Where does sunnah.com get its English Hadith sources?

(Note to readers: I will use Hadiths instead of Ahadith because it is easier to understand the plural form as Hadiths, instead of Ahadith, for regular readers)

Sunnah.com is a great website for providing digital copies of the famous al-Sahih al-Sittah/Kutub al-Sittah. For the unaware reader, the Kutub al-Sittah are the 6 famous Hadith books(or collections) that have Hadith compilations.

I personally have issues with the current manner of digitization of classical Islamic works, but I will save that discussion for its own article(where I can go into further detail). The focus of this article is to find the translators and books which are the source material for sunnah.com

What sunnah.com says

Looking at this sunnah.com - About - Sources, we can use this as a starting point to find out where the English content for the Hadiths comes from. This is what the site says regarding English translations:

For the English we use various translators, a full list of which will appear here shortly inshaAllah. The English has been through two iterations of cleaning (spelling corrections etc.). We have done our best to provide the most authentic and exact hadith possible.

For Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, the website does provide a reference to an English data source, seen here:

But the problem with the "USC-MSA web (English) reference" is that it no longer exists. I tried to figure out what the cause was and apparently it had to do with some political issues raised at the USC, but that is not the concern for us.

The "About" section is also limited on its sources by just saying that they use various translators. We live in an age where many laymen consider themselves capable scholars and use the internet(where sunnah.com ranks highly) to issue fatwas. This makes it even more important that sources are more clearly shown regarding Islamic works and especially their translations.

What I found

Through the Mercy of Allah and without much looking, I was able to source the English references for most of the Hadith collections.

Kalamullah is famous for providing PDFs to various Islamic books, including the 6 Hadith collections(with translations). This is where I was able to make the connection back to sunnah.com

If we look at ibn Majah - Book 1 - Hadith 200, the Arabic and English references are as follows:

English translation : Vol. 1, Book 1, Hadith 466 Arabic reference : Book 1, Hadith 503

The book to download is ibn Majah Volume 1

This is what sunnah.com says in English for Hadith 200:

It was narrated that Qais bin Sa'd said:

"The Prophet came to us and we gave him water to perform a bath." Then we brought him a Warshiyyah cloth, and he wrapped himself in it. It is as if I can see the marks of the Wars on the folds of his stomach."

This is what the PDF shows:

Word-for-word, it is the same content. I tested this out randomly in 4 other places:

• ibn Majah - Hadith 750 - PDF Vol1 pg. 492
• ibn Majah - Hadith 1785 - PDF Vol3 pg. 19 (I found a missing word on the website, but the English content is almost exactly the same)
• ibn Majah - Hadith 2415 - PDF Vol3 pg. 382
• ibn Majah - Hadith 4056 - PDF Vol5 pg. 246

The author and publisher of this version is:

Publisher: Maktaba Dar-us-Salam
Published: 2007
ISBN: 9960-9881-3-9
Ahadith edited, researched and referenced by:
Hafiz Abu Tahir Zubair 'Ali Za'i
Translated by:
Nasiruddin al-Khattab (Canada)
Edited by:
Huda Khattab (Canada)
Final review by:
Abu Khaliyl (USA)

I will apply the same method(but reducing to 3 Hadiths per set) for the other 5 Hadith collections.

Bukhari

The volumes to download for this set are here: Sahih Bukhari

• Bukhari - Hadith 61 - PDF Vol1 pg. 89 (Book3, CH4, nr. 61)
• Bukhari - Hadith 1200 - PDF Vol2 pg. 175 (Book21, CH2, nr. 1200) - not a word-for-word match, small editing for spelling/grammar improvement
• Bukhari - Hadith 6290 - PDF Vol8 pg. 173 (Book79, CH47, nr. 6290)

The author and publisher of this version is:

Publisher: Maktaba Dar us Salam(same as ibn Majah books)
Published: 1997
ISBN: 9960-717-31-3
Translated by: Dr. Muhammad Muhsin Khan

Muslim

The volumes to download for this set are here: Sahih Muslim

• Muslim - Hadith 55a - PDF Vol1 pg. 150 (Book1, CH23, nr. 196) - not a word-for-word match, some changes present(common folk -> masses)
• Muslim - Hadith 900 - PDF Vol2 pg. 422 (Book9, CH4, nr. 2087) - also not a word-for-word match
• Muslim - Hadith 2035a - PDF Vol5 pg. 383 (Book36, CH18, nr. 2035) - CH heading the same but significant variation in Hadith text

The author and publisher used for Sahih Muslim on sunnah.com is presumably not the same as the version available on kalamullah.com

an-Nasa'i

The volumes to download for this set are here: Sunan An-Nasa'i

• Nasai - Hadith 691 - PDF Vol1 pg. 408 (Book8, CH4, nr. 691)
• Nasai - Hadith 1300 - PDF Vol2 pg. 260 (Book13, CH58, nr. 1301)
• Nasai - Hadith 691 - PDF Vol1 pg. 408 (Book8, CH4, nr. 691)

The author and publisher of this version is:

Publisher: Maktaba Dar us Salam(same as ibn Majah books)
Published: 2007
ISBN: 978-9960-58-760-8
Ahadith edited and referenced by:
Hafiz Abu Tahir Zubair 'Ali Za'i
Translated by:
Nasiruddin al-Khattab (Canada)
Edited by:
Huda Khattab (Canada)
Final review by:
Abu Khaliyl (USA)

Abu Dawood

The volumes to download for this set are here: Sunan Abu Dawood

• Abu Dawood - Hadith 376 - PDF Vol1 pg. 237 (Book1, CH135, nr. 376) - translation appears to be different(same meaning, different translation)
• Abu Dawood - Hadith 1623 - PDF Vol2 pg. 280 (Book9, CH22, nr. 1623) - translation appears to be different(same meaning, different translation)
• Abu Dawood - Hadith 3502 - PDF Vol4 pg. 139 (Book22, CH67, nr. 3502) - translation appears to be different(same meaning, different translation)

The author and publisher used for Sahih Muslim on sunnah.com is presumably not the same as the version available on kalamullah.com

at-Tirmidhi

The volumes to download for this set are here: Jami' At-Tirmidhi

• Tirmidhi - Hadith 601 - PDF Vol2 pg. 63 (Book(*), CH68, nr. 601)
• Tirmidhi - Hadith 1461 - PDF Vol3 pg. 246 (Book15, CH28, nr. 1461)
• Tirmidhi - Hadith 2168 - PDF Vol4 pg. 408 (Book31, CH8, nr. 2168)

*The discrepancy in Book numbers appears in Vol2, where "Travelling" and "Fasting" were not given Book numbers and hence the online version is 2 Books ahead of the PDFs.

The author and publisher of this version is:

Publisher: Maktaba Dar us Salam(same as ibn Majah books)
Published: 2007
ISBN: 978-9960-9967-38
Ahadith edited and referenced by:
Hafiz Abu Tahir Zubair 'Ali Za'i
Translated by:
Abu Khaliyl (USA)
Final review by:
Islamic Research Section Darussalam

Conclusion

Sahih Muslim and Sunan Abu Dawood were the only 2 using different Arabic-English translations. I am aware that other translations of some of the Hadith collections do exist, but the slant of sunnah.com appears to be towards the Saudi Arabian publisher Darus Salam. It might be that the sources for Sahih Muslim and Sunan Abu Dawood are also by Darus Salam, but from different authors.

If any mistakes were made in this article, please contact me to have them fixed.