Sahih Muslim

Sahih Muslim is one of the two most authoritative hadith collections in Sunni Islam, standing alongside Sahih al-Bukhari as the foundational pillars of Islamic prophetic tradition. Compiled by the scholar Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj al-Naysaburi (c. 815-875 CE), who devoted decades to collecting and rigorously verifying traditions about the Prophet Muhammad, the work contains approximately 7,500 hadiths after removing repetitions. The title sahih means 'authentic' or 'sound,' indicating that Muslim subjected each tradition to exacting scrutiny of both its chain of transmission (isnad) and its textual content (matn).

The hadith genre itself is a distinctive Islamic form of religious literature with no precise parallel in other traditions. A hadith is a report of something the Prophet Muhammad said, did, or tacitly approved, transmitted through a chain of named individuals from an eyewitness down to the compiler. The isnad — the chain of transmitters — is as important as the text itself: a hadith with a broken or unreliable chain is classified as weak (da'if) or fabricated (mawdu'), while one with an unbroken chain of trustworthy transmitters is classified as sahih. The development of the science of hadith criticism ('ilm al-rijal, 'knowledge of men') — evaluating the reliability, memory, and character of each transmitter in a chain — is one of the great intellectual achievements of classical Islamic civilization.

For comparative religion, Sahih Muslim is indispensable. It preserves Islamic traditions about biblical figures including Adam, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus that illuminate how Islam received, reframed, and continued the Abrahamic prophetic tradition. The eschatological hadiths about the descent of Jesus before the Last Day offer a fascinating case study in how apocalyptic traditions migrate and transform across religious boundaries. And the collection's practical ethical content — covering prayer, family, trade, governance, and personal virtue — reveals the comprehensive scope of prophetic guidance as understood by the world's 1.8 billion Sunni Muslims.

• Genesis 2:7 (Adam's creation from clay)
• Genesis 22 (Abraham's sacrifice, identified as Ishmael in Islamic tradition)
• Exodus 3 (Moses and prophetic encounter with God)
• Matthew 24 (signs of the end times)
• Revelation 19-20 (eschatological battle and judgment)
• 1 Corinthians 15 (resurrection and afterlife)

The Islamic tradition attributes to Jesus the miraculous birth from a virgin, the ability to cure the blind and lepers, the raising of the dead, and a future return before the Last Day, making Jesus the most honored figure in Islamic eschatology after Muhammad himself. The hadiths in Sahih Muslim describing Jesus's descent — landing near the white minaret in Damascus, placing his hands on the wings of two angels — are among the most vivid eschatological traditions in any world religion.