Sunan Abu Dawud (Set of 3 Volumes)

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About the Book

Abu Dawud is most important fundamental work of Hadith. The Sunan contains 4800 traditions selected from a mass of 50,000. It is one of six Important and authentic collections (Saha-i-Sitta) of the Prophetic traditions. Dawud, following the practice of his time travelled far and wide to collect Hadith and visited Hijaz, Iraq, Khurashan, Egypt, Syria, Nishapur, Merv and Isfahan for the purpose. His proficiency in Hadith is accepted. His Sunan naturally, is replete with legal traditions; it also indicates his point of view on various questions and his acumen in ijtihad.

Introduction

His life and Work. His name was Sulaiman. His genealogy is as follows: Sulaiman b al-Ash’ath b. Ishaq b. Bashir b. Shaddad b. ‘Amr b. ‘Imran. There is me difference of opinion amongst historians about his genealogy. His great- grandfather “Imran is reported to have participated in the Battle of Siffin on the side of Ali and was martyred in the Same battle.

Abu Dawad was born at Sijistan in 202 A.H. He belonged to Azd, a well-known Arab tribe. Hence he is called al-Azdi His native city Sijistan was a famous town in Khurasan. It was situated in the vicinity of Makran and Sindh opposite to Hirat.

He heard Hadlth from about three hundred persons who were his teachers (shuyukh). The eminent of them are as follows: Ahmad b. Hanbal.vlshaq b. Rahwaih, Abu Thaur, Yahya b. Ma’in, Hisham b. ‘Abd al-Malik al-Tayaltsl, Abii Bakr b. bi Shaibah and ‘Uthman b. Abu Shaibah. He had a large number of disciples. Here give a few illustrious names: Abu Bakr b. Abu Dawud, Abn ‘Ali Muhammad b Ahmad b. “Amr ul-Lu’lu”, Abu Sa’id Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Ziyad b. Bishr, alias n al-A’rabi, Abu Bakr Muhammad b. Bakr b. Muhammad b. ‘Abd al-Razzaq al- Tammar al-Basri, alias Ibn Dasah, Abu ‘Isa al-Tirmidhi, Abu ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Nasa’I Abu ‘Amr Ahmad b. Abu ‘Isa Ishaq b Musu b Sa’Id al-Ramli These are the transmitters of his Sunan. Some of the transmitters of his other books are: ‘Abd Allah Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Basri, Abu Bakr Ahmad b. Sulaimau al-Najjar ,Ismai’il b. Muhammad al-Saffar.

Although Imam Abu Dawud was born at Sijistan , he spent the greater. part of his life at Basrah which was a seat of learning in his day. He widely ‘travelled throughout the world for collecting Hadith. Many times he visited Baghdad, and, journeyed to Hejaz, Iraq: Khurasan, Egypt. Syria, al-Jazirah, Nisbapur and Ifshan.

Imam Abu Dawud had a strong memory anti a penetraring mind. His retaining power was recognised by the doctors of Hadith of his time. Alongside of his memory also well versed in the Criticism of Hadith. He was expert in distinguishing the sound traditions from the weak, defective, and spurious ones. Four person’s are reported to have earned their Game for the criticism of Hadith: Imam al-Bukhari, Imam Muslim, Imam Abu Dawud and Imam -al-Nasa ‘I Imam Abu Dawud lived during the period when the Muslim world was full of eminent scholars. He attained so-much command over Hadith that great masters of his time recognised his eminence and distinction amongst contemporary scholars of Hadith, He was considered Imam al-Muhaddihin of his time.

Besides his expertise in Hadith he Was also a great jurist. He had keen insight in fiqh and ijtihad. Some scholars are of opinion that Imam Abu Dawud had the most prominent position in fiqh and ijtihad amongst the doctors of Hadith after Imam al-Bukhari. He was so much inclined towards jurisprudence that Abu Ishaq al-Shirazi has included him alone in Tabaqat al-Fuqaha’ from amongst the authors of the six canonical collections of Hadith. This is the reason why he has collected only legal traditions (ahadith al-akkam) in his Sunan.

There is a dispute over the school of law to which he belonged. Abu Ishaq al- Shirazi considers him a Hanball jurist, for he was a disciple of Ahmad b. Hanbal and agreed with him on a number of questions. But other scholars regard him as a Shafi’I jurist.

