The exact number of extant manuscripts of Ṣaḥīḥ al-al-Bukhārī is difficult to assess. The now dated Muʾassasat Āl al-Bayt catalog of hadith manuscripts lists 2327 manuscripts of the Ṣaḥīḥ while one researcher identified 971 manuscripts in Istanbul alone. The thousands of manuscripts date from fourth century AH until the advent of modernity and are spread throughout various regions and epochs. The value of each manuscript varies based on a myriad of factors, like provenance, dating, corroboration, and marginal data. Here, we would like to introduce readers to a handful of important manuscript of the Ṣaḥīḥ that can help appreciate its textual integrity and shed light on scholarly efforts in studying and transmitting it. One can easily spend years exploring the manuscript tradition of the Ṣaḥīḥ. For now, we will introduce five manuscripts and two printed editions as a point of departure for anyone interested in a deeper study.
The earliest extant manuscript of the Ṣaḥīḥ is a fragmentary copy in two parts based on the recension of Abū Zayd al-Marwazī (d. 371 AH) from al-Farabrī from al-Bukhārī. The manuscript is of Egyptian provenance where it remained for centuries until it was transferred to Britain in the early 1900s. Based on a paleographic and chemical examination of the papyrus, it has been dated to 360–390 AH/970–1000 CE. Although it is commonly held to have been transcribed by the Andalusian Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Aṣīlī (d. 392 AH), a student of al-Marwazī, the material evidence on the manuscript and its paleography suggest that it was transcribed by the hand of an unidentified Egyptian student of al-Marwazī. After its transcription, it was actively utilized for auditions of the Ṣaḥīḥ and variant collations, gathering marginal notes along the way, in Alexandra and Cairo well into the ninth century AH. One of its reading notices is dated to Ramadan 464 AH in Alexandria. In 1929, Alphonse Mingana (d. 1937) discovered part of this fragment, comprising only three chapters (ṣawm, zakāh, and a part of ḥajj), which is currently held in the Mingana collection in Birmingham. Recently, a section of this manuscript four times larger comprising eighteen chapters was discovered in the British Library.
Further Reading
The Saʿādiyya I is a manuscript of the Ṣaḥīḥ transcribed in 492 AH by the hadith scholar of Valencia, Spain Abū ʿImrān b. Saʿāda (d. c. 522 AH) based on the recension of Abū Dharr al-Harawī (d. 434 AH) via his three teachers from al- Farabrī from al-Bukhārī. In addition to its early dating, the Saʿādiyya I stands out for the critical editorial and comparative work done on it by Abū ʿImrān. This manuscript served as the reference point for countless secondary manuscripts and commentaries in the Maghreb until recently. Its whereabouts for the first three centuries are unknown, but in the ninth century, it was listed as part of the endowment of the al-Qarawiyyīn library in Fes. In 1928, the French Orientalist Évariste Lévi-Provençal (d. 1956) produced a facsimile edition of the second volume. Lévi-Provençal had borrowed the third volume, but it got lost after he died. To date, only three of the five volumes are available, which are housed in the National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco though there is a secondary copy of the entire manuscript.
The earliest complete manuscript of the Ṣaḥīḥ in our possession today was transcribed in al- Andalus in Shaʿbān 550 AH. We can label this is the Saʿādiyya II since it was read in 555 AH under the auspices of the the hadith scholar Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Saʿāda (d. 565 AH), a nephew of Abū ʿImrān. This manuscript is based on the recension of Abū Dharr. The colophon attests to the exceptional quality of the manuscript: it was compared multiple times with authoritative manuscripts like that of al-Ṣadafī (d. 514 AH) and a secondar copy of al-Bājī (474AH). In the seventh century, it was relocated to Fes, and then in the eighth century, it made its way to Cairo. It was read and audited by multiple scholars in each of these regions. In the ninth century, it was endowed to the library of the Sahn ı Seman Medrese in Istanbul. It is currently housed in the Süleymanye Yazma Eser Library under the Murād Mullā collection where it was recently discovered. The entire manuscript is in one codex and contains 269 folios. Each folio is 27x22 cm with 49 lines. In 2018, ISAM published a facsimile edition of this manuscript.
