PREFACE

IT is now about forty-five years since, having finished my studies in Arts and Law, I was enlisted, at about the age of 25, as a soldier for the literary service of Islâm, by the great Muslim reformer of this age, Hadzrat Mirzâ Ghulâm Ahmad of Qâdiân, the Founder of the Ahmadiyyah Movement. Thank God that during this period He has granted me to contribute to Islamic religious literature more than six thousand pages in English and ten thousand pages in Urdu, in spite of other multifarious duties, first as Secretary of the Sadr Anjuman Ahmadiyyah at Qâdiân, and then as President of the Ahmadiyyah Anjuman Ishâ'at Islâm, Lahore. I am thankful to God again that He has vouchsafed me at this advanced age to do yet another service to the literary cause of Islâm.

The present work was undertaken to fulfil, primarily, the need of English converts to Islâm, but it is really a work the need of which is felt throughout the English-speaking Muslim world. It is a faithful picture of the culture of Islâm at its source, free from foreign influence and independent of later growth. It shows what the Holy Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allâh be on him, said and did, and what lives his companions led. This is technically known as the Sunnah (lit., a manner of acting or a mode of life) of the Holy Prophet, and is popularly known as Hadîth (lit., a saying), being a record of what he said, did or approved.

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Hadîth literature is vast, there being several collections, the most important of which are known as the Sîhâh Sittah or the Six Reliable Works. Among these the Bukhârî, (more fully, the Jâmi' of Muhammad Ismâ'îl al-Bukhârî), undoubtedly holds the first place. It is not only the first comprehensive collection of Hadîth but also the most authentic one. As a recent European writer rightly observes, Bukhârî undertook a research into the then prevalent Hadîth "with all the painstaking accuracy of a modern writer." In addition to this in his faqâhah or acumen, Bukhârî surpasses all other collectors of Hadîth.

A translation of the Sahîh Bukhârî was undertaken about eight years ago by Mr. Muhammad Asad, an Austrian convert to Islâm; but at first, owing perhaps to the lack of means as compared with the difficulties of the undertaking and, later, to his internment owing to the war, only a fractional part of the work has been published. Even if completed, the work, at a price of about Rs. 120, could decorate only the shelves of big libraries and would not be accessible to the man in the street. But really the Bukhârî is every Muslim's need, and it is this need that I have tried to fulfil by publishing the present work.

In A Manual of Hadîth I have tried to give a compendium of the Sahîh Bukhârî, so far as subjects relating to the practical side of a Muslim's life are concerned. I have not touched the historical or prophetical portions of this great work, as I considered this beyond the scope of a handy treatise. In the arrangement of chapters too, I have mainly followed Bukhârî. But as my object was to make this short treatise complete so

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far as the requirements of an ordinary Muslim are concerned, I have freely drawn upon other collections of Hadîth, particularly that well-known work called the Mishkât, rendered into English by Matthews about the year 1870.

I have been compelled, owing to the shortage of paper due to war conditions, to omit many of the details which I originally intended to include in this work. As a matter of fact, I had to cut about a third of the manuscript when I found that sufficient paper could not be had in the market, and the work has suffered on that account. In its present form it contains 690 hadîth, out of which 513 or about three fourths have been taken from the Bukhârî.

I may further draw the reader's attention to two special features of this work. In the first place, every chapter of this work commences with verses of the Holy Qur'ân dealing with the particular subject of that chapter. In this again I have followed Bukhârî, who heads the more important of his chapters with a text from the Holy Qur'ân, and thus shows that Hadîth is only an explanation of the Holy Qur'ân and a secondary source of the teachings of Islâm. In fact, a manual of the Holy Qur'ân is an even greater need than this book, and I have long cherished the idea of supplying this desideratum, though I do not know if I shall be spared for its fulfilment.

The second feature of this book, which is quite a novelty . so far as Hadîth literature is concerned, is a brief head-note, following the quotations from the Holy Qur'ân, in which is given a brief summary of the teachings of the Holy Qur'ân and Hadîth on that subject.

{p. vi} This head-note will be found useful as it contains a summary of every hadîth given in the chapter, and thus enables the reader to lay his finger on the exact point which is of particular interest to him. By referring to this head-note, he will be able to find the Holy Prophet's guidance on a particular point without going through the whole chapter. I have thus tried my best to facilitate the task of the reader, who in these days of preoccupation with subjects of material interest cannot devote much time to what pertains to his higher moral interests.

As an introduction to this work, I would recommend to the reader to go through the chapter on "Sunnah or Hadîth", in my book The Religion of Islâm.

In conclusion, I must give expression to my thanks to Mr. F. W. Bustin, Editor of the The Civil & Military Gazette, Lahore, for having gone through the manuscript, and to Malak Sher Muhammad Khan, B.A. for having gone through a part of the proofs.

MUHAMMAD 'ALI

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