A General Description of the Yunini Copy
The copy of Sahih Imam al-Bukhari made by al-Hafiz Sharaf al-Din al-Yunini (d. 701 AH) is considered one of the greatest reliable sources for Sahih al-Bukhari. This copy is attributed to Imam ‘Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Ba’li al-Yunini al-Hanbali, known as al-Yunini. Al-Yunini began preparing his unique copy in Damascus around the year 666 AH, where he convened a great scholarly gathering that lasted about a whole year. A group of senior scholars and hafiz-level scholars took part in these sessions, the most prominent of them being the grammarian Imam Ibn Malik al-Andalusi (d. 672 AH), whose help al-Yunini sought in fixing the wording and vowelling of the text. Al-Yunini undertook the reading and dictation in these sessions, while Ibn Malik monitored his reading and checked the articulation of its letters and its linguistic correctness; then al-Yunini corrected the text and recorded the grammatical readings or linguistic variants that Ibn Malik preferred. The result of this painstaking effort was an authentic copy written by al-Yunini in his own hand, or under his direct supervision by a trustworthy scribe, distinguished by extreme precision in the text of Sahih al-Bukhari. Al-Yunini completed the collation of his copy against the authoritative sources in one year, then read it and had it heard by people eleven times in a single year, which shows exceptional care in disseminating and verifying it. The copy was written in a clear hand and with meticulous vowelling. In the base of his copy al-Yunini relied primarily on the transmission of al-Kushmihani (Abu al-Haytham al-Kushmihani, d. 389 AH), the transmission that spread through his students such as Karima al-Marwaziyya and others, and which was the well-known transmission in the eastern lands at that time. Al-Yunini’s care for this transmission lay in the fact that he received the Sahih with his connected chains to al-Kushmihani, from al-Firabri, from al-Bukhari, which gave his copy the authenticity of its chain and the connectedness of its transmission.
The Chains of Transmission of the Yunini Copy
The Yunini copy is distinguished by combining several authoritative chains and transmissions of Sahih al-Bukhari, which gave it great scholarly and critical strength. Al-Yunini was keen to document the modes of receiving and conveying through which these transmissions reached him, in the introduction of the copy and in its margins. The most important of these chains and transmissions can be set out as follows:
The transmission of al-Kushmihani from al-Firabri: This is one of the principal routes on which al-Yunini relied. Al-Yunini narrated Sahih al-Bukhari with his chains from his teachers to Abu Sahl al-Hafsi, from Abu al-Haytham al-Kushmihani, from Imam al-Firabri, Muhammad ibn Yusuf (d. 320 AH), from Imam al-Bukhari. In this way al-Yunini’s copy was directly connected to one of the major transmitters of the Sahih in the fourth century AH. The transmission of al-Kushmihani was distinguished by its precision, and it was received by a group of scholars in the East, such as the learned Karima al-Marwaziyya, who heard the Sahih from al-Kushmihani himself. Thus the Yunini copy came with a chain connected through this elevated route, which gives it high reliability in conveying the text of the Sahih.
The transmission of Abu al-Waqt al-Sijzi: Al-Yunini also relied on the route of al-Hafiz Abu al-Waqt ‘Abd al-Awwal al-Sijzi (d. 553 AH), who took the Sahih from Abu al-Hasan al-Dawudi (d. 467 AH), from al-Hammuyi (Ahmad ibn Hammuyah, d. 381 AH), from al-Firabri. Al-Yunini obtained a source copy heard from Abu al-Waqt through the reading of al-Hafiz Abu Sa’d al-Sam’ani (d. 562 AH), a precious copy which al-Yunini described as a genuine source and one of the sources of the hearings of Damascus and Khurasan, which had been read before a group of hafiz-level scholars. Al-Yunini made the copy of Abu al-Waqt one of the main references in his collation, and indicated it with the symbol «ط» in the margins of his copy.
The transmission of Abu Dharr al-Harawi: This is the transmission of Imam Abu Dharr ‘Abd ibn Ahmad al-Harawi (d. 434 AH) from three of the senior students of al-Firabri: al-Hammuyi, al-Mustamli and al-Kushmihani. Abu Dharr al-Harawi was distinguished by having preceded al-Yunini in gathering the differences between the transmissions of his three teachers in a single copy, so his copy was the earliest attempt to combine multiple transmissions. Al-Yunini used Abu Dharr’s copy as one of the sources of collation, and indicated his transmission with the symbol «5» in the margins.
