Sunan at-Tirmidhi

Sunan at-Tirmidhi

Jami` at-Tirmidhi (Arabic: جامع الترمذي‎, Jāmi` at-Tirmidhī), popularly and mistakenly Sunan at-Tirmidhi (Arabic: سُـنَن الترمذي‎, Sunan at-Tirmidhī), is one of Kutub al-Sittah (the six major hadith collections). It was collected by Abu `Isa Muhammad ibn `Isa at-Tirmidhi. He began compiling it after the year 250 A.H. and completed it on the 10 Dhu-al-Hijjah 270 A.H. It contains 3,956 Ahadith, and has been divided into fifty chapters. It is also classified as a Sunan, which implies that the book has been chapterised according to legal chapters, such as Purification, Prayer, Poor-due and Fasting, narrated on the authority of Islamic prophet Muhammad, while the opinions of the companions are usually not mentioned.

Tirmidhi's method was that of placing the heading first, then mentioning one or two Ahadith which were related to the heading. These Ahadith are followed by his opinion as to the status of the Hadith. Subsequently, he mentions the opinions of the different jurists. He also indicates if there were other narrations transmitted by other companions on the same subject. His principal aim was to discuss the legal opinions of early jurists. Tirmidhi mostly mentioned those Ahadith which the jurists used as the basis for their legal decisions and he mentioned which school used which tradition/s. Hence this book became an important source for the different view-points of the various legal schools. The Jami' thus bears the distinction of being one of the oldest texts dealing with the difference of opinion amongst the various jurisprudential schools. Although Shafi'i (b. 150-d.204 A.H.) wrote his Kitab al-Umm before Tirmidhi's Jami', the Kitab al-Umm is less comprehensive in comparison to the Jami' of Tirmidhi.