Here’s the English translation:


*Imam Tirmidhi*


The general principles adopted by Abu Dawud with regard to hadith criticism were further refined and followed by his student Abu Isa Muhammad ibn Isa al-Tirmidhi in his _Jami‘_. Al-Tirmidhi was born in 206 AH / 821 CE in Mecca.


He traveled extensively in search of traditions and visited the great centers of Islamic learning in Iraq, Persia, and Khurasan, where he had the opportunity to associate with eminent traditionalists such as al-Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud, and others. He passed away in 279 AH / 892 CE in Tirmidh.


Like Abu Dawud, Abu Isa’s memory was also exceptionally sharp and retentive, which was put to the test many times. It is said that in the early stage of his travels, a hadith scholar narrated to him many hadiths filling 16 pages, which were lost before Tirmidhi could review them.


Some time later he met that hadith scholar again and requested him to narrate some hadiths. The teacher suggested that he would read out from his manuscript the same traditions that he had narrated to Tirmidhi during their previous meeting. Tirmidhi accepted this challenge and recited all the traditions without a single mistake.


At this, the teacher doubted his own statement that he had not been able to review from his notes, and decided to test his student by narrating 40 other traditions and asking Tirmidhi to repeat them. Without any hesitation, Tirmidhi repeated verbatim what he had heard, and his teacher, now convinced of the truth of his statement, expressed his delight and satisfaction at the young man’s power of memory.


The above three examples are sufficient to illustrate the nature of the comments made by Tirmidhi on the narrations in his _Jami‘_. He classified these hadiths into the categories: _sahih_, _hasan_, _sahih hasan_ [reliable-fair], _hasan sahih_ [fair-reliable], _gharib_, _da‘if_, or _munkar_.[reliable][fair][rare][weak][obscure]


But in terms of assessing reliability, perhaps the most important feature of the _Jami‘_ is the category of _hasan_. Tirmidhi, understanding the importance of this hadith as a source of law, for the first time [in the _Kitab al-‘Ilal_ of his _Jami‘_] defined this term and applied it to those narrations that met its requirements.


Note: The original text says al-Tirmidhi was “born in 206/821 in Mecca” — most sources actually place his birth in Tirmidh, not Mecca. That looks like an error in the Hindi source.

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