Imam Abu Dawud as-Sijistani: His Life, His Sunan and Its Authenticity

All praise is due to Allah, Lord of all the worlds, and may His peace and blessings be upon our Prophet Muhammad, his family and his Companions. To proceed:

Allah preserved this religion by preserving its two sources, the Book and the Sunnah. He promised to guard the Reminder, and part of how He fulfilled that promise was by raising up men who gave their lives to the words of His Messenger ﷺ: collecting them, testing their chains, separating the sound from the unsound, and passing them on with care. Among the greatest of these men was Imam Abu Dawud Sulayman ibn al-Ash'ath as-Sijistani (202 to 275 AH), rahimahullah, the compiler of the Sunan that every jurist, muhaddith and student of knowledge has relied on for more than eleven centuries.

Dar-us-Salam's biography, Imam Aboo Dawood Sijistani by Salahuddin Ali Abdul Mawjood, translated by Riaz Ansari, tells his story in 295 pages. What follows is a summary of the life it records, with particular attention to the question every sincere Muslim should ask about any hadith collection: how authentic is it, and how do we know?

Who Was Imam Abu Dawud?

His full name is Abu Dawud Sulayman ibn al-Ash'ath ibn Ishaq ibn Bashir al-Azdi as-Sijistani. He was an Arab of the tribe of Azd, and his family lived in Sijistan, the region of Sistan on today's border between Iran and Afghanistan. He was born in the year 202 AH, during the golden age of hadith scholarship, when the great masters of transmission were still alive and teaching in Baghdad, Basrah, Kufah, Damascus, Egypt and the Hijaz.

The scholars who wrote his biography, among them al-Khatib al-Baghdadi in Tarikh Baghdad and adh-Dhahabi in Siyar A'lam an-Nubala', describe him with titles that are given to very few: al-Imam, al-Hafiz, Shaykh as-Sunnah, Muqaddam al-Huffadh. He was a master of hadith, a jurist, a critic of narrators, and a man of worship and scrupulous piety.

Travelling in Search of the Sunnah

The early scholars understood the saying of the Prophet ﷺ, "Whoever takes a path seeking knowledge, Allah makes easy for him a path to Paradise" (Muslim), as a literal command to travel. Abu Dawud began seeking hadith young, and by his late teens he had left Sijistan. He journeyed through Khurasan, Iraq, the Jazirah, Sham, Egypt and the Hijaz, and he entered Baghdad more than once.

His teachers numbered in the hundreds, and they read like a roll call of the imams of the third century. Among them were:

• Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, the Imam of Ahlus-Sunnah, whom he accompanied closely
• Yahya ibn Ma'in and Ali ibn al-Madini, the two great authorities of narrator criticism
• Ishaq ibn Rahawayh, the imam of Khurasan
• Qutaybah ibn Sa'id, Musaddad ibn Musarhad, Abdullah ibn Maslamah al-Qa'nabi and Uthman ibn Abi Shaybah
• Abu al-Walid at-Tayalisi, Sulayman ibn Harb and Muslim ibn Ibrahim of Basrah

Several of these same shaykhs also taught Imam al-Bukhari and Imam Muslim. Abu Dawud drank from the same springs as the authors of the two Sahihs, and this is part of why his book sits so close to theirs in rank.

At the Side of Imam Ahmad

No teacher shaped Abu Dawud more than Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, rahimahullah. He sat with him for years, questioned him on fiqh, creed and the narrators, and wrote down the answers. That record survives today as Masa'il al-Imam Ahmad, one of the most reliable sources we have for Imam Ahmad's own positions.

The scholars noted how completely he took on his teacher's manner. It was said that Abu Dawud resembled Ahmad in his conduct and bearing, just as Ahmad resembled Waki', Waki' resembled Sufyan ath-Thawri, and so on back through Ibrahim an-Nakha'i and Alqamah to Abdullah ibn Mas'ud radiyallahu 'anhu, who resembled the Prophet ﷺ in his guidance. This is how the Sunnah was inherited: not only in words written on paper, but in character passed from teacher to student.

