Amongst the infrequent hadīth terminologies used by hadīth experts and critics is the “al-Wuhdān” terminology. This terminology is used amongst the hadīth experts to describe a hadīth narrator who only has one student narrating hadīth from him even though he possesses more than one hadīth. This topic has a very rigorous relationship with the establishment of al-‘Adālah (trustworthiness) of a narrator and the absence of al-Jahālah (unfamiliarity) of a narrator, which is one of the most essential criterions to deem a hadīth authentic and acceptable. In accordance to the view of a great number of al-mustalah (terminologies) books and references the “al-Wuhdān” terminology by this meaning, is equivalent to the “Majhūl al-‘Ain” terminology, implying that this hadīth falls under the weak and inadmissible category in the view of the majority of hadīth scholars in the past and present. At the same time, some researchers, according to their studies on al-Jāmi’ al-Sahīh of al-Imām al-Bukhārī, claimed the existence of this category of narrators in the book. This indirectly implies the presence of a number of narrations which do not meet the standard criterions of authentic hadīth and thus contradicts the widely spread understanding amongst the Muslim nation that every single narration in this book is deemed to be authentic. As such, this claim requires a greater concern and rigorous study and research due to the lofty status of al-Jāmi’ al-Sahīh in accordance to the Sunni-Islam tradition. Therefore, if it is undoubtedly proven that there exists this category of narrators in al-Jāmi’ al-Sahīh, an extensive and comprehensive study is inevitable in order to understand the methodology of al-Imām al-Bukhāri in dealing with this issue from the perspectives of what are the conditions of the establishment of al-‘Adālah are, the reasons behind him narrating their narrations, the number of narrations of every narrator who falls under this category and the manner in which he narrates their narrations in his al-Sahīh. In consideration of this claim, this study comes to disclose the methodology of al-Imām al-Bukhāri in mentioning the “al-Wuhdān” narrators and their narrations in his al-Jāmi’ al-Sahīh by applying the inductive, analytical and critical research methodologies. In this paper, the research selects those narrators who are claimed to be from the “al-Wuhdān” category from the batch of al-Imām al-Bukhāri’s teachers in his al-Sahīh book only, after taking into consideration the page limit in academic journal writing system. The intentions of this study are to eliminate any fault behaviour in the research methodology followed by some researchers in their studies which has brought about misconception concerning the findings and end results because they judge al-Imam al-Bukhāri according to the methodologies, conditions or standards of other scholars. At that time itself, the study based on applied research methodology of his book establishes contrary results, and consequently, to preserve and protect al-Jāmi’ al-Sahīh from any form of condemnations that arise on account of the non-existence of one clause of the sahīh narration requirements.
Writing for publication: Structure, form, content, and journal selection
