musnad' is the second Sunni book of Hadith. It is compiled by Ahmad Ibn Hanbal (died in 241 A.H) the Imam of the Hanbalis. Ahmad was from Marv4 . The term 'Mosnad' is an expression for any book of Hadith that its Ahadith are compiled according to the names of the narrators. For instance, all the Ahadith narrated by Jabir Ibn Abdullah from the Prophet (S.A) will be compiled together in one chapter.

Among all the Sunni Hadith collections, there are six books that are more recognized by the Sunni scholars. They refer to them as 'Sehah Settah' which means 'the Six Authentic'. They are: Sahih Bukhari (died in 256 A.H), Sahih Muslim (died in 261 A.H), Sunan Abu-Dawood (died in 275 A.H), Sunan Termethi (died in 279 A.H), Sunan Nasaei (died in 303 A.H), and Sunan Ibn Majah (died in 273 A.H). 5 2ff7e9595c