1. SUMMARY OVERVIEW

PREFACE (§1–3; 1–3)
The opening supplication is followed by a statement of author intent. Ibn Taymiyya aims, in response to a request to do so, to explain the basics of how to understand the Qur|~n. The relevant knowledge includes, on the one hand, what has been transmitted from the Prophet, the salaf and others and, on the other, what has been derived by reasoning. In both cases, some of the material is fit for purpose and some not, and criteria are needed to distinguish which is which. Every text requires that its meanings be under¬stood, the more so for the Qur|~n: it is not enough just to revere and recite it. For believers, felicity in this life and the next depends upon how conscientiously they strive to understand and live by it.
SECTION(§4–14; 3–5:
THE OBLIGATION TO UNDERSTAND THE QUR|>N)
The Prophet’s mission to convey the words of the Qur|~n included making its meaningplain to all. (This implies that the Book is not an esoteric text disclosed privately to a chosen few but a revelation intended to be intelligible and public). The Com¬pan¬ions laboured intently for years to ‘preserve’ the Qur|~n, verse by verse. This labour entailed, along with the technical skills of memorization and recitation, the practical competence to act in harmony with the guidance of the Qur|~n. In their discourse on tafs‚r they had recourse to reasoned derivations and inferences, just as they did in their effort to implement the precepts and imitate the practice of the Prophet (the Sunna).
SECTION(§15–53; 6–21:
TAFS…R THAT EXPLAINS WORDS AND MEANING)
(§15–24) Most of the differences found in the tafs‚r transmitted from the salafare variantinterpreta¬tions that areconcordant, not conflicting. For unfamiliar words or proper names the salaf proposed near-equivalents that make the context accessible and indeed enlarge understanding of the several attributes and aspects of what is named (identified) in the text.
(§25–28) For familiar words and expressions, they gave simple, prac¬tical examples which describe or suggest various ways that someone who understands those expressions would act. For both the familiar and unfamiliar elements of the Qur|~nic text, they avoided formal definitions that restrict meaning. (The implication is that they did not treat the words of the Qur|~n as technical terms.)
(§29¬–37) Ibn Taymiyya views the historical occasions linked with particular Qur|~n verses (asb~b al-nuzƒl) as another form of illustrative example, enabling believers to situate the revelation (whether it is conveying commands, exhortations or information) more concretely, and thereby better understand it as guidance.
(§38–41) Instances of conflict in the tafs‚r of the salaf occur where a word has two (or more) meanings that fit the context. Here Ibn Taymiyya concedes that the different explanations they propose are not necessarily concordant, nor all of them equally permissible.
(§42–49) Among the near-equivalents proposed in the tafs‚r of the salaf, one can distinguish those that are more or less accu¬rate in their grasp of the words and structures of the Qur|~nic text. Ibn Taymiyya gives several examples of this, notably of misreading of the device of ta‡m‚n. However, in such cases it is the precise feel or force of the wording that is disagreed about, not its sense as far as actionable guidance is concerned.
(§50–52) That issue arises where the Qur|~nic text does not in itself indicate the solution to a practical problem, and there is no ruling on it from the Prophet. The example given is how (or if) to determine shares of inheritance in the unusual case of both a grandfather and brothers surviving the deceased ¬– a situation that did not arise in the Prophet’s lifetime. It is on such marginal issuesthat, for want of evidence to decide the matter, the salaf disagreed on the solution.
SECTION (§53–90; 21–32:
TAFS…R RELIANT ON TRANSMITTED MATERIAL)