Al-Yunini set out with great precision the differences between the transmission of Abu Dharr, which combines the routes of al-Mustamli, al-Hammuyi and al-Kushmihani, and the transmission of Karima al-Marwaziyya from al-Kushmihani, which helped in fixing and refining the text.
The transmission of al-Asili: This is the transmission of Imam Abu ‘Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Sufyan al-Asili (d. 392 AH) from Abu Zayd al-Marwazi (d. 371 AH), from al-Firabri. Al-Yunini adopted it among his sources and indicated it with the symbol «ص». Al-Asili’s copy was well known in al-Andalus and the Maghrib, and scholars passed it on because of al-Asili’s known precision and mastery.
The transmission of Ibn ‘Asakir: Al-Yunini also made use of what he found with the hafiz and historian Ibn ‘Asakir al-Dimashqi (d. 571 AH) of the multiple routes of Sahih al-Bukhari. Ibn ‘Asakir had a copy of the Sahih in which he did not state his chain, but he had combined several transmissions, among them the route of Abu Sahl al-Hafsi from al-Kushmihani, and others. Al-Yunini indicated what he transmitted from Ibn ‘Asakir with the symbol «س» in his margins. In this way al-Yunini recorded multiple chains within his copy, and although he did not set out Ibn ‘Asakir’s full chain separately, he benefited from his transmissions in recording the differences.
Al-Yunini documented the chains of this copy in the introduction to his work and in the margins of the manuscript. He set out the names of its transmitters and the symbols of the copies he collated, and he was careful to point out the places of substitution and omission in each transmission. This great work of documenting the chains made the Yunini copy a reference of the utmost importance for fixing the text of al-Bukhari, since al-Yunini left no substantive difference between the transmissions without recording it, either in the text or in the margin, attributing it to the one who transmitted it. The fruit of this effort was a meticulous text with a connected chain, combining the essence of the eastern and western transmissions of the Sahih. Among what shows the mastery of al-Yunini’s work is the statement of Imam al-Dhahabi in his biography: al-Yunini collated his copy of Sahih al-Bukhari in one year, and had it heard eleven times in one year, referring to the repeated sessions of presentation and hearing undertaken to verify the soundness of the copy.
The value of the Yunini copy becomes clear when it is compared with other transmissions of Sahih al-Bukhari and its famous manuscripts. Al-Yunini combined in his copy the essence of four basic transmissions: al-Kushmihani through Karima, Abu Dharr al-Harawi, al-Asili, and Abu al-Waqt al-Sijzi, and Ibn ‘Asakir, while other transmissions were distinguished by certain additions or differences.
The Yunini copy was characterized by a method of combining and collating the transmissions, whereas most other manuscripts represented one particular transmission. For example, the transmission of Abu Dharr al-Harawi combined three transmissions of the generation before it, but it remains limited to those three routes. Al-Yunini, on the other hand, came more than two centuries after Abu Dharr and widened the scope of combination to include additional transmissions and multiple manuscripts at once. Likewise, the transmission of al-Asili or the transmission of Abu al-Waqt each represents an independent line of transmission, from Abu Zayd al-Marwazi or from al-Dawudi, for example, and their transmitters did not include the other transmissions in their copies. The Yunini copy, by contrast, weighed these transmissions against each other and documented their differences in one place. This gave it a critical advantage not found in single-transmission manuscripts.
When the Yunini text is compared with other texts, slight verbal differences appear which are nevertheless important to the hadith scholars; some may consist in the addition or omission of a word, or a difference in the wording of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, or a difference in the formulas of transmission, and the like. Al-Yunini was keen to record these differences. He set out these differences and variants and recorded them clearly, marking them with complete precision: the Yunini copy recorded the basic reading, based mostly on the transmission of al-Kushmihani, in the text, then indicated the variants of the other transmissions in the margin with the appropriate symbols. In this way it preserved the unity of the text without neglecting any important variant. This method provided scholars with rich material for comparison. For example, if a particular wording occurs in al-Talqih by al-Burhan, from which Abu Dharr transmitted in al-Tawdih, we can go back to the Yunini copy through the Sultaniyya edition to verify the soundness and accuracy of this attribution. Ibn Hajar al-‘Asqalani himself acknowledged the importance of al-Yunini’s copy, stating that he consulted it while writing his commentary on the Sahih, although in his quotations he mostly relied on the transmission of Abu Dharr al-Harawi. It is noticeable that al-Burhan and Ibn Hajar, and before them their teacher Ibn al-Mulaqqin, and following them al-Qastallani and many commentators on al-Bukhari, frequently indicate in their commentaries the differences between the copies of al-Bukhari.