Imam Abu Dawud was a religious man. He led pious and ascetic life. He devoted most of his time to worship, devotion and remembrance of Allah. He renounced pleasure in worldly things. He always kept away from the company of Sultans, courtiers .and men of rank and dignity. Once he was asked by the Governor of Basrah to give his sons a prominent seat in the circle of Hadith. But Imam Abu Df.wud did not accept this request of him and replied that there was no distinction between high and low in learning T;1adith from the teacher.

Imam Abu Dawud died on Friday, 16 Shawwal 275 at the age of seventy-two years. ‘Abbas b. ‘Abd al-Wahid led the Funeral prayer. We do not find any details about his descendants His biographers have made a mention of the name of his son Abu Bakr h. Abu Dawud, who was his disciple and an eminent doctor of Hadith.

His Works. His works are:

(I) Kittab al-Radd ‘Ala Ahl al-Qadar

(2) Kitab af-Masa’il

(3) Musnad Malik

(4) Kitab al-Marasil

(5) Sunan Abu; Dawud

Sunan Abu Dawud . This is one of the six canonical collections of Traditions of the Prophet (Sihah Sittah), It contains 4800 select Traditions. Imam Abu Dawud completed it in Baghdad in 241 A.H. The collections of Hadith before Sunan Abu Dawud were compiled on the pattern of the type known as Jawami-(sing. Jami’) and Musanid (sing. Musnad). They contained traditions relating to various subjects. e.g. ahkam (law). tafsir (exegesis), qasas (stories), akhbar (history), mawa’iz; (homilies). adab (general behaviour). The distinctive quality of this book is that Imam Abu Dawud collected only legal traditions (akham) in it and omitted others. In his epistle to the people of Mecca, he said: “I have collected only legal traditions in the Sunan (i.e, Sunan Abu Dawud). They do not include traditions relating to asceticism and merits of deeds The four thousand and eight hundred traditions contained in it relate to legal questions.

Sunan Abu; Dawud is an important collection of Hadith. Most of the scholars have assigned it the third position among the six collections of Hadith after those compiled by Imam al-Bukhari and Imam Muslim, Imam Ahmad b. Hanbal appreciated it very much when it was presented to him after its completion. We give below a few statements .of some scholars of Hadith about the worth of this collection.

Zakariya b. Yahva al-Saji said: “The Qur’an is the foundation of Islam and Sunan Abu D’awud is its pillar.”

Ibn al-A’rabi said: “There is no need of acquaintance of anything after acquiring the knowledge of the Quran and of Sunan Abu Dawud,”

Muhammad b Makhlad said: “When Abu Dawud presented the Sunan to the people after its compilation, the scholars of Hadith considered it a book worthy of being followed like the Qur’an.”

Al-Khattabi said: ‘Sunan Abu: Dawud is an excellent book. No such unpralleled work has been produced so far in religious sciences, It has gained popularity among people. It has a decisive position among various classes of scholars and jurists. All have equally benefited from it. The people of Iraq, Egypt, Maghrib and of most of the countries depend upon it.”

Ibn al-Jawzi said: “Abu Dawud was an eminent doctor of Hadith, and an outstanding scholar. No one has compiled a book like his Sunan.

Ibn Kathir remarked: Sunan Abu Dawud is considered to be a famous and popular work among scholars.”

Abu Dawud himself said: “The knowledge of any book other than it is not necessary after the Qur’an, There is no harm if a person’ does not possess the know-ledge of any book except of these two books”

Characteristics. (1) The most outstanding feature of this book is that it contains legal traditions, No ether book contains such a large number of traditions as it contains on law.

(2) It is a meritorious-work with regard to fiqh and derivation of rules, for Imam Abu Dawud was as eminent jurist.

(3) The traditions it contains were generally followed by Companions, Successors, and their followers. It is a basic source of knowledge about the legal points of view held by Malik, Sufyan al-Thauri, and al-Auza’i. It serves as an arbiter for disagreement among jurists.

