Ep. 15: Imam Bukhari | Our Models – The Heroes We Want to Be

I’m sure all of you have heard the name of Imam Bukhari. He was a great Imam of hadith and the compiler of the most authentic collections of hadith, or even the most authentic book after the Qur’an. Everyone knows that he was a great scholar and master of hadith and there is no doubt about this – however, what many people do not know is that he was born blind. Usually, when someone is born blind, there is not much that anyone can do to treat them, but Imam Bukhari, who had lost his father as a child, had a very pious mother and would make lots of du’a for him. After some years of crying in front of Allah (SWT), she saw Ibrahim (AS) in her dream, and in her dream, he gave her the glad tidings that her son would be cured. When she went to wake him up, she found that Allah (SWT) had restored his eyesight. Then, in a very short amount of time, people found out how gifted he was; he had what was called a photographic memory, where he would read or hear something once and never forget it again. People doubted his expertise and mastery of hadith and his amazing memory that he had become so famous for, so once, while he was in a big gathering, a group of people decided to test his knowledge. In some reports, it is mentioned that he knew 600,000 hadith by heart with their chains of narration. Some reports have mentioned that he knew even more than that. A chain of narration was recited to Imam Bukhari and then the hadith, and he was asked, “What do you say about this?” He replied, “I do not know of this hadith.” The Mufassireen in the crowd were surprised. The group of people said, “We will recite another hadith. Let’s see if you know this one.” The hadith and chain of narration was recited to Imam Bukhari again, and they asked for his thoughts. Again, he replied, “I do not know this one.” A third, fourth, fifth and sixth one was recited like this until ten hadith were recited by the same person and he said to every one of them, “I do not know of these.” Then, another person started reciting hadith, and to each hadith of theirs, he said, “I do not know this.” This went through ten people, each of whom recited ten different hadith with their chains of narration. He said to all one hundred of these hadith, “I do not know of this hadith.”

People started making noise, saying, “Who are you, then? How do you not know these hadith?” Imam Bukhari said, “Let me explain.” He pointed to the first person and said, “You started with this hadith and read it a certain way, but you have confused the order of narrations.” He repeated the correct chain of narration with the hadith and said, “This is the correct hadith.” He then repeated and corrected all of the hadith that was read to him. Like this, he went through all 10 hadith of all of the people. This is when people realized what a great scholar he was.

Imam Bukhari was also a great archer. He almost never missed his target. On one of the occasions while he missed, he fired his arrow and shot it with such force that it missed its target but struck a bridge so hard that the ties of the bridge were broken by the strike of the arrow. Imam Bukhari went on a search for the person who owned the bridge and upon finding him, he said, “I shot an arrow that did damage to your bridge. I must compensate you.” When the man found out who it was, he said, “There is nothing for you to compensate me. I forgive you for the sake of Allah (SWT).” Imam Bukhari insisted that he compensate him. One of the things you will find that is common with the great people of this Ummah is that with a high level of knowledge came a high knowledge of piety and humility. It was not that they were banks with information and their lives were flimsy. One of the reasons why the Sahih Bukhari has so much acceptance is because the amount of diligence that went into it. Before Imam Bukhari wrote any hadith in the book, he took a bath, prayed two rakahs, made istighfar and only then would he decide to write in it. He did this process for every single hadith that is in there. There are some 7,000 hadith in the Sahih Bukhari, and he did this for every single one of them. Normally, you would simply verify the information, but their diligence was an act of worship and was something sacred. When they went into their class, this was also an act of worship, so they took it very seriously. They would focus and there was nothing that would deter them from what the teacher was saying.

A high level of knowledge is only useful if it comes with a high level of piety, and that comes to us when we acquire knowledge with a high level of manners. It is not just about reading and memorizing books – every page and paragraph is checking your closeness to Allah (SWT), and someone who approaches knowledge that way knows that every minute in class with their teacher is a sacred minute. Every class you learn something important, and every day opens up new doors of wisdom and knowledge. Read about these people – these are brief glimpses, but we should read about their lives, how they grew up, how they studied and what their works were. InshaAllah, you will find a connection being created between you and them. The stronger the connection is between you and the people of the past, the more likely it is that you follow in their foosteps. May Allah (SWT) give us tawfiq.