Abu Dawood

Hadith scholar Abu Dawood Sulayman ibn Ash`ath al-Azdi al-Sijistani
Title	Abu Dawood
Born	202H 817-18CE
Died	275H 889CE
Ethnicity	Arab from the tribe of Azd
Maddhab	Sunni
Main interests	hadith
Works	Sunan Abu Dawood
Influences	Ibrahim ibn Ya'qub al-Juzajani

Abu Dawood Sulayman ibn Ash`ath Azdi Sijistani (Persian/Arabic: ابو داود سليمان بن اشعث السجستاني), commonly known as Abu Dawud, was a noted Persian collector of prophetic hadith, and wrote the third of the six canonical hadith collections recognized by Sunni Muslims, Sunan Abu Dawood.

Biography

He was born in Sistan, in east of Iran, (then Persia) and died in 889 in Basra. Widely travelled among scholars of hadith, he went to Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Hijaz, 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 500,000 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 Abu Dawood, containing some 4,800 hadith, is his principal work. They are usually numbered after the edition of Muhammad Muhyi al- Din `Abd al-Hamid (Cairo: Matba`at Mustafa Muhammad, 1354/1935), where 5,274 are distinguished. 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.