Kutub al-Sittah

"Six Books" redirects here; not to be confused with Six Arts.

Kutub al-Sittah (Arabic: ٱلْكُتُب ٱلسِّتَّة, romanized: al-Kutub al-Sitta, lit. 'the Six Books'), also known as al-Sihah al-Sitta (Arabic: الصحاح الستة, romanized: al-Ṣiḥāḥ al-Sitta, lit. 'the Authentic Six') or The Six Books are the six canonical hadith collections of Sunni Islam. They were all compiled in the 9th and early 10th centuries, roughly from 840 to 912 CE and are thought to embody the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad.

The books are the Sahih of al-Bukhari (d. 870), the Sahih of Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj (d. 875), the Sunan of al-Nasa'i (d. 915), the Sunan of Abu Dawud (d. 889), the Sunan of al-Tirmidhi (d. 892), and the Sunan of Ibn Majah (d. 887 or 889) as the sixth book, though some (particularly the Malikis and Ibn al-Athir) instead list the Muwatta of Malik ibn Anas (d. 795) as the sixth book, and other scholars list Sunan of al-Daraqutni (d. 995) as the sixth book. Sunan ibn Majah largely won out as the sixth canonical book because its content has less overlap with the other five compared with its two contenders.

The two pre-eminent works among the Six, the collections of al-Bukhari and Muslim (also the only two compilations which aimed to only include 'authenticated' hadith), are known as the Sahihayn. They were the first to be canonized over the course of the tenth century. Outside of them, little research has been done in modern hadith studies on the other books of the Six.

Names

Each of the books (kutub, sing. kitāb) of hadith are typically referred to as a "Sunan" or a "Sahih". Some books have been referred to by both; for example, while the compilation of al-Tirmidhi is typically referred to as "Sunan al-Tirmidhi", some have also referred to it as the "Sahih" of Tirmidhi. The term "Sunan" refers to the Islamic concept of Sunnah, which describes the traditions and practices of Muhammad, the final prophet of the religion whose example believers are meant to follow. Hadith in a "Sunan" describe traditions that help understand and continue transmitting the practices of the Sunnah. The prefix "Sahih", meaning "Sound", is used to refer to a collection of hadith whose traditions are considered "sound" (which is to say "authenticated" according to the criteria of traditional hadith studies). With less frequency, some of these works may be referred to as a Jami (jāmiʿ), meaning "comprehensive book". This is because some of these collections, like al-Tirmidhi's Sunan, contain hadith relating both to the Sunnah of Muhammad and to other topics as well.

Canonization

The ultimate canonization process of the Kutub al-Sittah was not one that occurred as the result of the decision of a committee, like in the determination of the biblical canon in Christianity. Instead, it began with the gradual emergence of canonical recognition of the Sahihayn (the sahih of Bukhari and Muslim) over the course of the 10th century, largely at the behest of scholars of the Shafi'i school of jurisprudence, as various genres of literature began to emerge around these two texts. Over the next few centuries, recognition gradually extended to the other canonical books as well. Authorities, in making legal arguments, gradually ceased citing hadith from their personal narrations or learning and instead increasingly came to rely on hadith documented in pre-recognized collections. They were first formally grouped and defined by Ibn al-Qaisarani in the 11th century, who added Sunan ibn Majah to the list. They were treated as a unit for the first time by Muḥammad ibn Ṭāhir al‐Maqdisi (d. 1113).

