الحديث الصحيح
al-Ḥadīth al-Ṣaḥīḥ
A hadith whose truth is established beyond question; the highest grade of report.
What it means
A ḥadīth ṣaḥīḥ, “sound report”, is a report of the Prophet that has met every condition of authenticity. By the usual rule of the scholars, its chain of reporters is connected, each reporter is upright and has a reliable memory, and it is free of hidden defect and of contradiction with better evidence. The text, too, must be free of defect.
The grade rests on the work of critics who studied the lives of reporters, a discipline called ʿilm al-rijāl. The two most trusted collections are those of al-Bukhari and Muslim, each called al-Ṣaḥīḥ. Their authors set strict standards, and the community has received their collections with wide agreement. A sound report is accepted as evidence in belief and law, although the text must still be understood in its context.
Often misunderstood as
Taken to mean any report found in a hadith book; the grade is a judgment on the chain and the text.
Term and Arabic as listed in Ismail al Faruqi, Toward Islamic English (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1995), p. 50, listed as AL ḤADĪTH AL ṢAḤĪḤ. The definition is restated here.