2) Selected 500 Hadith from Sahih Bukhari & Muslim - The Message

Sahih Bukhari & Sahih MuslimSulaym tribe, hence he was called Sulami. His native townBugh is a few miles from Tirmidhi and is considered asuburb of Tirmidh. Therefore he was known as Tirmidhiand Bughi, both places being in Khurasan, which ispresently a province in North Eastern Iran, and it is withthe nisba (linking him to his place of origin) Tirmidhi, thathe is well known. The aforementioned biographer of ImamTirmidhi does not mention any details of his parents. ImamTirmidhi is reported to have said that his grandfatherbelonged to Marw but he subsequently moved to Tirmidh.Likewise, no mention is made of Tirmidhi's early life oroccupation.Kufa was considered as a major centre for Hadith Sciencesfrom the time Caliph 'Umar (d.24 A.H.) sent 'Abd Allah ibnMas'ud (d.32 A.H.), the sixth person to embrace Islam, as atutor to the people of Kufa. The approximate number ofstudents who attended ibn Mas'ud's discourses were4,000. Besides ibn Mas'ud, there were other illustriouscompanions of the Prophet (SAW) who resided in Kufa,prominent among them being Abu Musa al-Ash'ari (d.52A.H.), Salman al-Farsi (d.35 A.H.), 'AmmAr b. Yasir (d.37A.H.), Huzaifa b. Yaman (d.35 A.H.) and S'ad b. AbuWaqqas (d.55 A.H.). Therefore, on one occasion referringto Kufa, 'Ali b. Abu Talib (d.40 A.H.), the fourth Caliph ofIslam remarked, "The companions of ibn Mas'ud are thelanterns of this Umma (Muslim community)". Since thefamous traditionists were stationed in Kufa, Imam Bukharisaid that he cannot even count how often he accompaniedthe traditionists to Kufa and Baghdad. That Kufa was amajor centre of learning and contained many scholars isPage 186