In Muslim al-Naysaburi (d. 261/875). The skeptical traditionalist, Pavel Pavlovitch studies the life and works of Muslim b. al-Hajjaj al-Naysaburi, the author of the famous collection of traditions (hadith) al-Musnad al-sahih (The Sound Collection), which Sunni Muslims rank as the third most authoritative source of legal and theological norms after the Qur'an and Muhammad b. Isma'il al-Bukhari's Sahih. Based on multiple biographical sources and Muslim's extant works, Pavel Pavlovitch studies hitherto unexplored aspects of Muslim's biography, elaborates on his founding contribution to the science of hadith criticism, and examines the transmission history of Muslim's Sahih in unprecedented detail. The monograph includes the first systematic study of Muslim's traditionalist theology, which played a defining role in the formation of Sunni identity.