Major Works & Scholarly Contributions

Imam Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Bukhari (194–256 AH / 810–870 CE) is credited by the classical biographers with roughly two dozen titles, but only a handful survive in print today. Here’s the reliable picture, sorted by how firmly they’re attributed and whether they still exist.

His major extant works — securely attributed:

Al-Jami’ al-Sahih (الجامع الصحيح) — his masterpiece, universally known as Sahih al-Bukhari. This is the work his name is synonymous with.

Al-Adab al-Mufrad (الأدب المفرد) — a standalone collection of hadith on manners, character, and social etiquette. Widely printed and studied in its own right.

Al-Tarikh al-Kabir (التاريخ الكبير) — “The Great History,” a massive biographical dictionary of hadith narrators. One of the foundational works of the rijal (narrator-criticism) science.

Al-Tarikh al-Awsat (التاريخ الأوسط) — “The Middle History,” a shorter chronological narrator-history. Note the tangle here: much of what was printed for years under the title al-Tarikh al-Saghir (“The Small History”) is now generally understood to actually be al-Tarikh al-Awsat, so treat those two titles as closely linked rather than clearly separate works.

Lesser-known works that survive and are attributed to him:

Khalq Af’al al-‘Ibad (خلق أفعال العباد) — a creedal/theological treatise on the createdness of human actions, written against the Jahmiyya.

Raf’ al-Yadayn fi al-Salat (رفع اليدين في الصلاة) — a juristic monograph arguing for raising the hands in prayer, marshalling the relevant hadith.

Al-Qira’a Khalf al-Imam (القراءة خلف الإمام) — a companion juristic treatise on reciting behind the imam in congregational prayer.

Al-Du’afa al-Saghir (الضعفاء الصغير) — “The Small Book of Weak Narrators,” a concise rijal work listing transmitters he graded as weak.

Kitab al-Kuna (كتاب الكنى) — a reference work on narrators known by their kunya (teknonym); often treated as an appendix to al-Tarikh al-Kabir.

Birr al-Walidayn (بر الوالدين) — a short treatise on dutifulness to parents (its attribution is accepted by many but is a notch less certain than the works above).

Titles the biographers attribute to him but which are lost or survive only in fragments:

These are named in classical sources like adh-Dhahabi’s biography but aren’t available as complete printed works — among them al-Tafsir al-Kabir (a large Quran commentary), al-Musnad al-Kabir, al-Jami’ al-Kabir, al-Ashriba, al-Hibah, and al-Wuhdan (on narrators who transmitted only a single hadith).