Abu Dawood Sulayman ibn Ash`ath Azdi Sijistani (Persian

Persian language

Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

/Arabic: ابو داود سليمان بن اشعث السجستاني), commonly known as Abu Dawud, was a noted Persian collector of prophetic hadith

Hadith

The term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....

, and wrote the third of the six canonical hadith collections

Six major Hadith collections

The six major Hadith collections are collections of hadith by Islamic scholars who, approximately 200 years after Muhammad's death and by their own initiative, collected "hadith" attributed to Muhammad...

 recognized by Sunni Muslims, Sunan Abu Dawood.

Biography

He was born in Sistan

Sistan

Sīstān is a border region in eastern Iran , southwestern Afghanistan and northern tip of Southwestern Pakistan .-Etymology:...

, in east of Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

, (then Persia) and died in 889 in Basra

Basra

Basra is the capital of Basra Governorate, in southern Iraq near Kuwait and Iran. It had an estimated population of two million as of 2009...

. Widely travelled among scholars of hadith

Hadith

The term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....

, he went to Iraq

Iraq

Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

, Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

, Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

, Hijaz, Khurasan

Greater Khorasan

Greater Khorasan or Ancient Khorasan is a historical region of Greater Iran mentioned in sources from Sassanid and Islamic eras which "frequently" had a denotation wider than current three provinces of Khorasan in Iran...

, Nishapur

Nishapur

Nishapur or Nishabur , is a city in the Razavi Khorasan province in northeastern Iran, situated in a fertile plain at the foot of the Binalud Mountains, near the regional capital of Mashhad...

, and Marv

Marv

Marv is a fictional character in the graphic novel series Sin City, created by Frank Miller. In the 2005 film adaptation, he is played by Mickey Rourke. He first appears in The Hard Goodbye and follows with appearances in A Dame to Kill For, Just Another Saturday Night, and Silent Night...

 among other places in order to collect hadith

Hadith

The term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....

. He was primarily interested in jurisprudence

Fiqh

Fiqh is Islamic jurisprudence. Fiqh is an expansion of the code of conduct expounded in the Quran, often supplemented by tradition and implemented by the rulings and interpretations of Islamic jurists....

, and as a result the collection by him focuses largely on legal hadith

Hadith

The term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....

. Out of about 500,000 hadith

Hadith

The term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....

, 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
  Hadith
  The term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....
  
  , 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
  Hadith
  The term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....
  
   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.