Guides
How to read a Qur’an or hadith reference
What “2:201” and “Sahih al-Bukhari · 6306” actually point to, and why hadith numbers sometimes differ between books and websites.
The Deen Map · · 1 min read
Beneath every ayah and hadith on The Deen Map you will find a short reference. Learning to read it takes a minute, and it lets you check any quotation you come across, here or anywhere else.
Qur’an references
A Qur’an reference looks like this: Surah Al-Baqarah · 2:201.
- Al-Baqarah is the name of the surah (chapter).
- 2 is the number of the surah in the order of the mushaf.
- 201 is the number of the ayah (verse) within that surah.
A range such as 2:201-202 means the quotation runs across consecutive ayat. Surah names are sometimes transliterated differently — Aal-Imran, Al-Imran, Ali ’Imran — but the numbers stay the same, so the numbers are the reliable part.
Hadith references
A hadith reference looks like this: Sahih al-Bukhari · 6306.
- Sahih al-Bukhari is the collection in which the narration is recorded.
- 6306 is its number within that collection.
Sometimes we name two collections, such as Sahih al-Bukhari & Sahih Muslim. That means the narration is recorded in both.
Why numbers can differ
The major hadith collections have been printed in many editions, and not every edition numbers its narrations the same way. A number that matches one book or website may not match another. If a number does not seem to lead to the right narration, search for the collection together with a phrase from the text.
Checking for yourself
Wherever we can, references on this site are links: Qur’an references open the ayah in our Qur’an reader, and single-collection hadith references open the narration on Sunnah.com. Reading the surrounding ayat or the full narration is often the best way to understand what a short quotation means.
