Was Imām al-Bukhārī (RA) a Mudallis?
Source: Fatāwā Aminpuri by Shaykh Ghulam Mustafa Zaheer Aminpuri
Question
Was Imām al-Bukhārī (RA) a mudallis (one who practices tadlīs)?
Answer
✿ Imām al-Bukhārī (RA) was not a mudallis.
❀ ʿAllāmah al-ʿAynī al-Ḥanafī (RA) (d. 855 AH) wrote:
استبعد هذا.
“To declare Imām al-Bukhārī (RA) a mudallis is far-fetched.”
(ʿUmdat al-Qārī 23/65)
❀ Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar (RA) (d. 852 AH) said:
“If it is said: this implies that Imām al-Bukhārī was a mudallis, then know that no one has described him as such except Abū ʿAbd Allāh Ibn Mandah, and his statement is rejected.
It does not follow from this practice that al-Bukhārī is to be labeled a mudallis, because we have already explained the reasons why he did not explicitly mention hearing (taḥdīth) in the suspended (muʿallaq) narrations. He did not place them in the main body of his Ṣaḥīḥ. For him, it made no difference whether the suspended narration was from his own shaykh or the shaykh of his shaykh, whether he heard it directly or through an intermediary.
Moreover, in the terminology of the early scholars, the word ‘ʿan’ was taken to imply hearing before the appearance of the mudallīsīn, as was the word ‘qāla’. The word ‘ʿan’ was not yet established as a technical term for tadlīs. Thus, the usage of ‘ʿan’ by al-Bukhārī does not necessitate that he be considered a mudallis. Al-Khaṭīb (al-Baghdādī) explicitly stated that the word ‘qāla’ is not carried upon hearing unless it is known from a narrator’s habit that he only used it when narrating what he had actually heard.”
(Taghlīq al-Taʿlīq 2/9)
ھذا ما عندي والله أعلم بالصواب
