Sahih Muslim: read the hadiths in Arabic, in English and with the isnad

Each hadith of Sahih Muslim is presented with its original Arabic text and full vowelling, a faithful English translation, its chain of transmission (isnad) and its official numbering. Reading goes book by book, from the Book of Faith to the Book of Quranic Commentary, in the Muslim Alim app.

The isnad is the chain of transmitters who reported a hadith, from the compiler back to the Prophet ﷺ. Imam Muslim and Imam Bukhari set strict criteria for validating it: the reliability of each transmitter, the continuity of the chain and the absence of hidden defects. That science, ilm al-hadith, is unique in the history of civilisations.

The Book of Faith (Kitab al-Iman), the first book of Sahih Muslim, gathers 432 hadiths on the foundations of belief: the pillars of Islam and of faith, ihsan, the signs of hypocrisy and the fate of the believers. It illustrates Imam Muslim's method of gathering all the hadiths on one subject in one place.

The complete Sahih Muslim is available in the Muslim Alim app, on iOS and Android, with navigation by thematic book. On the site, the page Sahih Muslim lists the 42 books and lets you display their hadiths in Arabic and English, as with Sahih Bukhari.

Thanks to Imam Muslim's rigour in checking the chains of transmission, his Sahih is considered, together with Bukhari's, one of the two most reliable works in Islamic literature. It allows every hadith to be traced back to the Prophet ﷺ and is a major source for understanding the Sunnah.