Introduction: Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and the final outcome is for the righteous. May Allah send prayers and blessings upon Muhammad, the Seal of the Prophets, and upon all the prophets and messengers. As for what follows, you

The Reader: Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and the final outcome is for the righteous. May Allah send prayers and blessings upon Muhammad, the Seal of the Prophets, and upon all the prophets and messengers "As for what follows, you, may Allah have mercy on you through the success of your Creator, mentioned that you intended to investigate and become acquainted with the collection of reports transmitted from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) regarding the established practices and rulings of the religion, and what among them pertains to reward and punishment, encouragement and warning, and other categories of matters, along with the chains of narration through which they were transmitted and circulated among the scholars. You wished, may Allah guide you, to be made aware of the entirety of them, compiled and counted. You asked me to summarize them for you in a compilation without excessive repetition, for you claimed that this would occupy you from what you intended to understand and derive from them. Regarding what you asked, may Allah honor you, when I returned to reflecting upon it, and how the situation will turn out, if Allah wills, the outcome will be praiseworthy and beneficial to a group of people. I thought that when you asked me to undertake this, if I had resolved to do it and completed it, I would be the first to benefit from it, specifically before other people, for many reasons that are too long to describe. However, the summary of this is that mastering a small amount of this matter and perfecting it is easier for a person than dealing with a large amount of it, especially for those among the common people who have no discernment, unless someone else makes them aware of the distinction. If the matter is as we have described, then aiming for the small amount of authentic reports is better for them than increasing the defective ones. Some benefit is only hoped for in increasing this matter and collecting its repetitions for a specific group of people who have been granted some alertness and knowledge of its causes and operative causes. That, if Allah wills, will enable them, with what they have been given, to reach the benefit in increasing its collection. As for the common people, who are the opposite of the specific qualities of the alert and knowledgeable, there is no meaning for them in seeking the large amount, and they have failed to know even the small amount .. "

The Shaykh : In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
This introduction indicates that Muslim (may Allah have mercy on him) was asked by some people to compile a book for them in which he would trace the hadiths back to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), and that it should contain only authentic reports, because what contains a large amount of both authentic and weak reports wastes time and confuses the matter for the general public. So he (may Allah have mercy on him) decided to respond to this questioner by compiling a book with chains of narration in a correct manner, because a small amount of authentic reports is better than a large amount that includes both authentic and weak ones, due to the saving of time and the avoidance of difficulty and toil. This is the summary of what he (may Allah have mercy on him) said. Yes.