§53–54 The transmitted material (on which we rely for knowl¬edge of the tafs‚r of the salaf)is either such that we can determine if it is true, or such that we cannot determine that. For what the Muslims need to guide their religious life, there is a sufficient supply of what we can be sure is true.
§55–61 Information that helps us identify names, places and incidents in the Qur|~nic narratives is not open to reason: one must have a reliable source for it or be content with not-knowing, Some information derives from the People of the Book, and the Prophet cautioned his Companions to hear and reflect on their traditions without reporting them as true or false. In light of that caution, reports from the People of the Book coming from the Compan¬ions are safer than those from the Followers (who did not hear the Prophet’s caution directly from him).
§62–66 Traditions about the Prophets are sometimes sup¬plied with sources, sometimes not. Out of this material, for what is relevant to the religious life, there is evidence to decide between the sound and unsound. The literature on tafs‚r and on the military expeditions often contains material that is not sourced, or the sources are not properly connected.The people most knowledge¬able about tafs‚r were (to begin with) mostly in Makka, about the expeditions those in Mad‚na, and about dealings with non-Muslims those in Syria.
§67–75 If (a) different reports about the same matter have reached us by different routes, and if (b) there is no evidence of collusion or deliberate falsehood on the part of the narrators, and if (c) the reports are appropriate to the matter being reported, then, overall, they are surely true. The point is to consider them together: a flaw in the chain of sources for one of them, or one of its narrators being known to have a weakness, or conflict on points of detail, especially in the extended ˆad‚ths with compli¬cated matter, do not invalidate the reports overall. However, in such reports, the minute detail of wording or of incident cannot be regarded as confirmed true. It is important to recognize the quality of the Companions on whom their students (Followers) and we rely for knowledge of the Prophet’s teaching. ¬It is incon¬ceivable that such people could intend falsehood against the Prophet – at most we need to allow for slips in memory. Then, among the Followers and their students, there were many ˆad‚thexperts renowned for capacious and flawless memory and for rigorous scholarly habits.
(§76–82) Given the divergence on detail of incident or wording in the transmitted material, it is important to await the consensus of ‘the people of knowledge’ among the Muslims as to what is relied and acted upon. Since the Prophet assured his followers that they would never agree upon an error, the status of a report as true or otherwise is securely established by the consensus of those expert in the sciences of ˆad‚th.The conditions (as above) for acceptability of a text are further tested by the scholars’ critique of the qualities of the narrators through whom the text reaches us. Some weak narrators’ reports may still be useful as secondary references to cross-check other reports; on the other hand, details within reliable narrators’ reports may be wrong when compared with the reports of other equally reliable narrators.
(§83–90) Some people (notably speculative theologians) are quite ignorant of the ˆad‚thsciences and then reject sound and unsound reports indiscriminately. The opposite tendency is those who see a ˆad‚th with a chain of references and take it as sound, regardless of the scholarship about it, and then contrive the silliest interpretations to justify it. Some books of tafs‚r are loaded with reports that are, by consensus of the ˆad‚thexperts, known to be fabrications: of many examples of these, the commonest are those narrated on the ‘merits’ of certain sƒras of the Qur|~n. Ibn Taymiyya names some of the authors of such tafs‚rs.
SECTION (§91–121; 33–43:
TAFS…R RELIANT ON MERE REASONING)

