For more on this topic, see Hadith Series

Introduction

Imām Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj’s (d. 261 AH) al-Musnad al-Ṣaḥīḥ al-Mukhtaṣar, better known as Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, has had an indelible impact on Islamic scholastic discourse and continues to shape the lives of ordinary Muslims.[1] People of all ages, genders, and professions sought out, at times creative, ways to be connected with the Ṣaḥīḥ.[2] The renowned lexicographer al-Fayrūzabādī (d. 817 AH) held the record of reading the entire text in three days, only to be beaten by Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī (d. 852 AH) in an astonishing two days and a few hours.[3] The erudite scholar of Nishapur, Umm al-Khayr Fāṭimah bint ʿAlī (d. 532 AH), studied the entire text with ʿAbd al-Ghāfir al-Fārisī (d. 448 AH), granting her one of the most elevated chains in her time.[4] Between the years 500-1000 AH, at least 50 commentaries were written on it.[5] Suffice it to say that Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim was considered Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī’s “superior by some, its equal by others, and second to it by most.”[6] 
This paper will outline the transmitters of Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim and detail some of its extant manuscripts to shed light on its textual integrity. A word will then be presented on the claim that Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim was put into final form a generation after the author’s demise. Many arguments for the textual integrity of Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim can be gleaned from my previous article on the preservation of Ḥadīth literature. As such, this paper has been kept relatively short, touching only on the most essential points. A chart on the transmission of the Ṣaḥīḥ and folios from early authoritative manuscripts have been appended.

Transmitters

Imām Muslim spent 15 years compiling his Ṣaḥīḥ: he began in 235 AH and completed the work in 250 AH.[7] When he passed away in 261 AH, he had spent eleven years teaching and disseminating the Ṣaḥīḥ to droves of students.[8] However, in terms of documented transmission, a handful of his students gained prominence vis-à-vis the transmission of Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim. By the 7th century AH, Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ (d. 643 AH) observed that Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim had been so widely transmitted that it was unreasonable to doubt its authorship. Al-Nawawī (d. 676 AH) seconded this observation, and al-Sakhāwī (d. 902 AH) reiterated it in the 9th century AH.[9] 
The primary transmitter is Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm ibn Sufyān (d. 308 AH), a close pupil of Muslim who was celebrated for his asceticism and expertise in Ḥadīth.[10] This route eventually became the dominant recension of the Ṣaḥīḥ.[11] Two people then transmitted from Ibrāhīm: Abū Aḥmad al-Julūdī (d. 368)—the most authoritative—and Muḥammad ibn Yazīd al-ʿAdl.[12] A third person named Abū Bakr al-Kisāʾī (d. 385 AH) also transmitted the Ṣaḥīḥ from Ibrāhīm but al-Ḥākim (d. 405 AH) took issue with his method of transmitting.[13] Most, if not all, extant manuscripts and prints of the Ṣaḥīḥ are based on the recension of al-Julūdī via Ibrāhīm.
The second transmitter from Muslim is Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-Qalānisī, whose reliability was confirmed by al-Samʿānī (d. 562 AH).[14] Ibn al-Ṣalāh notes that al-Qalānisī’s recension was exclusively found in the Maghrib (Muslim West), having reached there from Egypt in the early 5th century AH.[15] Al-Dāraquṭnī (d. 385 AH) counseled the study of this recension of the Ṣaḥīḥ via Ibn Māhān (d. 387 AH) from al-Ashqar from al-Qalānisī.[16] Although this recension is believed to have become extinct, the Moroccan scholar Aḥmad Mahdī al-Nayfar is said to have obtained a manuscript of this recension.[17] At any rate, the variants found in al-Qalānisī’s recension were preserved by early commentators like al-Jayyānī (d. 498 AH), al-Māzarī (d. 536 AH) and Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ (d. 544 AH),[18] and Ibn Khayr al-Ishbīlī (d. 575 AH) documented them in the margins of his manuscript.[19]
There are two other transmitters of the Ṣaḥīḥ whose recensions did not gain much prominence: Makkī ibn ʿAbdān (d. 325 AH) and Abū Ḥāmid Ibn al-Sharqī (d. 325 AH)—the latter only transmitted part of the Ṣaḥīḥ. Abū Bakr al-Jawzaqī transmitted these two recensions of the Ṣaḥīh. [20] Al-Sakhāwī writes that apart from the recension of Ibrāhīm ibn Sufyān, he only received authorization for the remaining three recensions without continuous audition.[21] There were transmitters besides the four listed here, like Ibn Khuzaymah (d. 311 AH),[22] but their transmission never survived the ravages of time or remained undocumented.[23] The transmission of the Ṣaḥīḥ naturally expanded in the succeeding generations. Figure 1 illustrates the transmission of the Ṣaḥīḥ over five generations.[24] 
Sahih-Muslim_Diagram_New
Figure 1: Transmission of Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim over five generations (3rd to 6th centuries AH).

