Al-Albani’s reconciliation between al-Bukhari and other scholars regarding the condition of meeting the narrator and not being content with mere contemporaneity.

The Shaykh : Personally, I have noticed something in this disagreement that I consider quite novel and which bridges the two differing viewpoints. It is that Imam al-Bukhari’s condition of meeting the narrator is a condition of perfection, not a condition of validity. My evidence for this is that I found in Sunan al-Tirmidhi—and it is well known among students of knowledge that Imam al-Tirmidhi was one of Imam al-Bukhari’s students who knew his methodology and opinions—that al-Tirmidhi often authenticates hadiths he narrates in his Sunan that his teacher did not include in his Sahih, attributing the authentication to his teacher. Sometimes he grades a hadith as good (hasan) and also attributes that grading to Imam al-Bukhari. I found that in some of these hadiths graded as good, al-Tirmidhi attributed the grading to al-Bukhari without the condition of meeting the narrator being present. I mentioned this in some of my works because it is actually very important, first because of its rarity, and second because it reconciles the two methodologies. This is especially true given the disagreement between al-Bukhari and his other student—or I do not know if it is correct to call him his other student, for he was rather his companion, namely Imam Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj, the author of the Sahih known by his name. It is well known and famous that Imam Muslim refuted in the introduction to his Sahih those who condition meeting the narrator over mere contemporaneity. Some researchers hold that he intended by this refutation to target Imam al-Bukhari himself. It does not concern me whether he intended to refute al-Bukhari himself or those who held his view, for as they say, it is not the speaker who matters, but what is said. If what I have argued and concluded is correct, based on the evidence I pointed to, that Imam al-Bukhari’s condition of meeting the narrator, rather than being content with contemporaneity, is a condition of perfection, meaning he required this for the authentic hadiths he selected and included in his "Sahih," which he selected from—I have forgotten the number now—perhaps two hundred thousand or a number close to this large figure of authentic hadiths. He selected the hadiths he included in his Sahih, which total no more than six thousand, from two hundred thousand hadiths. Thus, this is a condition of perfection in his Sahih, evidenced by the fact that he grades some hadiths as good (hasan) and sometimes authenticates them, but I have not yet come across a case where he graded as good a hadith for which his student al-Tirmidhi attributed the grading to him, without the condition of meeting the narrator being established. This is my answer.