(§91–104) The salaf necessarily used reason in order to explain, understand and imple¬ment the Qur|~n, but they did so within the boundaries of a framework secured in the methods and manners taught by the Prophet. Among later generations some scholars strive to do tafs‚rwithin those boundaries. Others use their reason in ways that disdain those boundaries. One way is that they work out ideas and doctrines and then they drag these into the words of the Qur|~n, disregarding the plain import of those words. Another way is that they focus on the meaning of the words without concern for what is appropriate to their context, for who is speaking them and who is being addressed. In both cases, they introduce into their tafs‚r the errors in their doctrines (for which they are seeking Qur|~nic authority), and the errors in their understanding of words. Even if sometimes their ideas are agreeable there is no evidence for them in the Qur|~n. More often, they err in both the evidence and the propositions they base upon it. Ibn Taymiyya mentions some early sects among the Muslims who did this, especially the Mu`tazila, and how they (as sects always do) compounded and complicated their errors with inter-sectarian wrangling. This only multiplied the inconsistencies in the tafs‚rsthat follow this way.
(§105–116) The falsity of these tafs‚rs is plainly evident from their doctrines (which conflict with the con¬sensus among the salaf) and from their rejoinders to rebuttals of their doctrines. Those with a special (philological or rhetorical) talent were able to sneak their doctrines into their tafs‚r in ways difficult for some to detect. The resulting misguidance paved the way for the philoso¬phers and more extreme sects like the Qar~mi‚s and the Im~m‚ R~fi‡‚s. Tafs‚r degenerated to the point that the words of the Qur|~n were treated as a cipher to be decoded. Thus, the verses (of Q. al-T‚n, 95:1–3), By the fig, and the olive, and Mount Sinai, and this land made secure,were said to ‘mean’, respectively, the Companions AbƒBakr, `Umar, `Uthm~n and `Al‚. Ibn Tay¬miyya explains this and other absurdities. Such tafs‚rs, in rejecting the waysof the salaf for the sake of doctrines not supported by the consensus of the Muslims, are innovating (i.e. making up the religion as they see fit) even if, insofar as their authors were striving for truth, their ‘errors are […] forgiven’.
(§117–121) Ibn Taymiyya recapitulates the argument and reaches to the core reason for respecting the tafs‚r of the Com¬panions: they ‘were more knowledgeable of the truth with which God sent His Messenger’. Once that historical connection weakened or was lost altogether, tafs‚r scholarship (as also scholarship on Prophetic ˆad‚th), stooped to using fabricated material to legitimize doctrines (and practices) with no anchorage in the period of revelation. Even if pious preachers, Sufis and others had the best intentions, they used false evidence for even their good teachings, and those teachings were sometimes mixed with false, innovated doctrines. The need, then, is to clarify and affirm the right ways of doing tafs‚r.
SECTION (§122–139; 44–49:
THE RIGHT WAYS TO DO TAFS…R)
(§122–24) TheQur|~n is best explained by itself: what is summarily mentioned in one place is detailed in another, what is general in one context is particularized in another. If that does not suffice, it is obligatory to turn to the Sunna.The Prophet’s teaching and his judgements have, on the authority of the Qur|~n, the binding authority of revelation, albeit a revelation that is not recited.
(§124–132) Thereafter, one looks to contemporaries of the reve¬la¬tion, the Companions, who ‘witnessed the Qur|~n’ and the nuances of its implementation, especially the scholars and im~ms among them, like the first four caliphs and Ibn Mas`ƒd, Ibn `Abb~s and others. (If the Companions have consensus on an explanation, their consensus has binding authority, not otherwise.)

