Abu Dawood

Abu Dawud Sulaymān ibn al-Ash‘ath al-Azdi as-Sijistani Arabic: أبو داود سليمان بن الأشعث الأزدي السجستاني‎), commonly known simply as Abu Dawud, was a noted Persian collector of prophetic hadith, and compiled the third of the six "canonical" hadith collections recognized by Sunni Muslims, the Sunan Abu Dāwūd.

Biography

Abu Dawud was born in Sistan, eastern Iran (then-Persia) and died in 889 in Basra. Widely traveled among scholars of hadith, he went to Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Hijaz, Tihamah, Khurasan, Nishapur, and Marv among other places in order to collect hadith. He was primarily interested in jurisprudence, and as a result his collection focused largely on legal hadith. Out of about 500,000 hadith, he chose 4,800 for inclusion in his work.

School of thought

Imam Abu Dawud was a follower of The Hanbali school of thought. Scholars have disagreed on whether he was muqallid or mujtahid.

Works

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

Sunan Abu Dawood

Sunan Abu Dawud (Arabic: سنن أبي داود‎, translit. Sunan Abī Dāwūd) is one of the Kutub al-Sittah (six major hadith collections), collected by Abu Dawud.

Introduction

Abu Dawud compiled twenty-one books related to Hadith and preferred those ahadith which were supported by the example of the companions of Muhammad. As for the contradictory ahadith, he states under the heading of 'Meat acquired by hunting for a pilgrim': "if there are two contradictory reports from the Prophet (SAW), an investigation should be made to establish what his companions have adopted". He wrote in his letter to the people of Mecca "I have disclosed wherever there was too much weakness in regard to any tradition in my collection. But if I happen to leave a Hadith without any comment, it should be considered as sound, albeit some of them are more authentic than others". Hadith Mursal (a tradition in which a companion is omitted and a successor narrates directly from Muhammad) has also been a matter of discussion among the traditionists. Abu Dawud states in his letter to the people of Mecca: "if a Musnad Hadith (uninterrupted tradition) is not contrary to a Mursal or a Musnad Hadith is not found, then the Mursal Hadith will be accepted though it would not be considered as strong as a Muttasil Hadith (uninterrupted chain)".