When Abu Dawud finished his Sunan, he presented it to Imam Ahmad, who approved of it and praised it. The respect ran both ways. It is reported that Imam Ahmad himself narrated a hadith from his student, about the 'atirah sacrifice, and Abu Dawud counted this as an honor.

The Sunan: How It Was Compiled

Abu Dawud said: "I wrote down five hundred thousand hadith from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and from them I selected what this book contains." The result is a collection of about 4,800 hadith by his own count (a little over 5,200 in the numbering used in most modern editions, which counts repeated routes separately), arranged by the chapters of fiqh from purification through prayer, zakah, fasting, Hajj, marriage, trade, judgments, and on to manners and creed.

The Sunan has a clear purpose. Where al-Bukhari and Muslim set out to gather only what met the highest standard of authenticity, Abu Dawud set out to gather the hadith on which legal rulings are built, the evidences the jurists of every school argue from. That is why the scholars said a jurist can hardly do without it. Al-Khattabi, the first to write a commentary on it, called it the book that the scholars of Iraq, Egypt, the Maghrib and much of the rest of the world took as their judge in matters of disagreement.

Abu Dawud himself said that four hadith from his book are enough for a person's religion:

1. "Actions are only by intentions."
2. "Part of the excellence of a person's Islam is leaving what does not concern him."
3. "None of you truly believes until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself."
4. "The halal is clear and the haram is clear, and between them are doubtful matters..."

These four cover sincerity, self-discipline, brotherhood and caution in religion. That he singled them out tells us that for him, collecting hadith was never separate from acting on them.

Authenticity: The Imam's Own Standard

This is the question that matters most. A Muslim acts on a hadith because he believes the Prophet ﷺ said it, so the reliability of a collection is not an academic detail. It is a matter of religion. Imam Abu Dawud understood this, and unlike many compilers, he explained his method in writing. In his famous Letter to the People of Makkah, who had asked him about his book, he wrote:

"I have mentioned in it the authentic, what resembles it and what is close to it... I did not include in my book any hadith from a man whose narrations are abandoned (matruk). Whatever hadith in my book contains serious weakness, I have made it clear. And whatever I said nothing about is fit (salih), and some of it is more authentic than others."

From this letter the scholars drew out his method in four points:

• He began with the authentic. His first concern was the sahih, and where the strongest chain for a ruling existed, he preferred it.
• He excluded the abandoned. Narrators whom the critics had rejected outright, the liars and the severely unreliable, have no place in his book.
• He declared serious weakness. When he did include a hadith with a significant defect, usually because it was the only evidence on a chapter, he said so, often naming the problem: a broken chain, an unknown narrator, or a contradiction with stronger reports.
• His silence meant "fit to be used" by his own standard. A hadith he passed over without comment was, in his judgment, suitable as evidence.

The question of his silence

The scholars of hadith examined that last point closely, as they examine everything. Ibn as-Salah, an-Nawawi, adh-Dhahabi, Ibn Hajar and others agreed that the Imam was truthful in what he described, but they noted two things. First, salih in his usage is broader than sahih: it covers the hasan and even mild weakness that other routes strengthen. Second, a later critic, with more routes and more narrator biographies gathered in front of him, can sometimes reach a different verdict on a chain the Imam was silent about.

This is not a criticism of Abu Dawud. It is the method of Ahlus-Sunnah in action: we honor the imams, but we do not treat any book other than the Book of Allah as free from error. Every narration is weighed by its chain and its text. That principle is exactly what the Imam himself practiced.

