() is the second hadith collection of the Kutub al-Sittah of Sunni Islam. Compiled by Islamic scholar Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj () in the format, the work is valued by Sunnis, alongside , as the most important source for Islamic religion after the Qur'an.
Sahih Muslim contains approximately 5,500 - 7,500 hadith narrations in its introduction and 56 books. Kâtip Çelebi (died 1657) and Siddiq Hasan Khan (died 1890) both counted 7,275 narrations. Muhammad Fuad Abdul Baqi wrote that there are 3,033 narrations without considering repetitions. Hadith and the Quran, Encyclopedia of the Quran, EJ Brill Mashhur ibn Hasan Al Salman, a student of Albanian Islamic scholar Al-Albani (died 1999), counted 7,385 total narrations, which, combined with the ten in the introduction, add up to a total of 7,395. Muslim wrote an introduction to his collection of hadith, wherein he clarified the reasoning behind choosing the hadith he chose to include in his Sahih.
He divided narrators of hadith into three tiers based on their memory and character:
Muslim did not include hadith which were narrated by those who belonged to the last tier. Moreover, Muslim only recorded hadith that were narrated to him by an unbroken Hadith studies (chain) of narrators through two reliable tabi'un, each of which had to be narrated through two companions of Muhammad.
Al-Nawawi wrote about Sahih al-Bukhari, "The scholars, may God have mercy on them, have agreed that the most authentic book after the dear Quran are the two Sahihs of Bukhari and Muslim." Siddiq Hasan Khan (died 1890) wrote, "All of the Salaf and Khalaf assert that the most authentic book after the book of Allah is Sahih al-Bukhari and then Sahih Muslim." This sentiment is echoed by both contemporary and past Islamic scholars, including Ibn Taymiyya (died 1328), Al-Maziri (died 1141), and Al-Juwayni (died 1085). Amin Ahsan Islahi praised the scientific arrangement of the narrations in Sahih Muslim. He also praised Muslim's particularity in highlighting differences in wording between two narrations, even when it came to a single letter that held no semantic significance, or if they differed about any facts relating to a narrator in the Hadith studies. Mabadi Tadabbur-i-Hadith, Amin Ahsan Islahi, 1989
Despite the book's reputation and the consensus of scholars that it is the second most authentic collection of hadith after Sahih al-Bukhari, it is agreed upon that this does not mean that every hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari is more valid than every hadith in Sahih Muslim, but that the total of what is contained in Sahih al-Bukhari is more valid than the total of what is contained in Sahih Muslim.
|
|