There are other, less widespread transmissions of al-Bukhari which were not part of al-Yunini’s project, perhaps because their source copies rarely reached him. Al-Yunini focused on the transmissions whose soundness was confirmed to him and whose transmission was widespread in his time. Nevertheless, al-Yunini’s method of combining transmissions remains theoretically able to accommodate any other established transmission by adding a symbol for it and recording its variants, which highlights the flexibility and precision of his scholarly method.
The Importance of the Yunini Copy in Recording the Differences Between the Transmissions
Al-Yunini’s copy represented a qualitative leap in the service of Sahih al-Bukhari and the fixing of its text, so much so that it came to be considered the most reliable critical reference for the book. The importance of this copy can be summarized in the following points:
Fixing the text and correcting errors: Thanks to al-Yunini’s precise collation, many scribal errors that might have crept in through individual readings were corrected. The hafiz compared the different copies, and whenever he found an anomalous word in one of the transmissions he pointed it out and compared it with others. Moreover, the presence of the grammarian Ibn Malik in the collation sessions helped in vowelling obscure words and clarifying the grammatical analysis without touching the original wording of the transmission. This means that the Yunini copy preserved for us the wording of the Sahih as the trustworthy transmitters uttered it, accompanied by complete fixing of its vowels and diacritics.
Gathering transmissions that were scattered: Al-Yunini’s copy became a comprehensive reference for the differences between the basic transmissions of al-Bukhari. Since its completion in the seventh century AH, scholars relied on it to settle any difference in the wording of the hadiths. If a passage of Sahih al-Bukhari became problematic because of differences between the copies, recourse to al-Yunini’s copy or its derivatives was sufficient to show what was correct, or at least to delimit the variants. For this reason it has rightly been said that al-Yunini’s copy is the greatest source for Sahih al-Bukhari that can be trusted and relied upon, since it resulted from a rare effort of collective verification in the presence of the greatest scholars. Hadith scholars and critics benefited from this copy in their works: al-Mizzi in Tuhfat al-Ashraf, for example, attributes the variants to their origins, and al-Burhan in al-Talqih and Ibn Hajar in Fath al-Bari rely on distinguishing the transmissions when explaining the wording of a hadith; all of this is built on the work of al-Yunini and those before him, such as Abu Dharr al-Harawi.
A pioneering critical method: Al-Yunini’s work is considered pioneering in the method of comparative editing of manuscripts before the age of printing. He laid down practical rules for collating copies, such as his convention of symbols: «5» for Abu Dharr, «ص» for al-Asili, «ش» for al-Dimashqi, «ظ» for Abu al-Waqt, and he stated these at the beginning of the book. This system closely resembles the modern critical apparatus used today in producing edited texts, and thanks to it al-Yunini preserved the structure of the original text while accommodating the differences in the margins without confusion. Furthermore, his copy spread widely during his lifetime and after it, and many derivative copies were made from it, called “the derivatives of the Yuniniyya”, which spread in Syria, Egypt and elsewhere, which helped establish its reading as a standard reference.
Trust in it and reliance on it across the ages: The Yunini copy came to be regarded as a standard by which others were corrected, to the point that some scholars, when they could not obtain the Yunini original, relied on a trustworthy derivative of it. For example, Imam Shihab al-Din al-Qastallani (d. 923 AH), in his commentary Irshad al-Sari, first collated his book against a derivative of the Yuniniyya belonging to Shaykh al-Ghuzuli, then was later granted success in obtaining the Yunini original itself and collated against it a second time. Al-Qastallani described that derivative as a meticulous and precious derivative, and then his certainty increased when he collated against the original. Thus the name “the Yuniniyya” became a byword for the soundness of the text, and any copy transcribed from it acquired trust and precision. Scholars over the centuries have continued to quote from “the Yuniniyya”, or to note “in the Yunini original it is such-and-such”, relying on its firmly established reputation.