Order of significance

The six books

Sunni Muslims view the six major hadith collections as their most important, though the order of authenticity varies between madhhabs:

1. Sahih al-Bukhari, collected by Imam Bukhari (died 256 AH, 870 CE), includes^α 7,563 ahadith (including repetitions, around 2,600 without repetitions)
2. Sahih Muslim, collected by Muslim b. al-Hajjaj (died 261 AH, 875 CE), includes 7,500 ahadith (including repetitions, around 3,033 without repetitions)
3. Al-Sunan al-Sughra (or Sunan al-Nasa'i), collected by al-Nasa'i (died 303 AH, 915 CE), includes 5,758 ahadith (including repetitions)
4. Sunan Abi Dawud, collected by Abu Dawood (died 275 AH, 888 CE), includes 5,274 ahadith (including repetitions)
5. Sunan al-Tirmidhi, collected by al-Tirmidhi (died 279 AH, 892 CE), includes 4,400 ahadith (including repetitions, only 83 are repeated)
6. Sunan ibn Majah, collected by Ibn Majah (died 273 AH, 887 CE), includes 4,341 ahadith (including repetitions)

The first two, commonly referred to as the Two Sahihs (or the Sahihayn) as an indication of their authenticity, contain approximately seven thousand hadiths altogether if repetitions are not counted, according to Ibn Hajar.^α

Among a minority of Muslim scholars, Sahih Muslim is placed above Sahih al-Bukhari. In addition, many scholars believe that the criteria used by Al-Nasa'i are, theoretically, the most sound. However, he is ranked below the Sahihayn due to his inclusion of some weak hadith.

Hadith in the six books

In the 12th century, Al‐Mayyānishī offered the following ranking of the reliability of hadith especially focusing on the two most reputed collections, those of al-Bukhari and Muslim:

1. The most reliable were hadith found in both the collections of al-Bukhari and Muslim.
2. Next are hadith found in only one collection but not the other.
3. Third are hadith which would meet the criteria of these authors but were not included in their collections.
4. Finally are hadith which have a sound chain of narration, but would not meet the criteria of these authors.

Supplementary works

A number of Islamic scholars have sought to produce additional collections to supplement the six canonical hadith collections with additional useful and/or sound hadith. Many hadith in larger and important works, for example the Musnad of Ahmad ibn Hanbal, are not found in the six (along with works of Tabarani, Abu Ya'la, and Bazzar). For this reason, Nur al-Din al-Haythami produced, in the 14th century, a work known as the Majmaʿ al‐zawāʾid. This work collected together, in a single composition, the hadith found in these other notable works but are absent from the Six, alongside a judgement on the reliability of each one. Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani in the 15th century produced the Fath al-Bari, a commentary on Sahih al-Bukhari that also adds many other hadith related to the topics that al-Bukhari discusses not found in his collection. Ibn Hajar only includes hadith which are at least ḥasan ("good", which is below "sound" but above "weak" in judgement on authentication).

See also

• Al-Jami al-Kamil
• Alqamah ibn Waqqas
• Isnad-cum-matn analysis
• The Four Books
• List of hadith books

References

Notes

^α Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim contain many of the same Hadith with different chains, and Bukhari in particular also simply repeats the same Hadith with the same chain in multiple chapters. There is disagreement on the amount of unique hadith in the collections due to the disagreements over what Hadith to include as a repeat (chain/text variations) and whether to include same chain repeats in the total number etc.

Sources

• Abdul-Jabbar, Ghassan (2020). "Dating". In Brown, Daniel (ed.). The Wiley Blackwell Concise Companion to the Hadith. Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 137–158.
• Abdul-Jabbar, Ghassan (2020b). "The Classical Tradition". In Brown, Daniel (ed.). The Wiley Blackwell Concise Companion to the Hadith. Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 15–38.
• Brown, Jonathan (2007). The Canonization of al-Bukhārī and Muslim. Brill.
• Burge, Stephen R. (2023). "Compilation Criticism: Exploring Overarching Structures in the Six Books". In Gharaibeh, Mohammad (ed.). Beyond Authenticity, Alternative Approaches to Hadith Narrations and Collections. Brill. pp. 20–59.
• Gharaibeh, Mohammad (2021). "Intertextuality between History and Hadith Studies: The Mūqiẓah fī ʿilm muṣṭalaḥ al-ḥadīth in the Center of al-Dhahabī's (d. 748/1348) work". Studies on the History and Culture of the Mamluk Sultanate (1250–1517). Bonn University Press. pp. 263–297.