Imam Al Bukhari

Imam Al Bukhari’s full name was Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Ismaeel Ibn Ibrahim Ibn Al-Mugheera Ibn Bardizbah

He was of Persian origin. He was born in the month of Shawwal 194 after Hijrah to a wealthy & learned family

He was named Al-Bukhari because he was born in Bukharaa (present day – Uzbekistan)

His father Ismaeel was a scholar himself. He died when Bukhari was in infancy.

His mother a devoted muslimah raised him and educated him

Imam Al-Bukhari lost his eyesight at a young age. He was treated by many skilled physicians but their treatments made no difference. His mother a pious worshipper & righteous woman cried toAllah for help. She spent nights weeping in worship, as a result of her consistent worship the Imam’s sight was miraculously restored by Allah SWT.

Imam Al-Bukhari loved knowledge from a young age. He sat in circles of knowledge since he was 11 years old. When he was 16 years old he travelled to Makkah with his mother and brother to perform Hajj. Bukhari stayed behind to learn Ahadith. His mother left with his brother. He spent two years learning Hadith from scholars in Makkah.

Then he travelled to various lands including Ash-Sham (Palestine, Syriya & Jordon). He also went to Egypt, Basra, Koofah & Baghdad (all in Iraq) in search of knowledge.

He had an incredible memory and he could memorize a book by reading it once. He used to go back to Bukharaa & write all the Ahadith he had learnt, from memory.

He spent all his money in seeking knowledge & other beneficial matters like helping others. He was a generous person simple, humble & righteous.

He read a lot of Quran and was very foccused in his prayers. It was reported that once a wasp stung him 17 times when he was in prayer and he did not pay attention to it until he completed his prayer.

He not only wrote his famous Sahih Al-Bukhari (Al-Jami As-Sahih) but also wrote about other sciences such as Tafsir, Fiqh & history.

Before adding any new hadith to his collection of hadiths, he always prayed two units of Istikhara prayer, asking for Allah’s help. His books contains thousands of Ahadith. He selected the most authentic narrations after checking all the chains

Among his teachers were – Ali Ibn Al-Madani, Imam Ahmed bin Hanbal and Yahya Ibn Maeen.

He had many students, but his most famous student was Imam Muslim, who later on authored his own sahih collection of hadith. His other students were Imam At-Tirmidhi and Imam Al-Nasai.

Imam Al-Bukhari was expelled from Bukhara by the governor of Bukhara, as he refused to go to the governor’s place to teach his son and had asked the governor instead to send his son to his madrasa (islamic school) as all other ordinary children He died at the age of 62 years in a place known as Khartank near Samarqand (Uzbekistan)

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