Maintenance of the two Sahihs

Research and dictation on the tracking book

Author's name: Al-Hafiz Abu Al-Hasan Al-Dar Quzni

His Eminence the Sheikh dictated his comments

Yasser bin Muhammad Fathman Al Eid

He prepared his research, extracted his hadiths, and wrote his introduction.

Muhammad ibn Abdullah ibn Muhammad al-Hamdan

Dictator's Introduction

All praise is due to Allah. We praise Him, seek His aid, and ask for His forgiveness. We seek refuge in Allah from the evils of our own souls and the wickedness of our deeds. Whomsoever Allah guides, none can misguide, and whomsoever He misguides, none can guide. I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, alone, without partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger.

Now then, the most authentic books of the Muslims after the Book of Allah are the two Sahihs: Sahih al-Bukhari, then Sahih Muslim. This is because they collected the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, the most truthful in report, the most established in narration, the most sound in terms of illness and the furthest from weakness, and the most deserving of acceptance. And likewise, the scholars of the Muslims, all of them, accepted them and acted upon what was in them, and Allah made…

They are accepted by all Muslims. And the Hafiz Abu al-Hasan al-Daraqutni, may God be pleased with him, wrote things that followed them in it, such as the form of the tracker, which is in two parts: “Al-Ilzamat” and “Al-Tataba’.” As for Al-Ilzamat, they are hadiths that al-Daraqutni saw the two sheikhs leave out, and they were…

According to their condition, in his opinion, so he obliged them to extract it, and this is easy to do. As for the follow-up, they are hadiths that were extracted by the two sheikhs or one of them, and Al-Daraqutni sees them as defective hadiths, so he followed them in extracting them and followed them hadith by hadith, and this is the subject of this book.

Abu al-Walid al-Baji said: “… Rather, there may be authentic hadiths that are not in the Sahihs of al-Bukhari and Muslim. For this reason, Sheikh Abu al-Hasan al-Daraqutni and Sheikh Abu Dharr al-Harawi excluded from the authentic hadiths in their book “Al-Ilzamat” what they were obligated to extract. And just as what was found in the two books contained errors, Sheikh Abu al-Hasan al-Daraqutni extracted that and compiled it in one volume, and that is according to ijtihad. So whoever is among the people of ijtihad and knowledge of this matter, it is obligatory for him to look into the authenticity and weakness of the hadith in the same way that they looked into it. And whoever is not in that situation, it is obligatory for him to imitate them in what they claimed to be authentic.” (1)

When I was studying the two Sahihs, I presented to our Sheikh, Sheikh Yasser bin Muhammad Fathi Al Eid, Al Darqutni’s comments on tracking, and I gathered for him what was available of the chains of transmission and narrations. He dictated to me comments that I recorded, until I gathered what you see, praise be to God. The beginning of these sessions was in the month of Shawwal of the year 1436 AH and their conclusion was in the month of Rabi’ al-Awwal of the year 1443 AH, with an interruption during that time that lasted for a year and a bit.

The majority of these sessions were attended by: His Eminence Sheikh Suleiman bin Abdullah Suleiman Al Mahna, and His Eminence Sheikh Ibrahim bin Muhammad bin Saad Al Muhaizea, and they are referred to by: “Suleiman said and Ibrahim said.”

Our Sheikh called it: “The Preservation of the Two Sahihs.” God willing, it is an elevation of the Two Sahihs, without flattery, and a fairness to Al-Darqutni, without injustice.

We seek help from God, and with His power we respond, and to Him we seek guidance to what is right, and there is no power or strength except with God.

The methodology of this book:

I - with the help of God - interpret Al-Daraqutni’s words for God and clarify the meaning of what he intended.

Then I look in the rest of his books, such as Al-Ilal, Al-Sunan, Al-Ghara’ib, Al-Afrad, and the section on the causes of hadiths in Al-Bukhari, and others, and I bring what supports what he said in Al-Tabtab, or what contradicts it. Then I mention the actions of the two sheikhs, and how they transmitted that hadith, one of them or both of them. Then I collect the narrations of the hadith that are the subject of the investigation, as much as possible, and the intention was not from

The collection of narrations is an exhaustive examination of them and a mention of all the defects that occurred in them. The intention is to collect what is related to the defects mentioned by Al-Daraqutni and to limit myself to presenting what is related to his words. Then I collect the words of the scholars of hadith, those among them who agreed with the two sheikhs, or one of them, and those who agreed with Al-Daraqutni.

Then I presented all of that to our Sheikh, Sheikh Yasser, and when I had finished that, he would dictate to me spontaneously. He would sometimes think carefully until he came up with what he wanted, and he would sometimes ask me to repeat something until he memorized it, then he would keep repeating it until he mastered it. When he had grasped it, he would quote and issue and come up with what would satisfy. May God reward him with good and benefit from his knowledge. See, for example: Hadith (145). This is one aspect of his comments, and another aspect is that he would refer me to his book, “The Virtue of the Most Merciful and the Loving, the Graduation of the Sunan of Abu Dawud,” or another of his books, so I would quote from it, or shorten and summarize it.

I swear to God, when he has finished his speech, I ask him about what is unclear to me, and perhaps Sheikh Suleiman Al-Mahna or Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Muhaizea asked him, and he confirmed that.

I have followed an unusual method in classifying the narrations. If I say in the text of the book: “Narrated by so-and-so,” I say in the footnote: “Narrated by so-and-so [Narrated by al-Bukhari…] and so-and-so [Narrated by Muslim…] and so-and-so [Narrated by Abu Dawud…]” Thus, I trace the narrators from the narrator mentioned in the text and base the classification on that. The reason for that is that I used to classify according to the usual method, so I would say: “Narrated by al-Bukhari, Muslim, and Abu Dawud…” Then Sheikh Yasir would ask me: “Who narrated it from him?” Or he would ask me: “From whose chain of transmission did al-Bukhari transmit it?” Sometimes he would say: “Who transmitted it from the chain of transmission of so-and-so?” And things like that. When that happened frequently, I adopted this method of classifying the narrations. Then when the book was finished, it became too difficult for me to edit it, so I decided to leave it as it is. And Allah is the source of help.