(§133–139) Some Companions, with the caution commanded by the Prophet, gathered knowledge from the People of the Book. Some of this knowledge can be affirmed as true or false; about most of it – disputed among the People of the Book themselves – nothing needs to be said: it has no bearing on our religious life. The disagreement arising from this knowledge concerns only identification of minor details in some of the narratives in the Qur|~n. The proper manners about this are taught in the Qur|~n (al-Kahf, 18:22) – accept what God has made known as known; do not spend time guessing at the unknown. It is best to gather all the sayings on such issues and quickly determine what (if any) benefit there is in discussing them so that one can move on to more important matters. Failure to look at all the sayings on such issues leads to declaring something as true that is not so, and intensifies discourse on matters that are of no benefit.
SECTION (§140–147; 49¬–51:
TAFS…R OF THE FOLLOWERS (T>BI`†N))
When the tafs‚r of the Qur|~n by the Qur|~n and Sunna and by the Companions does not suffice, reference is to the sayings of the Followers, like Muj~hid b. Jabr and others, who spent their lives as students of the Companions. To the undiscerning, their explanatory expressions may appear dissonant, but it is not so. Some of them explain a matter by what it entails, some by a parallel expression, some by stipulating a particular instance of it, but in many contexts all of them point to the one-same meaning. Where they agree, their consensus constitutes a proof. Where they do not, the saying of one is not decisive against that of another. In that event, one has recourse to the language of the Qur|~n or of the Sunna or the general meanings of the Arabic, or the sayings of the Companions.
[SECTION] (§148–175; 51–56:
TAFS…R BY PERSONAL VIEWPOINT)
Citing a Prophetic ˆad‚th (recorded as ghar‚b by al-Tirmidh‚), Ibn Taymiyya describes explaining the Qur|~n by personal view¬point (that is, without any basis in knowledge of the tafs‚r of the salaf) as ˆar~m. According to the ˆad‚th, even if one who does this turns out to be right in his explanation of the Qur|~n, ‘he has erred’. A large number of Companion reports (recorded as ‰aˆ‚ˆ in many compila¬tions) are cited to demonstrate that some of them considered doing this equivalent to narrating on the authority of God. When asked about what they did not have knowledge of, they would turn away without answering or with a severe warning. There is an obligation to be silent, just as there is an obligation not to withhold knowledge of the religion if one has it. Thus, the salaf ‘spoke on what they knew about, and they were silent as to what they were ignorant of’. By way of final summary, Ibn Taymiyya quotes Ibn `Abb~s saying that in tafs‚rthere is what every believer must know – ignorance of it is not excused; what the Arabs know by virtue of knowing Arabic; what the scholars know; and what is not known except to God.

What follows is an extract from a draft of the Preface to our forthcoming study of Ibn Taymiyya’s Muqaddima f‚ U‰ƒl al-tafs‚r. (Users of this document are reminded that this is a draft and may be considerably changed in the published version.)

Ibn Taymiyya’s Muqaddima f‚ u‰ƒl al-tafs‚r is a summary guide for believers who want to understand the Qur’an well enough to live by it. It is not a guide to the established literary types of tafs‚r, whose concerns range from justifying theological or philosophical doctrines, elaborating on the Book’s literary merits, arousing awe or other religious moods, to sifting and straining its words to distil legal rulings. Some part of it might be useful to young college students of Ibn Taymiyya’s time as ‘a survey of the field’, to help them pick their way through the kinds of tafs‚rs that a good college library would keep on its shelves. But neither the argument nor the structure of the Muqaddima is suited to that purpose. It is clearly addressed to the believers’ need to close the gaps between what they think they know and what they really understand, and between what they really do understand and how they actually live. For that reason, it has been treated, both negatively and positively, as a sort of blind faith exercise, stubbornly insistent on a narrowly Sunni orthodoxy, and refusing intelligent, nuanced (i.e., spiritually arty) encounter with the text of the Qur’an and its difficulties. This fits with the caricature of Ibn Taymiyya as a champion of a militant ‘radical’ Islam or, in the categories of Western scholarship, a ‘fideist’ and ‘literalist’. Since the 1990s, this carica¬ture has gradually become discredited ¬– largely due to the careful presentation of the Shaykh’s works by Yahya Michot and a handful of other scholars who have followed him in reading Ibn Taymiyya with the honest, patient attention that his own scrupulously honest thinking deserves.
The Muqaddima is a fairly short treatise, written out or dictated near the end of Ibn Taymiyya’s life, probably during his final imprisonment. The Shaykh states in his preface that he composed it at the request of ‘one of the brothers’. This implies that it was intended to be read by someone inside or close to his small circle. Allusions to the concerns of his voluminous other writings are unmistakable in the many examples and phrases from them that are ‘recycled’ in this Muqaddima. Among those writings are long, densely reasoned arguments against philosophical and theological pos¬itions that he judged to be harmful to the faith and religious life of Muslims. He could assume that his unnamed reader was familiar with those arguments and agreed with them. This assumption cannot be made for contemporary readers; rather there is a need to discuss rather more than what is directly present in the text of the Muqaddima, if that text is to be properly understood. This additional material has to be restricted to what improves understanding of the Muqaddima’s approach to understanding the Qur’an – otherwise, nothing in the whole life and work of Ibn Taymiyya could be left out since the Qur’an marked everything he thought and did, just as it has marked every feature of Islamic culture and civilisation that is distinctively Islamic. We can distinguish Ibn Taymiyya’s particular interpretations of the Qur’an from his argument as to how it should be interpreted. His interpretations (like anybody else’s) can be tested for their conformity to the approach he commends.
We have identified four background ‘themes’, which need to be explained before we can explain the Shaykh’s principles for explaining the Qur’an. In overview, these four themes are:

