Abu Dawood

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Abu Dawood Sulayman ibn Ash`ath al-Azadi al-Sijistani, commonly known as Abu Dawod, was a noted Khurassian collector of prophetic hadith, and wrote the third of the six canonical hadith collections recognized by Sunni Muslims, Sunan Abi Dawood.

Biography

He was born in Sijistan, now known as Sistan in south-western Afghanistan, in 817, and died in 888. Widely travelled among scholars of ahadith, he went to Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Khurasan, Nishapur, and Marv among other places in order to collect hadith. He was primarily interested in jurisprudence, and as a result the collection by him focuses largely on legal hadith. Out of about 50,000 hadith, he chose 4,800 for inclusion in his work.

Works

He wrote some 21 books in total. Some of the most prominent are:

• Sunan Abi Dawood, containing some 4,800 hadith, is his principal work, some of his hadith are not sahih, but he claimed that all hadith listed were sahih unless specifically indicated otherwise; this has been controversial among Islamic scholars, since some, such as Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani believe some of the unmarked ones to be da'if as well.
• In another work, Kitab al-Marasil, he lists 600 mursal hadith which, after extensive background investigation, he concludes are nonetheless sahih.
• Risālah Abī Dāwūd ilā Ahli Makkah; his letter to the inhabitants of Makkah describing his Sunan.^[1]

References

1. ^ Translation of the Risālah by Abū Dāwūd