How the work was verified after him

Because of that principle, the Sunan has been studied and graded for a thousand years. Al-Khattabi (d. 388 AH) explained it in Ma'alim as-Sunan. Al-Mundhiri abridged it and commented on its chains. Ibn al-Qayyim wrote Tahdhib as-Sunan, defending its hadith and clarifying their defects. In recent times, Shaykh Muhammad Nasiruddin al-Albani divided it into Sahih Sunan Abi Dawud and Da'if Sunan Abi Dawud, and Hafiz Zubair Ali Za'i graded each hadith in the edition Dar-us-Salam translated into English.

The outcome of all this scrutiny is reassuring: the great majority of the Sunan is authentic or sound, and where a hadith is weak, the scholars have told us. The English reader today does not need to guess. The Dar-us-Salam edition of Sunan Abu Dawud prints the grade under each hadith.

What the Scholars Said About Him

Praise from the people of knowledge carries weight because they do not give it lightly. Of Abu Dawud and his book they said:

• Ibrahim al-Harbi: "Hadith was made soft for Abu Dawud as iron was made soft for Dawud, peace be upon him."
• Musa ibn Harun al-Hafiz: "Abu Dawud was created in this world for hadith and in the Hereafter for Paradise. I have not seen anyone better than him."
• Zakariyya as-Saji: "The Book of Allah is the foundation of Islam, and the book of Abu Dawud is the covenant of Islam."
• Abu Sa'id ibn al-A'rabi, one of the narrators of the Sunan: "If a man had nothing of knowledge except the Mushaf and then this book, he would need nothing else."
• Al-Khattabi: "The book of the Sunan of Abu Dawud is a noble book. Nothing like it has been written in the knowledge of the religion, and it has been received with acceptance by all people."

Among the six major collections, many of the scholars placed it directly after the two Sahihs of al-Bukhari and Muslim.

His Creed: Upon the Way of the Salaf

Abu Dawud was not only a transmitter; he was a defender of the Sunnah in belief. His Sunan contains a whole book titled Kitab as-Sunnah, in which he gathered the narrations that establish the creed of the Companions and refute the innovated sects of his time. In it are chapters on the Qur'an being the Speech of Allah, not created; on the believers seeing their Lord on the Day of Resurrection; on the Divine Decree; and on the Jahmiyyah, the Qadariyyah, the Murji'ah and the Khawarij.

It is in this book that he narrates the hadith of al-Irbad ibn Sariyah, radiyallahu 'anhu, in which the Prophet ﷺ said: "Hold fast to my Sunnah and the Sunnah of the rightly guided caliphs after me. Bite onto it with your molar teeth, and beware of newly invented matters, for every innovation is misguidance." He also narrates the hadith of the splitting of the Ummah into seventy-three sects, all of them in the Fire except one, the Jama'ah.

His choice of chapters and narrations is itself a statement of belief. He affirmed what Allah affirmed for Himself without distortion or denial, followed the understanding of the Companions, and held to the Jama'ah. He was, as the scholars called him, Shaykh as-Sunnah.

Character, Zuhd and the Dignity of Knowledge

The biographers describe a man whose worship matched his learning. He lived simply. One of his contemporaries noticed that one sleeve of his garment was wide and the other narrow, and asked him why. He answered: "The wide one is for carrying books. The other I have no need to make wide."

The most famous story of his life shows how he guarded the honor of knowledge. After the Zanj revolt had devastated Basrah, the Abbasid regent Abu Ahmad al-Muwaffaq came personally to Abu Dawud's door in Baghdad with three requests: that he move to Basrah so students would return and the city would revive; that he teach the Sunan to the prince's sons; and that he hold a private session for them apart from the common people.

Abu Dawud agreed to the first two and refused the third. "As for the third, no," he said, "because in knowledge the noble and the common are equal." After that, the princes attended the public lessons like everyone else, seated behind a curtain. For a scholar of the Sunnah, knowledge was a trust from Allah, not a service sold to the powerful.