Mur~d or ‘speaker meaning’, which is (or should be) the goal of effort to understand and interpret the Qur’an. This concept is central to Ibn Taymiyya’s account of the rela¬tion¬¬ship between words and meaning in language generally, and specifically in the texts of Qur’an and ˆad‚th. Speaker meaning is different from ‘sentence meaning’, i.e. from words understood without reference to what their speaker intended: this is an approach suitable for purely literary (or otherwise professionally technical) texts, but not for the Qur’an (or perhaps any other Scripture). Sentence meaning is distinct from ‘word meaning’, i.e. words understood on their own, separately from any relation with context. Ibn Taymiyya holds that meaning does not inhere in words; rather, it is something that emerges from the connection, in a specific context and situation, between speaker and hearer. He treats words on their own as a special instance of context, which it is useful to reflect on because it enables us to focus more easily on what differentiates one usage from another. Otherwise, he does not accept that words have a ‘proper’ or ‘true’ literal meaning; even if they did, such meaning would have no claim to authority that can override mur~d. He sharply critiques two techniques for by-passing the speaker meaning of the Qur’an: ta|w‚l or interpretation of the sort that, with different excuses, moves away from the directly available sense of the words; and tafw‚d or surrender (i.e., to God) of the effort to understand certain expressions in the Qur’an with the excuse that no-one, not even the Prophet, knows or can know their meaning.
Our ability to understand the speaker meaning of the Qur’an is affected by its being divine speech. However, since the vehicle of that speech is a human language, our ability to understand it is also subject to the conditions that apply in inter-human speech. Among these conditions is a requirement that the hearer must have some initial grasp of what the speaker is talking about, some way of ‘connecting with’ or ‘recognising’ something in the speech with which the effort of understanding can begin, and some sort of stake which motivates the will to understand the speaker. Ibn Taymiyya holds that the fira makes up the initial ‘human competence’ which allows the effort to understand God’s speech to begin. The fira contains the basic presuppositions or axioms of reason; the basic faculties for processing sense impressions; for language acquisition; for differ¬en¬tiating harmful and beneficial; for distinguishing impulses and behaviour as disap¬proved and approved; a strong awareness of dependency on God; and, as Ibn Taymiyya emphasises, a love of God, manifested in a feeling of responsibility or care and a desire to find or be near Him. The fira in itself contains no more than an intimation of God and that which is due to Him by way of gratitude, obedience, love. This cannot really be called knowing God. Rather, it is analogous to being on a hill inland and hearing the cry of a sea-gull, or catching on the air some smell that brings to mind the sea: these intimations can make us turn in one direction (towards the sea) rather than another; but they do not constitute a travelling in that direction, still less any arrival, any sighting or knowledge of the sea. The direction of travel (see nubuwwa) is assured by signs that strengthen the first intimation (sea-smell is stronger, sea-spray on the air, etc.), or the opposite. The fira is highly vulnerable to alteration, depending on the nurture it finds. However, it can never be annulled altogether (in the way that, for example, the faculties of sight or language acquisition can altogether atrophy if the eye is not exposed to light or the ear is not sufficiently exposed to human language). The condition of the fira, when it is impeded, may be likened to the distress and fear of a lost infant, unable to identify its parents in a crowd of people. When unimpeded, the fira can develop into an explicit searching for God as reported of Ibr~h‚m, `alayhi al-sal~m.

