The Shaykh Al-Albani’s Defense of Sahih al-Bukhari

The Shaykh : We return now to what the brother mentioned in his question earlier, namely that some claim there are fabricated hadiths in al-Bukhari’s hadiths. The truth is that this issue is extremely delicate, because we must now ask: what is a fabricated hadith in the science of hadith? A fabricated hadith in the science of hadith is one narrated by a liar or a fabricator; this is from the perspective of the chain of narration. From the perspective of the text, it is one that contradicts a text in the Book of Allah or in the hadith of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). Personally, I do not believe that there is a fabricated hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari in this sense. But this does not mean—and here I hope you pay close attention to my words so that we do not fall into excess or deficiency—that I do not believe there is a fabricated hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari, whether generally or specifically according to the hadith definition that it is from a liar or fabricator. This is impossible; it does not exist. Imam al-Bukhari is a rare imam in terms of his knowledge of the narrators and his critique of the chains of narration as well. I also do not believe there is a fabricated hadith in it in the other sense, meaning from the perspective of the text. But this does not mean that Sahih al-Bukhari is the equal of the Noble Qur'an. The concept of "equal" means "like it," because the Noble Qur'an is revelation from Allah and was received by mass transmission, as you know, from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). As for al-Bukhari, first, Sahih al-Bukhari is a human composition by a righteous scholar, one of the great scholars of the Muslims and one of the great imams of the hadith scholars, and so on. But he is not infallible; he may make a mistake. He may make a mistake, especially since the copies narrated from Imam al-Bukhari contain some variation. This is found in some of the old Ottoman Turkish editions, in the margins, where the differences between one copy and another are mentioned. But I want to say more than this: al-Bukhari may cite a single hadith from a single Companion, and a mistake may have occurred in the text of the hadith by one of its narrators. A mistake in its text, a mistake in its text, but the entire text is not fabricated; the original of the text is authentic. I recall, for example, a long hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari in which the Messenger (peace be upon him) mentions that our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) created Paradise and created a people for it, and created Hellfire and created a people for it, and that when the people of Paradise enter it, there remains a very wide space. The Messenger (peace be upon him) says in the authentic hadith: In a narration in Sahih al-Bukhari, "Hellfire" appears instead of "Paradise." This is a mistake, and the commentators pointed it out, especially among them the true Amir al-Mu'minin in hadith, Ahmad ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, because this is an error by some of the narrators. For this reason, I am not overly enthusiastic to say that everything in Sahih al-Bukhari is authentic, because this universal statement includes even a single word. This is not correct, because this cannot be asserted except regarding the Noble Qur'an, about which Allah the Exalted said, truly: But these few errors present in some of the texts in Sahih al-Bukhari do not justify a Muslim opening the door to doubt about Sahih al-Bukhari from the start. On the contrary, the correct view is the opposite. I give an example for this: a rich man has a great many gold dinars. One of them may be a counterfeit, a fake, and so on. He does not turn away from all these dinars. Why? Because he fears they are all fake? No, that is blatant ignorance of the value of these dinars, which are a material substance. So what do we say about the hadith of the Messenger (peace be upon him), without which the Noble Qur'an cannot be explained? If we know this well, the result is that it is not permissible for every individual Muslim, no matter how they differ in their specializations, except for those who are among the people of knowledge in hadith, in both narration and understanding. These people may point out some error in al-Bukhari, like the example I mentioned earlier. But this does not diminish or lower the status of Imam al-Bukhari as a critical imam who selected this book, which contains about six thousand hadiths, from about two hundred thousand authentic hadiths and two hundred thousand from six thousand—I do not know, a very large number, perhaps it has slipped my mind with the passage of time. So this imam who selected... Yes, O Allah, this imam who selected this small quantity of authentic hadiths and deposited them in his book called al-Musnad al-Sahih, it is no wonder that all the imams of the Muslims, and naturally I mean the imams of the Sunnah, in contrast to the people of innovation like the Shi'ah and the Rafidah and the like, all agreed that the most authentic book after the Book of Allah the Exalted is Sahih al-Bukhari. If there are some errors in it, that is the nature of man. Glory be to You, O Allah, and praise be to You. I bear witness that there is no god but You. I seek Your forgiveness and I repent to You.

The questioner : May Allah bless you, our masterThe Shaykh

The Shaykh : And may He bless you.