Important Sunni Hadith. Imam al-Bukhari's Sahih al-Bukhari is considered one of the most comprehensive and authentic collections of Hadith in Sunni Islam.

Imam al-Bukhari was a Persian Islamic scholar from Bukhara, present day Uzbekistan. born in 194 AH (810 AD). He expressed an interest in hadith from a young age and was taught by Imam Malik ibn Anas, among other notable scholars, in his early years before travelling to Mecca for Hajj and pursuing a further education there before exploring the wider Islamic world. Hadith are collections of reports of the actions, words and historical encounters of the Prophet Muhammad, and Imam al-Bukhari travelled the wide Islamic world to collect these accounts and reference them against existing textual material to compile his own informed understanding of hadith, which has become widely accepted by the Sunni community to be the most authentic and comprehensive collection of hadith to date.

The manuscript is copied on fine thick Damascan buff paper of alternate colours of cream and ochre. This volume would have been part of a larger series comprising the entirety of Al-Bukhari's hadith collections and probably copied for personal use or for study within a wider mosque or similar establishment for Islamic study. Early manuscript examples of Imam al-Bukhari's texts are very rare.

Single volume, decorated manuscript on buff paper on alternate sheets of cream and ochre colouring, in Arabic, fragmentary section comprising 10 leaves, 215 x 160 mm; single column, 11 lines informal black naskh, important words and heading in red, some light finger soiling, fol. 8 and 10 with outer edges soiled and water-stained, edges a little chipped; modern calf over pasteboards, arabesque details blind-stamped to covers.