The primordial monotheism of Ibr~h‚m is directly associated in Prophetic ˆad‚th with the fira. Islam is the recovery and com¬pletion of that mono¬theism; Judaism and Christianity are historical examples of alteration to it and to the fira.
Nubuwwa or ‘prophethood’, in the broadest sense, is the ‘nurture’ which activates and protects the ‘nature’ given in the fira. Just as a healthy new-born’s eyes begin to function when activated by light, so the innate predisposition to know and love God is activated by the divine initiative of revelation, implicit in the ‘signs’ of nature and explicit in the teaching missions of the Prophets and Messengers. Nubuwwa, more narrowly understood, shapes and directs the effort to understand the Qur’an and give it practical expression. Nubuwwa is the means by which God is explicitly known, whereas the fira by itself is capable only of intimations, of a feeling that something is to be searched for, without experience of what is searched for. Nubuwwa is the foundation and arbiter of religious authority. However, it is not the case that its authority is expressible in the form of fixed institutional authority (a school of law/doctrine, for example) combined with fixed documentary authority (a hierarchical corpus of texts which define and validate doctrine). Rather, this authority is subject to (and derivative from) the interplay of human effort to understand and embody the mur~d of the Qur’an. The Qur’an is made clear by the Prophet’s response to it, by the questions and answers of his Companions, and by the whole range (including accord/discord, consistency/inconsistency) of what is reliably recorded from that period. For late-comers to Islam the Qur’an may be likened to a map of a wide, difficult terrain. Studying the map, they can at best try to reconstruct in their minds what the first-comers directly experienced of that terrain. The latter traversed it physically, lived through the journeying in all weathers and conditions. Their familiarity with the mur~d of the Qur’an and the Prophet’s teaching qualifies their understanding to be the paramount considera¬tion for all who have come to Islam after them. Nubuwwa is a historical reality, it happened when it happened and can never happen again. Its authority cannot be carried by a privileged blood line, nor by a social caste of interpreters or mediators (any form of priesthood or sainthood or professional elite). It cannot be reproduced by individual excellence in intellectual or devotional pursuit. Any claim to reproduce or replace the authority of the Prophet – if it is more than the kind of lyrical self-exaggeration that is normally excusable as bad manners – necessarily invites to deviancy, heresy and apostasy.

Ir~da or ‘will and resolve’ is the most difficult of the four ‘themes’ to illustrate compactly from Ibn Taymiyya’s writings. He put a lot of energy into trying to extricate personal choice, will and intention, from a tangle of dogmas about when and how far secondary causes operate in the world autonomously of the will of an omnipotent and omniscient God. Human respon¬sibility to God is the whole burden of Islam, and of monotheist religions generally. It is not an easy task to identify, from the great mass of his writings, just those passages where the Shaykh al-Islam links that responsibility (and freedom of will) to the effort to understand the Qur’an. Understanding is not compelled; it can fail just as inter-human communi¬cation fails. God has willed this freedom with its propensity to error and failure, but balanced by forgiveness for those who seek it. If the will to understand is not sustained with resolve, then the understanding of the Qur’an by a group cannot be modified by an individual, nor the reverse. God has preserved the community as a whole from permanent consensus on an error in religion, but consensus on error can endure among groups and sects for such a long time as to cause great harm. How openly understanding of the Qur’an is practised as a way of living, as individual and collective lifestyles, affects how quickly errors of understanding can be corrected. However, if understanding is not expressed in active reform of conscience, attitudes and behaviours, then understanding the Qur’an is no different from not-understanding it. Moreover, such understanding has not been tried and tested, and so individual and society are deprived of means of improve¬ment by it. Separated from the resolved will to implement it as a way of life, study of the Qur’an becomes academic or aesthetic appreciation of the text or the historical fact of the text. In this way its religious value is dissipated and absorbed into the methods and values of the discipline being applied. Its connection with nubuwwa is then lost – rejected, in preference for the methods and values of academic or aesthetic appreciation. That in turn entails further loss, since nubuwwa is the means of connection with the intended meaning of the Speaker, and with the deepest human need carried in the fira, to know and love God.

