The textual integrity of Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī

Second only to the Quran, Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī occupies a near-sacrosanct space in Muslim intellectual and spiritual history. Much ink has been spilled engaging contentions related to the contents of the Ṣaḥīḥ, but less attention has been given in anglophone literature to its textual integrity. How faithfully was the Ṣaḥīḥ transmitted after al-Bukhārī's demise? Were the people responsible for disseminating the Ṣaḥīḥ trustworthy and meticulous? With over a millennium separating us from its initial compilation, to what extent does the contemporary rendition of the Ṣaḥīḥ correspond to al-Bukhārī's autograph? By tracing the transmission of the Ṣaḥīḥ from its compilation until the eve of hadith canonization in the fifth century AH, reconstructing its primary recensions from secondary sources, and comparing hundreds of its textual variants, Muntasir Zaman answers these questions surrounding the transmission of the most acclaimed hadith collection.