Some prophetic traditions (ģadīth) express that Medina is a ģaram region, similar to Mecca. A majority of them do not specify the boundaries of Medina’s ģaram region, citing only geographical formations like mountains and stony areas. According to a tradition in the ŝaģīfa of ‘Ali b. Abū Šālib, however, ‘Ayr/‘Ā’ir and Thawr Mountains were clearly determined as the north-south boundaries of the region. This tradition has been criticized since the early period on the basis that Thawr Mountain was unknown to the inhabitants of Medina. Moreover, it was also argued that a particular part of the tradition — the part that contains Thawr Mountain — was added as a result of the transmitter’s delusions. Al-Qāsim ibn Sallām and other scholars found the mention of Thawr in the tradition to be unsound, given the details that the inhabitants of the city did not know about the mountain. It has been argued that, influenced by the criticism, some transmitters and scholars categorizing the tradition made some changes to the relevant parts of the tradition. Al-Bukhārī and his work, al-Jāmi‘ al-ŝaģīģ, stand at the center of criticism. This article aims to examine criticism addressed to the transmitters of the tradition that determines the boundaries as ‘Ayr and Thawr as well as to al-Bukhārī who included this tradition in his collection. It also hopes to locate the reflections of initial critiques on the tradition’s text. Therefore, it aims at underlining the fact that, aside from certain (un)intended additions to the tradition’s texts, some additions may have been intended to compensate for critiques of the texts. First, the article explores whether the mountains ‘Ayr and Thawr actually exist in Medina based on geographic sources and studies of the city of Medina. Indeed, we understand that two small mountains do exist — one of them is to the south of the city with the name ‘Ayr and the second one stands behind Mount Uģud, named Thawr. Then the article outlines the scholars who criticized the tradition and their arguments in chronological order. These critiques could be due to several factors, including the small size of Thawr, the reputation of Mount Uģud and the existence of another small mountain named Thawr in Mecca. These scholars’ suggestion that the mountain mentioned is Mount Uģud instead of Thawr does not seem to be accurate, due to the fact that the transmission has flaws in its isnād; it does not appear in the sound collections of prophetic traditions and it remains marginal to other transmissions.       When we compare all the chains of transmissions, including the ģaram status of Medina, some chains are recorded vaguely in the form of “kadhā”. Some scholars explain this difference by memorization deficiencies on behalf of transmitters. Some of them, on the other hand, suggest that the transmitters and collectors of prophetic traditions made intentional changes in response to critiques.  We locate this vagueness only in al-Bukhārī’s work. The transmitters he received from were criticized, as was he, for leaving the second boundary blank and replacing it with the word “kadhā”. When we contextualize the transmission chains through the light of biographical dictionaries, the transmitters seem not to have made any changes to the tradition during the process of transmission. Therefore, the critiques are attributed to al-Bukhārī. In addition, al-Bukhārī’s work notes that the form of this tradition with Thawr is incorrect. However, Ŝaģīģ includes this tradition with Thawr, which could mean that he would not make any changes to the text of the tradition based on this note. Indeed, some scholars such as Ibn Ģajar try to neutralize the critiques by emphasizing this fact. The accounts on diverging information based on various copies of al-Bukhārī’s work manifest that defending al-Bukhārī from the phrases including Thawr is inaccurate. They also indicate that some transmitters/editors of al-Bukhārī’s work made some changes to the related section. Someone may think that al-Bukhārī made the change originally because his work quotes it in the form of “kadhā”, contrary to other tradition cataloguers, despite their mutual transmitter sources and because al-Bukhārī states openly that the use of the word Thawr is incorrect. However, various copies of al-Bukhārī’s work have diverging texts on the related part, leading us to approach the critiques of al-Bukhārī with caution. Initial critiques of the tradition and al-Bukhārī’s opinion might have influenced the later copy editors and they might have made some changes to the related section. The accounts relate that some copies left the place of Thawr blank and some others crossed out the word Thawr. This article discusses the possibility of changes by later copy editors after the composer al-Bukhārī to the relevant section of the tradition. We can argue that the copy editors of Ŝaģīģ made changes to the text of the tradition and the differences in the tradition in various copies could be due to the editors’ alterations. However, we are not sure whether this alteration intended to clarify a vague point and repeat a blank section, or whether it intended to make a section ambiguous because of the critiques to the transmission of the second boundary and al-Bukhārī’s opinions on the subject. This latter possibility is supported by certain examples of editors’ alterations on al-Bukhārī’s text in order to correct or complete it, phrases on their open changes on the word Thawr in the tradition in the ŝaģīfa as well as by some points for which al-Bukhārī’s notes were applied to the text. Some other works stating that clear boundaries were made ambiguous also support this argument. According to this, al-Bukhārī made no change to the text of the tradition and it was, in fact, the copy editors who added the word “kadhā”. Besides, various answers appear to the question why certain manuscripts of Bukhārī’s work record Thawr as the second boundary. If the later editors made an alteration at this point, we would expect them to do the same thing throughout the entirety of the transmissions. First, manuscripts that mention the second boundary as “kadhā” rarely mention Thawr with a clear signifier of boundary. Therefore, it has been suggested that some editors may have missed it. In addition, while one source records the boundary as blank in a manuscript, another source reports it as Thawr in the same manuscript. It seems probable that an editor left a blank space, which other editors filled in with Thawr with the help of notes in other sources. 

Ultimately, it seems that Ŝaģīģ has survived to us through alterations by alBukhārī, who included the tradition in his work, or by later editors as a result of the critiques of some scholars, principally Qāsim b. Sallām. Some critiques of the commentators who tried to bring extreme interpretations to the transmission were influential. Editors were in some way certainly involved in the process of some alterations of the tradition’s transmission. Most likely, they changed the boundary, which was mentioned clearly in Saģīģ al-Bukhārī, to an ambiguous form. As for al-Bukhārī, he does not seem to have made a clear alteration to the text. By looking at similar examples in the literature of prophetic traditions, we can trace the influence of critiques at various stages, such as transmissions, records on books, commentaries and reproductions of books and on the texts of traditions. Studies of this sort will bring more stable ground for discussions on the reasons for differences in manuscripts, the process of transmission of works, the attitudes of transmitters/cataloguers and al-Bukhārī and his work.