Sahih Muslim

Mohammad AkramNadwi
Oxford

The two most sound books of hadith are Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, both of which have always been studied and taught in the highest seats of learning in the Muslim world, and extensively commented on by hadith and fiqh specialists. It is true that, in respect of the soundness of the hadith selected Sahih al-Bukhari is generally preferred over Sahih Muslim. However, there are certain technical points and professional qualities for which Sahih Muslim is preferred over Sahih al-Bukhari. Muslim follows the general method of hadith experts in organizing and ordering his material. This makes his compilation more useful and practical for the student of hadith to grasp the methodology he uses and why, than Sahih al-Bukhari, which has mix of orientations, to categories of fiqh as well as hadith, so that the same hadith (or parts of hadith) will be dispersed under different fiqhi headings.

What makes it easier to follow Muslim’s methodology is that he wrote a preface in which he explained his conditions. He divided the narrators into three classes:

1 Those who are the highest in their honesty, truth, strength of memory, accuracy and consistency. Their hadiths are categorised as sahih/sound.
2 Those who are not as strong in accuracy and consistency but share the same qualities of honesty and truth as the first class.
3 Those who have some weakness in accuracy and consistency, or about whom there has been some accusation of imperfect moral integrity.

Imam Muslim relies on the hadiths of the first class of narrators and does not leave out any of their hadiths. The hadiths in Sahih al-Bukhari are mostly from this class of narrators. As for the hadiths of the second class of narrators, Muslim selects the best from them as support texts for the narrations of the first class, but he is very clear that he never relies on the hadiths of this second class of narrators. This means that if there is a hadith that is only found among narrators from the second class of narrators, Muslim will not include it in his Sahih. As for the hadith of the third class of narrator or people lower than that, Muslim does not accept anything from them and has not included anything of their hadiths in his book.

If there is any problem in either the isnad or the matn of the hadiths of the first class of narrators, Muslim explains it as fully as necessary.

Muslim starts every chapter with the isnads of the first class, and arranges them in a proper order. If one of the isnads has someone more famous for his expertise, Muslim will begin with his isnad. If all of them are equal in that respect then he will order them by: preferring the isnad of narrators from the same town over the isnad of those where students and teachers belong to different towns; preferring the isnad of a family line over isnads where the people are not from the same family; preferring the higher (shorter) isnad over the lower (longer).

After compiling the isnads of the first class of narrators he will bring the isnads of the second class, which he mentions as support. The supportive isnads (mutaba`at) are two types: complete support (mutaba`ah tammah) and incomplete (mutaba`ah qasirah). If the support is from beginning to end of the isnad, then it is mutaba`ah tammah, otherwise it is mutaba`ah qasirah. In his order of presentation Muslim begins with mutaba`ah tammah, followed by mutaba`at qasirah.

Muslim is also very accurate in narrating every hadith in its precise wording, while pointing to differences in wording among the narrations presented.

Sahih Muslim has been served by several commentaries, the most famous being those of Qadi `Iyad and Imam al-Nawawi. However these commentaries are mainly concerned with matn not isnad in the Sahih, and in important respects they have failed to understand the methodology and technical critique deployed by Muslim in his selection and arrangement of hadiths. Accordingly, neither of these commentaries is able to defend Muslim’s work against the criticism made of his compilation, of what he includes or excludes. Again both those commentaries have added chapterization and chapter headings to Muslim’s compilation – something that Muslim himself did not do – and, in doing that, they have preferred an argument that suits the thinking of jurists rather than hadith specialists and, secondly, altered the priorities that Muslim accorded to certain narrations over others.

It is important to understand the methodology of Imam Muslim in his Sahih, otherwise we fail to appreciate the greatness of the work.