Imam Bukhari’s Memory

Posted by Hamza Isa | Posted in Biography | Posted on 17-04-2007

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There are a great number of teachers from whom Imam Bukhari (ra) gained his knowledge. It is reported that the Imam has heard traditions from 1080 different people, all of whom were great Scholars.

The Scholars who taught the Imam were the likes of Muhammad Ibn Salam and Muhammad Ibn Yusuf Baikandi, Abdullah Ibn Muhammad Musnadi, Ibrahim Ibn Ash’ath and even Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal (ra). However, he had mostly benefited from Ishaaq Ibn Rahway and Ali Ibn Madeeni (ra).

Many stories have been told regarding the Imam’s remarkable memory and many considered his memory to be inhuman! The Imam was able to repeat a hadith immediately after it was recited to him.

During his student years, whilst visiting Baghdad, he had memorized 15,000 traditions in sixteen days. There is another spectacular incident that also took place in Baghdad when the Imam had taken up temporary residence there. People had heard about the Imam’s extraordinary memory and so they decided to test him to see if the Imam was worthy of the attributes that were being issued to him.

One hundred different hadith were chosen that had their chains of narration and text slightly altered. Those people who wished to test Imam Bukhari’s memory and mastery of Hadith gathered together within a very large crowd to hear the Imam teach some hadith. These altered hadith were to be recited to Imam Bukhari by ten people. By now, a crowd had gathered to witness the outcome of this deliberate test. One by one, each altered tradition was recited. The Imam remarked at the end of each recital:

“Not of my knowledge, I have never heard of such a hadith.”

After all the traditions had been presented, the Imam demonstrated the power of his memory by not only correcting the chains of narration and text of each tradition in order, Imam Bukhari also relayed back to each to the ten people their erroneous chain of narration that they had recited to him, correctly and in the same order that was narrated to him.

Subhanallah!