THEORETICAL VIEWS ON THE WORK OF SUNANI TIRMIDHI

There are many works written by Imam Tirmidhi. However the most famous and masterpiece is “Sunani Tirmidhi”. Muhaddith divided his books into 51 topics. The total number of chapters within the topics is 2231. The book includes 3956 hadiths. The data noted above differs in various copies. According to Imam Tirmidhi’s writing method of the book firstly he cited hadith, then brought issues related to fiqhi jurisprudence with explanations how the scholars acted in this regard.

In addition, he levelled hadiths into saheh, hasan, zaeef and referred to reciting ways of narrators. Imam Tirmidhi followed the path of his teacher, Imam Bukhari, by explaining the jurisprudence of hadith through these methods.

He used Imam Muslim’s method of summarizing all hadith narrations. While summing up, he narrates one hadith and collects them briefly by referring to the rest of the hadiths. He also mentions the madhhab of fuqahas who follow the path of Imam Abu Dawud. Moreover, he cited the ways of the Sahabas and the followers of the prophet. At the end of each chapter, He gave the narrators’ names and kunyas for whom it is necessary. When Imam Tirmidhi and his book are represented in front of Imam Maqdisi Abu Ismail, he commented that this book is more advantageous to me than the book of Imam Bukhari and Imam Muslim. Because only scholars can use these two books. But everyone can benefit from “Sunani Tirmidhi”. Imam Zahabi narrated from Abu Ali in his book “Tazkiratul Huffaz” that Imam Tirmidhi wrote this book and presented it to the scholars of Iraq, Hijaz, and Khurasan. They supposed that if whoever has this book in his house it will be as the prophet is speaking. Ibn Kathir said in his books “Bidaya” and “Nihaya” that the book “Sunani Tirmidhi” is one of the six books used by all people on earth. Ali Qari noted in “Mirqatul Mafatih” that Imam Tirmidhi has a lot of books belong to hadith. Especially Sahih boook of “Sunan Tirmidhi” is the elite one, and has unique arrangment. Sheikh Abdulaziz Dehlavi praises this book in his book “Bustanul Muhaddisin” and says that it differs from other books in the following four aspects:

1. It is arranged delicately and that the hadiths are not repeated;

2. Interpreting madhhab of the fuqahas;

3. Hadiths are separated with the terms saheh, hasan, munkar and etc. 

4. Defining the narrators’ kunyas, names, and well-known qualities.

This work of “Sunani Tirmidhi” was known by the names as:

1. Sahih at-Tirmidhi

2. Al-Jami as-sahih

3. Al-Jamiul Kabir

4. Sunan or Sunani Tirmidhi

5. Al-Jome or Jami-ut Tirmidhi.

Mukhlisa Ergashova – researcher at the Department “Information Resource”, International Scientific Research Center of Imam Termizi