10/12/15
Maaki Masjid
 His Title and Name
 Imam Ḏhahabi mentions that he is:

“the great imam the hafiz the proof the truthful
Abu’l Husayn Muslim ibn Hajjaj ibn Muslim ibn Ward
ibn Kushadh al Qushayri al Naysaburi”.
 He was ascribed to Banu Qushayr
 Banu Qushayr was one of the know tribes of the Arabs who later
settled in the Persian lands, and we find in the biographical
works that Imam Muslim was a Mawla to this tribe.
 The meaning of this could be any of three:
 ·
It could mean that there was allegiance to the Banu
Qushayr – Wala
 ·
Or that one of Imam Muslims ancestors accepted Islam at
the hands of Banū Qushayr
 ·
Or that in the ancestral line an individual had become a
freed slave and thus still had allegiance to Banu Qushayr.

.
 He was born in 204H
 However on closer examination of the text of Siyar
a’lam an-nubala one is left with the impression that
there was some doubt with regards to the exact birth
of Imam Muslim.
 There are four opinions- that being he was born either
in 201/202/203/204 H. There seems to be consensus on
the fact that the Imam was born after 200H
 In the three works namely the Siyar, Tadhkirat al
Huffāẓ and Thadhib al Kamal we find pages dedicated
to the teachers and students of Imam Muslim, mainly
in list form
 His most celebrated teachers include Bukhari, Ahmad
bin Hanbal and Yayha bin Ma’een
 Maakah
 ·
He heard from Imam Qanabi- the famous
narrator of the Muwatta, and one of the greatest
teachers of Imam Muslim
 ·
Saeed bin Mansur

 Madinah
 ·
 ·
Abi Musab al Zhuri
Ismaeel bin abi Uwais
 Basra
 ·
He also heard from Qanabi when he resided in
Basra
 ·
Naysaburi
 ·
Isaac bin Rahawayh
 Kufa
 ·
 ·
 ·
Ahmad bin Yunus
Umar bin Hafs bin Giyaath
Saaed bin Muhammad bin Saeed al jazmi
 His students are numerous but the most celebrated include
 Abu Hatim Razi,
 Abu Esa at Tirmidhi
 and Ibn Khuzaymah.
 An interesting point that seems to be highlighted by both Imam
Dhahabi and Imam Mizzi in their respective works is that Imam
Tirmidhi only narrated one hadith from Imam Muslim in his
Jami.
 This is particularly interesting considering the praise that Imam
Tirmidhi has for Bukhari and vice versa, and this is born out in
the fact that Tirmidhi in his Jami narrates from Bukhari 114
times.
 There seems to be some discussion and indeed some
disagreement about the fiqh of Muslim and
particularly with which school of fiqh he followed.
Allamah Mubarakfuri in his introduction to the
commentary of Tirmidhi has summarize it well by
explaining that scholars like Bukhari, Muslim ,
Tirmidhi, Nasai and Ibn Majah did not follow one of
the 4 schools of jurisprudence , instead they were
regarded as ‘followers of the sunnah… and those that
acted upon it’, they were mujthid imams.
 He was regarded as a master of the principles of the
science, described as being Thiqah from the many
huffaz of hadith such as Hatim al Razi and Khatib
Bhagdhai , who regarded him as one of the leading
imams from the huffaz of hadith.
 Dhaahbi records in his Siyaar the saying of ibn
Bashaar who regarded Muslim not only as he leading
imam of hadith but also an imam of the entire deen.
 He died in the month of Rajab in the year 261 H with five days
remaining in the month in Nisahpur.
 Shaykh Eithiopi records the incident surrounding the death of
Muslim with a chain of narration to Khatib Baghdadi. He records
that Muslim had been in a discussion with regards to hadith in a
gathering but he was not aware of the hadith mentioned, so he
confined himself to his house and gave instructions not to be
disturbed.
 He spent the night search for he hadith and continued to eat
dates in the process until the morning at which point the dates
had finished- but he had found the hadith. Baghdadi mentions
from a Ziyaad Thiqh narration that he became ill from that and
died.
 Usool Hadith
 Interesting that Dhahbai in his Siyaar does not record
this at all .We do find it in works such as Thahdib
Kamal.
 One can argue it is far-fetched to attribute a direct
cause to Muslim death from simply eating dates! It
seems to be clear that soon after he became ill and this
illness resulted in him passing onto the next life.
 The book is popularly known as Saheeh Muslim,
however according to the Firhist of Ishbili (d 575H )
the saheeh’s full and proper name is:[1]
 Al Musnad Al saheeh al Muktasar min Sunnani bi naql
al adl an adl an rasulallah
 Imam Muslim himself described the reason of compilation in
the foreword of the book namely that student (s) wished to
acquire the teachings of hadith regarding the fundamentals of
religion, practices, reward and punishment etc- so they
expressed his desire to Imam Muslim and requested him to
compile a book that contains all these things without repetitions.
 Also it is clear that, Imam Muslim was grieved at seeing people
and especially those who claimed to be scholars not
differentiating between true/ false traditions and weak
narrations. So, Imam Muslim started this work and completed it
in a span of fifteen years[2].
 It is mention in Siyar that Muslim said his Musnad saheeh has
been compiled from a selection of 300000 hadith, after taking
into account the repeat narrations the book itself has 3000
hadith.
 Reason for compilation
 Narrating from trustworthy narrators
 Lying against the messenger of Allah
 Prohibition of narrating everything that one hears
 Isnaad and principles of Jarh and Tadeel
 Mu’an’an hadith and status
 Muslims Saheeh is considered in rank the most
authentic book of hadith after Bukhari’s saheeh.
 However as Ibn salah points out in his Muqqidimah
some scholars of the Magrib regarded Muslims Saheeh
as being higher in rank than even Bukhari’s Saheeh.
 Often we find quoted the statement of Hakim
Nisaburi:
 “There is no book on earth sounder than the book of
Muslim b Hajjaj”.
 1 Mentions hadith in the appropriate place, and at the same time




brings hadith with different chains of the same hadith, and the
different wordings that occur. Thus it is easy to find in one place
different chains and wordings of one hadith.
2 Muslim differentiates between narrations with the terminology
hadathana and akhbarana indicating his particular attention and
accuracy in reporting the hadith.
3 he is particular in drawing attention to differences in the
wording of hadith- being precise with the wording of the hadith
4 he exercises caution with regards to the narrators sometimes
he did not hear the name of the narrators and their lineages from
his teachers, he thus explains this and highlights this –so it is
clear that this extra information is an addition from himself.
5 he has sufficed with marfu hadith, with maquf hadith being
rare
 Mutabaah narrations Vs Shaahid
 Ziyaad Thiqaah.
 Different wordings of hadith
 Lafzi vs Manawi
 Hadith as individual bits of data
 Hadith as data representing the Sunnah
 Other forms of evidence that represent the Sunnah