INTRODUCTION
Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Buḫārī was born in Buḫārā (Bokhara) in the year 194 A. H. (A. D. 810). From his youth he was interested in the study of tradition. Making the pilgrimage to Mekka and Medina when only sixteen years of age, he enjoyed the instruction of the celebrated teachers of tradition in those two cities; and thereafter, for a period of sixteen years, he devoted himself continuously to the pursuit of this subject, traveling for the purpose over the greater part of the Mohammedan world. At the end of this time he returned to Buḫārā, where he composed his great work, entitled The Jāmiʿ aṣ-Ṣaḥīḥ, or "Collector of the Authentic [Traditions]". He was the first of the many who had brought together such material to attempt to sift it rigorously by the employment of formal canons. This sifting process was a very useful one, so far as it went, and Buḫārī's collection has remained the standard one from that day to this. His book, as completed, contains more than seven thousand traditions, though by excluding those which are repeated its number is reduced to
