Sunan Abi Dawud
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Abu Dawud al-Sijistani
Abu Dawud al-Sijistani
817 CE–889 CE · Baghdad
Abu Dawud Sulayman ibn al-Ash'ath al-Sijistani was a scholar of hadith — the reported sayings and practices of the Prophet Muhammad — best known for compiling the Sunan Abi Dawud. He is traditionally said to have been born in 202 AH (817-18 CE) in Sijistan (the Sistan region of what is now eastern Iran and southwestern Afghanistan), from which his nisba (the place-name attached to a person) derives; his family is described in the sources as belonging to the Arab tribe of Azd.
Like many traditionists of his age, he travelled extensively to gather hadith, and the biographical tradition reports journeys through Iraq, the Hijaz (western Arabia), Syria, Egypt, and the eastern lands of Khurasan, including Nishapur and Merv. He is reported to have studied under leading scholars of the day, among them Ahmad ibn Hanbal, the jurist after whom the Hanbali school is named.
His lasting work is the Sunan, a collection organized by legal topic (ahkam) that gathers roughly 4,800 hadith bearing on practice and law. Sunni tradition came to rank it among the "six books" (al-kutub al-sitta) of canonical hadith; this canonical standing is a later judgment of the Sunni hadith scholars, not a claim Abu Dawud made for himself.
In his last years he settled in Basra — reportedly at the urging of the Abbasid prince al-Muwaffaq, who hoped a great teacher would help revive the city after the Zanj rebellion. He died there in 275 AH (889 CE).
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What they did here
Later biographies report that he came to Baghdad as a young man (around age 18, c. 220 AH / 835 CE) to study hadith, and that he was among the students who heard from Ahmad ibn Hanbal there. The Baghdad sojourn and the teacher-link rest on the traditional biographical record.
About Baghdad
Major Mizrahi center; home of Yosef Hayyim (Ben Ish Chai).
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