Others In terms of Ihsan: Kutub al-Sittah (Arabic: ٱلْكُتُب ٱلسِّتَّة, romanized: al-Kutub al-Sitta, lit.
They were all compiled in the 9th and early 10th centuries, roughly from 840 to 912 CE and are thought to embody the Sunnah of Muhammad.
[2] Sunan ibn Majah largely won out as the sixth canonical book because its content has less overlap with the other five compared with its two contenders.
[1] The two pre-eminent works among the Six, the collections of al-Bukhari and Muslim (also the only two compilations which aimed to only include 'authenticated' hadith), are known as the Sahihayn.
The term "Sunan" refers to the Islamic concept of Sunnah, which describes the traditions and practices of Muhammad, the final prophet of the religion whose example believers are meant to follow.
Hadith in a "Sunan" describe traditions that help understand and continue transmitting the practices of the Sunnah.
This is because some of these collections, like al-Tirmidhi's Sunan, contain hadith relating both to the Sunnah of Muhammad and to other topics as well.
It is most commonly considered to be the pre-eminent of all hadith collections, although a minority of scholars place it below Sahih Muslim.
[28] While he had an interest in legal matters (fiqh), a significant portion of Bukhari's hadith are unconcerned with the subject.
It is most commonly considered to be the second most pre-eminent of all hadith collections, although a minority of scholars place it first above Sahih al-Bukhari.
After this, the rest of the work is purely a listing of isnads (chains of transmission) followed by the matn (content of the hadith) with, aside from very rare exception, no additional discussion.
Sahih Muslim is also not subdivided into chapters with headings to guide the reader, as are some other collections like the Sunan al-Tirmidhi, though it is divided into 57 topical books.
[32] The Sunan Abi Dawud was composed by Abu Dawood Sulaiman b. Ash'ath al-Sijistani (d. 275/888–9).
His collection also contains a number of weak hadith, including about 30 that are generally agreed to be fabrications by traditional scholars.
Ibn Hajar only includes hadith which are at least ḥasan ("good", which is below "sound" but above "weak" in judgement on authentication).