(4) It takes a special care of sound, strong, continuous and those traditions which are traced back to the Prophet (may peace be upon him). These traditions have been selected from five lakhs by Imarn Abu Dawud. He himself said about these traditions in his Risalah :

“The Sunan contains 4800 traditions All of them are entirely or nearly sound. I have tried to the best of my knowledge and belief to transmit sound, rather most sound, traditions in this book. I always preferred those traditions which were superior ill respect of the chain of narrators. I narrate the mursal traditions when musnad and muttasil traditions are not available, for marasil are also recognised as authentic by early jurists like-Malilc al-Thauri and al-Auza’i. Al-Shafi’I and Ahmad b. Hanbal have criticised them. In my opinion, they are authentic and reliable in the absence of musnad and muttasil traditions. but I do not consider them as they are (i.e musnad and muttasil). I have not included in it any tradition which has been unanimously rejected by scholars. Similarly. I have refrained from narrating traditions from those narrators who have been rejected by doctors of Hadith. I do not take into consideration munkar (unusual) and da’if(weak) traditions But In the absence of sound traditions on a subject I have transmitted them after describing the reasons of their weakness and rejection Where I have kept silence with regard to those tr au it ions whose chains are not considered to be sound. they should be considered to be sound and reliable Similarly, I have taken much care of collecting in it the traditrons which are well known and those which have been generally followed and practised by the people, instead of trans- milling rare and obscure (gharib and shadhdh) traditions,”

At another place he has said:

“In this Sunan I have mentioned sound, quasi-sound and those traditions which are approximately sound. If any tradition is seriously weak, I have pointed out its weakness clearly. The traditions of which I have said nothing are genuine Some of the traditions which are not seriously weak are more sound than others.”

(5) Sometimes Imam Abu Dawud mentions many chains and many texts through one chain and one text, and gives the wordings of each tradition severally.

(6) No collection of Hadith is free from repetition of traditions. Imam Abu Dawud has avoided this repetition as far as possible in his Sunan”. He has neglected variety of chains and condensed the lengthy traditions He has repeated a tradition when some- thing new is found in it.

(7) Besides exhaustiveness and comprehensiveness of the traditions we find an excellent order and synthesis of the material!

(8) The Sunan contains also a thulathi (a chain comprising three narrators) tradition.

(9) The Sunan presents a detailed description of the names of the narrators, and of their surnames, indication of their trustworthiness or unreliability, and elucidation cf.rhe soundness and weakness of the tradition.

Four Significant Tradition! of Sunan Abu Dawad. Abu Dawud has stated that this collection of traditions (i.e. the Sunan) contains four traditions which are sufficient for a man to follow religion. These are as follows:

(i) Deeds are to be judged only by intentions.

(ii) Part of a man’s good observance of Islam is that he leaves alone what does not concern-him.

(iii) A believer does not become a perfect believer until he likes for his brother what he likes for himself.

(iv) What is lawful is clear and what is unlawful is clear, but between them are certain doubtful things.

These traditions are concerned with important things of life. The first relates to the validity of deeds and rituals; the second pertains to the precious moments of life; the third deals with the rights of man; and the fourth removes the doubts that arise from disagreement of the scholars.

Copies of Sunan Abu Dawud. Seven disciples of Imam Abu Dawud have trans- mitted the Sunan from him. Four of them are well known; hence four copies of the Sunan have been in circulation among the people. These disciples are:

(1) Abu Bakr Muhammad b. Bakr b. Muhammad b. ‘Abd al-Razzaq al-Tammar al-Basri, alia’ Ibn Dasah.

(2) Abu Sa’ld Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Ziyad b Bishr, alias Ibn al-A’rabl,

(3) Abu ‘Ali Muhammad b. Ahmad b. ‘Amr al-La’lu’ al-Basri.

(4) Abu ‘Isa Ishaq b Musa b Sa’id al-Ramli.

The copy prepared by al-Lu’lu’ is generally popular in this subcontinent and in most of the cities and in the east of Arabia. This is considered to be the most authentic version, for Imam Abu Dawud dictated it in the last part of his life in 375 A.H. Al-Mundhiri has made an abridgment of this copy and mentioned the names of the books in which the traditions contained in the Sunan are found. Ibn Rislan, al-’Iraqi, Ibn al-Q’ayyim, al-Sindhi and al-Suyuti have written commentaries of this copy of the Sunan. Al-Suyuti has observed that al-Lu’lu’s varsion is the most authentic one.

The second copy was prepared by Ibn Dasah. His version is the most perfect of all versions of the Sunan. It was popular in al-Maghrib, This copy is similar to the copy prepared by al-Lu’lu’. The difference between the two is of the order of chapters The copy of Ibn Dasah contains a number of traditions which are not-found in al-Lulu·s version. Al Khattabi, the commentator of Sunan Abu Dawad had this copy while writing its commentary. He narrated is traditions directly from Ibn Dasah.

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