His Students and the Transmission of the Sunan

Like the book itself, his students became pillars of the Sunnah. Imam at-Tirmidhi narrated from him, as did his own son, the hafiz Abu Bakr Abdullah ibn Abi Dawud, author of the well-known poem on creed al-Ha'iyyah. Abu Bakr al-Khallal, who gathered the fiqh of Imam Ahmad, took from him, as did Abu Awanah al-Isfara'ini and many others.

The Sunan reached us through several named transmissions, each carefully preserved: the narration of Abu Ali al-Lu'lu'i, which spread through the East and is the basis of most printed editions; that of Ibn Dasah, which spread through the Maghrib and al-Andalus; and those of Ibn al-A'rabi and ar-Ramli. The scholars compared these copies to the letter. This too is part of the book's authenticity: we know not only that Abu Dawud's hadith are sound, but that the book in our hands is the book he taught.

His Death

Imam Abu Dawud spent his final years in Basrah, teaching the Sunan in the city he had agreed to revive. He passed away there on Friday, the 16th of Shawwal, 275 AH, at the age of seventy-three. It is reported that he was buried beside Sufyan ath-Thawri, rahimahumallah. May Allah have mercy on him and reward him for every person who has learned the rulings of the religion from his book.

About This Biography

Dar-us-Salam's Imam Aboo Dawood Sijistani belongs to its series on the great imams of hadith. Salahuddin Ali Abdul Mawjood follows the Imam from his birth in Sijistan through his journeys, his teachers and students, his years with Imam Ahmad, the compiling of the Sunan and its method, the praise of the scholars, and his death in Basrah. Riaz Ansari's translation is plain and readable, and the book is written for the general Muslim reader, not only the specialist.

It is a book to read before or alongside the Sunan itself. When you know who the compiler was, how he travelled, whom he learned from and what standard he held himself to, you read his hadith with more confidence and more respect.

Lessons for the Student of Knowledge

• Verify before you act. The Imam selected about 4,800 hadith from half a million. A student today should be at least as careful before forwarding a narration he has not checked.
• Learn from people, not only from pages. Abu Dawud travelled for years to sit with living scholars and took their manners along with their words.
• Be honest about weakness. He told his readers plainly where a hadith was weak. Truthfulness about evidence is part of the religion.
• Knowledge is for acting. His four hadith sum up a whole way of life: sincerity, restraint, brotherhood and caution.
• Honor knowledge. He would not make it a privilege of the powerful. Neither should we make it a matter of status.

Continue Your Study

To read the Imam's work itself and the lives of the other compilers of the Six Books:

• Sunan Abu Dawud (5 Vol. Set, Arabic-English): the complete Sunan, translated by Abu Ammar Yasir Qadhi, with hadith grades
• Sunan Abu Dawud (3 Vol. Set, English Only): an English-only edition
• Imam Bukhaaree and Sahih Al-Bukhari (9 Vol. Set)
• Imam Muslim bin Al-Hajjaj and Sahih Muslim (7 Vol. Set)
• Imam At-Tirmidhi, his student, and Jami' At-Tirmidhi (6 Vol. Set)
• Imam Ibn Maajah and Sunan Ibn Majah (5 Vol. Set)
• Sunan An-Nasa'i (6 Vol. Set)
• Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal: the life of his teacher, the Imam of Ahlus-Sunnah
• Science of Hadith (An Introduction) and Usool Al-Hadeeth: to understand how narrations are graded
• The Sunnah and Its Role in Islamic Legislation: why the Sunnah is binding alongside the Qur'an

Closing

Imam Abu Dawud gave his life so that the Ummah could know, with confidence, what its Prophet ﷺ said about purification, prayer, trade, marriage and belief. The best way to honor him is to learn the Sunnah he preserved, act on it, and check what we attribute to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ with the same care he did.

We ask Allah to have mercy on Imam Abu Dawud, to raise his rank among the scholars, and to make us among those who hear the word and follow the best of it. Aameen.

Imam Aboo Dawood Sijistani

Salahuddin Ali Abdul Mawjood · Hardback · 295 pages

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