Early Islamic methodology comparative study of Hadith literature through al-Bukhari

There is almost a consensus among Muslim and non-Muslim scholars that the third century of Al-Hijrah, was the most active century for searching and investigating Islamic tradition. A large number of Muslim Ulama’ and Hadith Imams were driven by a deep sense of religious and social obligations to collect and preserve the Prophet’s (Peace Be Upon Him-PBUH) Hadith in a written form. Some of them have spent most of their lives traveling, interviewing, studying, and searching the truth about Hadith and its narrators. They applied several methods and available possible means to achieve that goal. An early landmark in this process was al-Imam al-Bukhari (d. 256/870). His book (Sahih) the genuine was the first systematic book in the field. The Islamic rules of life have been reserved in every particular in that book. This paper is an attempt to discuss and analyze Hadith literature development through the early Islamic methodology in general and al-Bukhari in particular, and tries to answer the question whether or not that methodology was scientific in the sense of contemporary research measures.