Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl ibn Ibrāhīm al-Juʿfī al-Bukhārī (Arabic: أبو عبد الله محمد بن إسماعيل بن إبرهيم الجعفي البخاري; 21 July 810 – 1 September 870) was a 9th-century Persian Muslim muhaddith who is widely regarded as the most important hadith scholar in the history of Sunni Islam.

[9][11] Al-Bukhari stayed in Mecca for two years, before moving to Medina where he wrote Qadhāyas-Sahābah wa at-Tābi'īn, a book about the companions of Muhammad and the tabi'un.

[9] Al-Bukhari is known to have travelled to most of the important Islamic learning centres of his time, including Syria, Kufa, Basra, Egypt, Yemen, and Baghdad.

Through this assertion, Al-Bukhari had sought an alternative response to the doctrines of Mu'tazilites and declared that the element of creation is applied only to humans, not the Word of God.

[14][15][16] Al-Bukhari, however, had only referred to the human action of reading the Qur’an, when he reportedly stated "My recitation of the Quran is created" (Arabic: لفظي بالقرآن مخلوق, romanized: Lafẓī bil-Qur'āni Makhlūq).

The modern ground-level mausoleum tombstone of Al-Bukhari is only a cenotaph, the actual grave lies within a small crypt below the structure.

[23][26] In response to the accusations levied against him during his mihna, Al-Bukhari compiled the treatise Khalq Af'āl al-'Ibād, the earliest traditionalist representation of the position taken by Ahmad ibn Hanbal, in which Al-Bukhari explains that the Quran is God's uncreated speech, while maintaining that God creates human actions, as the Sunnis had insisted in their attacks on the free-will position of Qadariyah.

The first section of the book reports narrations from earlier scholars such as Sufyan al-Thawri that affirmed the Sunni doctrine of the uncreated nature of the Quran and condemned anyone who held the contrary position as a Jahmi or Kāfir.

The second section asserts that the acts of men are created, relying on Qur'anic verses and reports from earlier traditionalist scholars like Yahya ibn Sa'id al-Qatlan.

[27] Al-Bukhari cited Ahmad Ibn Hanbal as evidence for his position, re-affirming the latter's legacy and the former's allegiance to the Ahl al-Hadith.

[28][29] Historical and biographical works[30] Hadith collections and sciences[30] Fiqh and theological works[30] In terms of law, scholars like Jonathan Brown assert that al-Bukhari was of the Ahl al-Hadith, an adherent of Ahmad ibn Hanbal's traditionalist school in law (fiqh), but fell victim to its most radical wing due to misunderstandings.

[40] According to some scholars, such as Christopher Melchert, and also Ash'ari theologians, including Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalani and al-Bayhaqi, al-Bukhari was a follower of the Kullabi school of Sunni theology due to his position on the utterance of the Quran being created.

[41][42][14] Other Kullabis, such as al-Harith al-Muhasibi, were harassed and made to relocate, a similar situation al-Bukhari found himself towards the latter years of his life by other Hanbalis.

Al-Dhahabi said that: Imam Bukhari was a mujtahid, a scholar capable of making his own ijtihad without following any Islamic school of jurisprudence in particular.

[46] According to Namira Nahouza in her work 'Wahhabism and the Rise of the New Salafists', al-Bukhari in his Sahih, in the book entitled "Tafsir al-Qur'an wa 'ibaratih" [i.e., Exegesis of the Qur'an and its expressions], surat al-Qasas, verse 88: "kullu shay'in halikun illa Wajhah" [the literal meaning of which is "everything will perish except His Face"], he said the term [illa Wajhah] means: "except His Sovereignty/Dominance".

[15] According to Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalani, al-Bukhari signified that if someone was to accept autonomy in creating his acts, he would be assumed to be playing God's role and so would subsequently be declared a Mushrik, similar to the later Ash'ari view of kasb (acquisition, occasionalism, and causality, which link human action with divine omnipotence).