Further Reading
The Ṣāghāniyya is a manuscript of the Ṣaḥīḥ transcribed by Raḍī al- Dīn al-Ṣaghānī (d. 650 AH) a renowned Ḥanafī lexicographer from Lahore. His academic travels took him to Baghdad where he studied the Ṣaḥīḥ under the direct students of Abū al-Waqt al-Sijzī (d. 553 AH), a renowned transmitter of the Ṣaḥīḥ. In 617 AH, al-Ṣāghānī transcribed a manuscript of the Saḥīḥ (based on the recension of al-Sijzī → al-Dāwūdī → al-Ḥamawī → al-Farabrī → al-Bukhārī) which he edited by collating variants from a rare manuscript that was signed by al-Farabrī himself and contained unique additions. As such, the Ṣāghāniyya contains a relatively larger set of exclusive variants, such as prophetic and post- prophetic narrations, narrator data, commentary from al-Bukhārī. Some have questioned the extent to which we should accept the additions taken from the Farabrī-signed manuscript due to its anomalous content. The commentary tradition attests to the value of this manuscript, as Ibn Ḥajar alone cites it over one hundred times in Fatḥ al-Bārī. A partial copy of this manuscript (hadith nos. 3776–7433) in al-Ṣāghānī’s own handwriting is housed in Kastamonu Kitaplici (item no. 3600). Al-Ṣāghānī’s script ends abruptly (on fol. 291v, hadith no. 6997) and the remaining is completed in the hand of Muḥammad b. Abī al-Qāsim al- Muqrīʿ in 689 AH, a few decades after al-Ṣāghānī’s demise. There is a complete tertiary copy of the Ṣāghāniyya transcribed by Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī al-Wasṭānī in 833 AH held in Dāmād Ibrāhīm Pāshā in four parts.
Further Reading
In the year 670 AH in Damascus, Sharaf al-Dīn al-Yūnīnī (d. 701 AH) convened a gathering of scholars, including the famed grammarian Ibn Mālik, over 71 sessions to prepare a critically edited manuscript of the Ṣaḥīḥ. For this purpose, al-Yūnīnī obtained four valuable manuscripts of the Ṣaḥiḥ, the variants of which he included in the margins (viz. Abū Dharr and his three teachers, al-Aṣīlī, Ibn ʿAsākir, and al-Samʿānī). The base text was based on ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Maqdisī’s manuscript (via Abū al-Waqt), which was the most authoritative in Levant. After al-Yūnīnī’s death, the manuscript was relocated to Egypt and employed in the tenth century by al-Qasṭallānī in Irshād al-sārī. In the eleventh century, it was in the possession of Maghrebi scholar al-Rūdānī (d. 1094 AH), after which it went into the hands Muḥammad Akram al-Hindī in Mecca and utilized by the famous hadith expert ʿAbd Allāh b. Sālim al-Baṣrī (d. 1134 AH). The current whereabouts of the exemplar are unknown, but there are several secondary copies of the Yūnīniyya such as those of al-Ghazūlī (d. 777 AH) and al-Biqāʿī (d. 885 AH). The most important secondary copy was transcribed by Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Nuwayrī, who penned and sold at least eight copies, one of which is currently held in the Köprülü Library (item no. 362) and another in the Walī al-Dīn Effendī Library (item no. 1042). The Yūnīniyya is widely regarded as the most authoritative manuscript of the Ṣaḥīḥ, utilized by commentators and forming the basis for printed editions like the Sulṭāniyya.
Further Reading
The first lithographic edition of the Ṣaḥīḥ was produced in 1854 by Aḥmad ʿAlī al-Sahāranpūrī (d. 1880), who spent years critically editing and refining his copy of the Ṣaḥīḥ based on at least ten other manuscripts, Irshād al-sārī (which used the Yūnīniyya), and variants from the Ṣāghāniyya. Al-Sahāranpūrī began editing and annotating Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī in 1844 shortly after returning from his academic sojourn in Mecca. In 1848, he printed the first 184 pages of the Ṣaḥīḥ through Maṭbaʿ Sayyid al-Akhbār. Three years later, he resumed work on the Ṣaḥīḥ at his own printing house, Maṭbaʿ Aḥmadī. Between 1851 and 1854, he published the lithographic print of the Ṣaḥīḥ in two volumes. His edition of the Ṣaḥīḥ was reprinted several times by Maṭbaʿ Aḥmadī and other publishers during his lifetime. In subsequent editions, Sahāranpūrī appended a list of typographical errors found in the first edition, and he added biographical information on the transmitters of the Ṣaḥīḥ. Sahāranpūrī annotated the edition with beneficial marginal and interlinear notes wherein he alludes to manuscript variants, provides commentary, and explicates the link between chapter headings and hadith.
Further Reading
In 1893, the Ottoman Sultan, ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd II (d. 1918), issued an imperial decree to the Cairene publishing house al-Maṭbaʿa al-Amīriyya to print a critical edition of the Ṣaḥīḥ. Using a range of invaluable manuscripts, particularly a secondary copy of the Yūnīniyya. The project was completed by 1895 and the first edition of the work was released in nine volumes. A committee of 16 scholars from al-Azhar under the auspices of the Grand Shaykh of al-Azhar, Ḥassūna al-Nawāwī were then tasked with reviewing the work. It appears the scholars of al-Azhar had completed most of the editorial work on the Ṣaḥīḥ prior to ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd’s decree. The sultan provided much needed financial support to complete the project. In 2001, the Damascene hadith scholar Zuhayr Nāṣīr revised the Sulṭāniyya by numbering and indexing the hadith, adding marginal notes, and printing it in higher quality paper.
Further Reading
