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SAHIH MUSLIM
Sahih Muslim is a collection of sayings and deeds of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) (also known as the sunnah).
The reports of the Prophet's sayings and deeds are called ahadith. Muslim lived a couple of centuries after the Prophet's
death and worked extremely hard to collect his ahadith. Each report in his collection was checked for compatibility with the
Qur'an, and the veracity of the chain of reporters had to be painstakingly established. Muslim's collection is recognized
by the overwhelming majority of the Muslim world to be one of the most authentic collections of the Sunnah of the Prophet
(pbuh).
Muslim (full name Abul Husain Muslim bin al-Hajjaj al-Nisapuri) was born in 202 A.H. and died in
261 A.H. He travelled widely to gather his collection of ahadith, including to Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Egypt. Out of
300,000 ahadith which he evaluated, only 4,000 approximately were extracted for inclusion into his collection based on stringent
acceptance criteria. Muslim was a student of Bukhari.
MALIK'S MUTTAWA
Malik's Muwatta ("the well-trodden path") is a collection of two items:
the sayings and deeds of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) (also known as the sunnah). The reports of the Prophet's
sayings and deeds are called ahadith.
the legal opinions and decisions of the Prophet's Companions, their successors,
and some later authorities.
Malik (full name Malik bin Anas bin Malik bin Abu Amir Al-Asbahi) was born in 93 A.H. and
died in 179 A.H. He lived most of his life in Madinah, the city in which the Prophet (pbuh) settled in. He was a preeminent
scholar of Islam, and is the originator of the Maliki judicial school of thought. He is reputed to have had over one thousand
students. During Malik's lifetime, he steadily revised his Muwatta, so it reflects over forty years of his learning and knowledge.
It contains a few thousand hadith.
SUNAN ABU DAWUD
Abu-Dawud (full name Abu-Dawud Sulaiman bin Al-Aash'ath
Al-Azdi as-Sijistani) was born in 202 A.H. and died in 275 A.H. He was one of the most widely travelled of the scholars of
ahadith, going to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Khurasahn, Egypt, Syria, Nishapur, Marv, and other places for the sole purpose of collecting
ahadith. His primary interest was in law, hence his collection focuses purely on legal ahadith. From about 50,000 ahadith,
he chose 4,800 for inclusion in his work based on their superior authenticity. Abu-Dawud's collection is recognized by the
overwhelming majority of the Muslim world to be one of the most authentic collections of the Sunnah of the Prophet (pbuh),
however it is also known to contain some weak ahadith (some of which he pointed out, others which he did not).
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