|
Translator: Prof. Ahmad Hasan
Back to the
index
Sunan Abu-Dawud is a collection of sayings
and deeds of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) (also known as the
sunnah). The reports of the Prophet's
sayings and deeds are called ahadeeth.
Abu-Dawud lived a couple of centuries after the Prophet's
death and worked extremely hard to collect his ahadeeth.
Each report in his collection was checked for compatibility
with the Qur'an, and the veracity of the chain of reporters
had to be painstakingly established. Abu-Dawud's collection
is recognized by the overwhelming majority of the Muslim
world to be one of the most authentic collections of the
Sunnah of the Prophet (pbuh), however it is also known to
contain some weak ahadeeth (some of which he pointed out,
others which he did not).
Abu-Dawud (full name Abu-Dawud Sulaiman bin
Al-Aash'ath Al-Azdi as-Sijistani) was born in 202 A.H. and
died in 275 A.H. He was one of the most widely travelled
of the scholars of ahadeeth, going to Saudi Arabia, Iraq,
Khurasahn, Egypt, Syria, Nishapur, Marv, and other places
for the sole purpose of collecting ahadeeth. His primary
interest was in law, hence his collection focuses purely
on legal ahadeeth. From about 50,000 ahadeeth, he chose
4,800 for inclusion in his work based on their superior
authenticity.
It is important to realize, however, that
Abu-Dawud's collection is not complete: there are other
scholars who worked as Abu-Dawud did and collected other
reports.
The translation of Sunan Abu-Dawud found here
is not complete! Roughly half of the collection is
missing; please take this into account if you cannot find
a specific hadeeth.
Sunan Abu-Dawud is divided into 41 books on
different subjects, each book containing many ahadeeth.
The numbering system used by Abu-Dawud is consecutive and
uninterrupted for the entire collection.
MSA has taken some pains to remove typos,
and scanning/format errors from these files, but it is more
than likely that quite a few still remain.
PLEASE SEND US
ANY CORRECTIONS OR SUGGESTIONS!
May Allah (SWT) reward Mr. A. Abdullah for
donating this collection of ahadeeth in electronic format.
|