Manuscripts

There are at least five hundred extant manuscripts of Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim that have been transcribed over a millennium by scribes from different regions.[25] The preponderance of its manuscripts is second only to Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.[26] An early partial manuscript held in the Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Library was transcribed some time in the 5th century AH. The exact date of its transcription is not documented, but it was used by Abū Bakr al-Ṭūsī in 486 AH to teach the text.[27] Another partial manuscript dated to 471 AH is is held in the Ẓāhiriyyah Library (al-Assad National Library) in Damascus.[28] Although the details of Muslim’s exemplar are unknown, important secondary and tertiary manuscripts were accessible to classical scholars. The manuscript of al-Julūdī via the recension of Ibrāhim ibn Sufyān was accessible in the 6th century to the commentator al-Māzarī.[29] Ibn al-Ḥadhdhāʾ’s (d. 416 AH) manuscript of al-Qalānisī’s recension—via Ibn Māhan—was used by Abu ʿAlī al-Jayyānī (d. 498 AH) for his celebrated work Taqyīd al-Muhmal.[30] 
Several valuable manuscripts are easily accessible today and have been used by researchers to produce a critically edited version of the text. One early manuscript was transcribed by ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿĪsā al-Murādī in 559 AH. This was read to and verified by Ḥadīth experts like Abū ʿAlī al-Baṭalyawsī (d. 568 AH), Ibn ʿAsākir (d. 571 AH), and al-Dimyāṭī (d. 705 AH), all of whom noted variants found in their respective manuscripts.[31] The physical copy is held in the El Escorial Library in Spain, and a digital copy is available online.[32] Another manuscript was transcribed by Abū al-Qāsim al-Amawī in 573 AH. Ibn Khayr al-Ishbīlī compared this manuscript with his own manuscript—which he spent an entire lifetime refining—and in the margins he noted the variants that were found in his copy.[33] ʿAbd al-Ḥayy al-Kattānī praised this manuscript as one of the most important in North Africa.[34] The physical copy is held in the University of al-Qarawiyyīn in Fes, Morocco, and a digital copy is available online.[35]
The earliest print of Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim was produced by ʿAẓīm al-Dīn and Ghulām Akbar in 1849 CE through Maṭbaʿ-e Karīmī in Calcutta[36] followed by Aḥmad ʿAlī al-Sahāranpūrī’s print—decorated with al-Nawawī’s commentary—in 1853 CE through his prestigious Maṭbaʿ-e Aḥmadī in Delhi.[37] Between 1911-1915 CE, the Istanbul-based al-Ṭabʿah al-ʿĀmirah printed an edition of the Ṣaḥīḥ that was compared with reliable manuscripts and annotated with concise notes.[38] This edition was later improved and reproduced by Zuhayr Nāṣir in 2013.[39] In 2014, Dār al-Taʾṣīl printed an exceptionally accurate edition of the Ṣaḥīḥ that was compared with five manuscripts, including al-Murādī’s and Ibn Khayr’s manuscripts detailed earlier and a partial manuscript with a reading certificate dated to 461 AH.[40] That the last manuscript was used for audition in 461 AH means it was transcribed before that time, making it one of the earliest, albeit partial, manuscripts of Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim accessible today.[41]

Finalized Text or Fluid Text?