In short, the Yunini copy provided a precise balance for fixing the book Sahih al-Bukhari, one that rarely has a parallel among the other books of hadith. Among what shows the merit of this pioneering work is that it continued as an authoritative source until the coming of the age of printing and beyond, as we shall see in the reliance of the printed editions on it.
Printed Editions Based on the Yunini Copy
With the appearance of printing in the Islamic world in the thirteenth century AH, the text of Sahih al-Bukhari was one of the most important works that scholars sought to bring out in edited printings. The early editors benefited greatly from al-Yunini’s copy and its derivatives in preparing the reference editions. The most prominent edition based on this copy is:
The Sultaniyya edition (al-Amiriyya at Bulaq): This is the most famous of the old editions of Sahih al-Bukhari and the most highly esteemed. Sultan ‘Abd al-Hamid II, may Allah have mercy on him, ordered it to be printed at the Amiri Press at Bulaq in Egypt in the year 1311 AH, and it was completed at the beginning of 1313 AH in four volumes. The editorial committee of this edition relied primarily on the Yunini copy, alongside other well-known sound derivatives. The editors placed margins in the printing containing the symbols of the transmissions, so in the margins of the Sultaniyya edition we find indications such as: «5» for Abu Dharr al-Harawi, «ص» for al-Asili, «س» for Ibn ‘Asakir, «ط» for Abu al-Waqt, «هـ» for al-Kushmihani, «حـ» for al-Hammuyi, «سـ» for al-Mustamli, «ك» for Karima, «حهـ» for the agreement of al-Hammuyi and al-Kushmihani, and «حسـ» for al-Hammuyi and al-Mustamli. Sometimes «5» or another symbol is found beneath «حهـ» and «حسـ», indicating his transmission from the two of them; sometimes «لا» is found before a symbol, indicating that the word marked with «لا» is omitted in the transmission of the owner of the symbol after it; and at the end of the phrase marked with «لا» the word «إلى» may be found, indicating the end of what is omitted in that transmission. Among the symbols are «ع», which is perhaps for Ibn al-Sam’ani; «ج», which is perhaps for al-Jurjani; «ق», which is perhaps for al-Qabisi; and «ح», «عط» and «صع», whose owners are not known; and perhaps other symbols are found whose owners are also unknown. On some words «خـ», «ـخـ» or «خ» is found, indicating another copy, and the word «صحـ» may be found on a word, indicating the soundness of the hearing of this word according to the one indicated by the symbol or according to al-Hafiz al-Yunini, exactly following al-Yunini’s method in his copy. They also made references to other sources when needed, such as references to al-Mizzi’s Tuhfat al-Ashraf, the commentary of al-‘Ayni, and the commentary of al-Qastallani, to fix the places of the hadiths and their numbering. Despite the great standing of this edition, Shaykh Ahmad Muhammad Shakir, may Allah have mercy on him, observed that it did not record all of al-Yunini’s marginal notes in full, but omitted some of them or summarized them without saying so. Ahmad Shakir says, after examining the Yunini original: It appears to me that the printers of the Sultaniyya copy did not record everything in the Yunini original; rather they left most of it out and did not mention it. Nevertheless, the “Sultaniyya edition” or “Bulaq edition” remained the best of its time, and most later editions in the Islamic world were copied from it.
Conclusion
In sum, al-Yunini’s copy of Sahih al-Bukhari represents a scholarly and heritage achievement of great importance in the science of editing hadith texts. It gathered the different transmissions under one banner and documented their differences faithfully and precisely, which made the text of al-Jami’ al-Sahih more tightly established and more trustworthy. It is no wonder that this effort of Sharaf al-Din al-Yunini has been commemorated and appreciated across the centuries, and that the most famous old and modern editions have relied on it. Through the Yunini copy, Sahih al-Bukhari has been preserved for us as the trustworthy transmitters narrated it, with the differences of transmission between its versions set out, in a single, integrated work. It is thus a bright page in the history of the service of the Prophetic Sunnah and the sciences of hadith, and an indispensable reference for every researcher and editor working on Sahih al-Bukhari.