Here we will address a concern that was raised concerning the authorship of the Ṣaḥīḥ as we have it today: did Muslim complete the Ṣaḥīḥ during his lifetime or was it put into final form by subsequent students? As a result of issues like “organic texts, pseudepigraphy, and long-term redactional activity,” Norman Calder argued that Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim was put into final form a generation after the author’s demise.[42] To be clear, there are definitely variations between the recensions of the Ṣaḥīḥ. But that was a natural outcome of the process of transmission.[43] To claim that the entire text was extremely fluid and only received final form a generation later is untenable.
A recent study revealed that between the two major recensions of the Ṣaḥīḥ—(i) Ibrāhīm ibn Sufyān and (ii) Ibn Māhān[44] via al-Qalānisī—there are only 117 instances of variations, 56 in the chains of transmission and 61 in the texts; more than half of these variations, however, can be harmonized.[45] An example of this conflict is the description of Saʿīd ibn Jubayr’s action: raḥaltu (I travelled) in the recension of Ibrāhīm ibn Sufyān and its variant dakhaltu (I entered) in the recension of Ibn Māhān via al-Qalānisī.[46] This variation is not serious and can be harmonized by taking Ibrāhīm’s recension as a reference to Saʿīd’s travel and Ibn Māhān’s variant as his entering Ibn ʿAbbās’ room after the travel.[47] To put the negligible conflict between these recensions into perspective, based on the Dār al-Taʾṣīl numbering of total reports in the Ṣaḥīḥ (7525),[48] variations are found in 1.55% of reports, an inconsequential percentage considering the extensive nature of the work.
We saw earlier that Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim was transmitted adequately during the author’s lifetime and extensively over subsequent generations. Any significant alteration in or tampering with such a widely received text could not have gone unnoticed. Moreover, a copy of Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim was presented to Abū Zurʿah al-Rāzī (d. 264 AH) and Ibn Wārah (d. 270 AH), contemporaries of the author; an incomplete text would not have been presented. [49] Likewise, Abū Bakr al-Ṣāʾigh (d. 270 AH) wrote a mustakhraj on the Ṣaḥīḥ during Muslim’s lifetime. [50]  The mustakhraj genre consisted of books whose authors used an existing Ḥadīth collection as a template to narrate ḥadīths via personal transmission until they met with the chain of the author of the template collection.[51] Therefore, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim needed to be a complete text in order for al-Ṣāʾigh to have written a mustakhraj on it. [52]
It is worth adding that the transmitters of the Ṣaḥīḥ infrequently provided comments (taʾlīqāt) and added material to the text (ziyādāt). The direct transmitter of the Ṣaḥīḥ Ibrāhīm ibn Sufyān added thirteen chains of transmission and his students al-Julūdī added four. By no stretch of the imagination can these additions be considered tampering with the text. The purpose of these additions was to provide an alternative shorter chain among other considerations. Most importantly, these additions are marked with the transmitter’s name and were obviously not given the canonical status afforded to the Ṣaḥīḥ.[53] Take the following example:

Abū Bakr ibn Abī Shaybah narrated to us, saying: Wakīʿ narrated to us, saying: al-Aʿmash narrated to us, from al-Maʿrūr ibn Suwayd, from Abū Dharr, who said: the Messenger of Allāh (peace and blessing be upon him) said: Allāh said, “Whoever carries out a good deed will receive tenfold or more…” Ibrāhīm said: al-Ḥasan ibn Bishr narrated to us, saying: Wakīʿ narrated to us (continuing with Muslim’s chain) this ḥadīth.[54]

Ibrāhīm’s addition is marked as his own, so as not to be confused with Muslim’s chain. Moreover, he merely provided an alternative chain of transmission that leads to a mutual source (Wakīʿ) for the purposes of elevation (ʿuluww). Transmitter-additions feature in many classical works and Ḥadīth literature, like Mālik’s Muwattāʾ, Khalīfah ibn Khayyāṭ’s Tārīkh,[55] and Ibn Mājah’s Sunan. These additions were distinguished from the actual text and were not seen as a form of tampering.[56]

Conclusion

Appendix

Notes