Publisher's Foreword
All praise is due to Allah, Who honored His worshipers with the revelation of His Mighty Book, which falsehood can not approach — neither in front of it, nor behind it — being revealed by the All-Wise, the All-Praised, and He honored them, by sending His Messenger, by whom success is granted to whomever heard him, and witnessed him. Through him, ﷺ, Allāh opened the eyes of the blind, and the ears of the deaf, and the hearts of the heedless, so that everyone that feared Allāh, and everyone that will achieve happiness in the Hereafter, would believe in Him.
O Allāh! Send Ṣalāh, grant peace, and bless Muḥammad, his family, and his Companions who carried the banner of the Book and the Sunnah, and spread Your mercy upon whomever follows them faithfully among your righteous worshipers.
Indeed the Book of the Sunan by the noble Imām Abū Dāwūd, Sulaimān bin Ash'ath bin Ishāq bin Bashīr bin Shaddād, Al-Azdī, As-Sijistānī, who died in the year 275H, is one of the Six Books, and the first of the Four Books, among the most important of those books in which Ḥadīths are compiled. There are many virtues and benefits to this book which resulted in the scholars of Ḥadīth occupying themselves with the knowledge of Ḥadīth since it first became popular, causing it to spread around the world.
Indeed, Allāh has honored Darussalam Publishers and Distributors in Riyadh with service in the Book and the Sunnah, and Allāh has honored us with the publication of the translations of Ṣaḥīḥ Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Jāmi' At-Tirmidhī, Sunan An-Nasā'ī, and Sunan Ibn Mājah, and today, by the grace of Allāh, we present the translation of the Book of the Sunan of Imām Abū Dāwūd, may Allāh have mercy upon him.
After our previous publication of the each of the Six Books in the Arabic language, we set out on the grand project of completing the translations of the Six Books into the English language.
It is no secret to the avid reader, that most of the scholars agree that Sunan Abū Dāwūd is the best of the Four Sunan Books, being ranked as third in importance behind Ṣaḥīḥ Al-Bukhārī and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim. It is also well known that some of the scholars have said that if a person has the Book of Allāh, and this Sunan of Abū Dāwūd, then he has the fundamental texts of the religion.
Such statements are a testament to the veracity of Imām Abū Dāwūd, and his compilation.
The Arabic text of Sunan Abū Dāwūd has been widely published in the
Islamic world, and a team of scholars has reviewed the famous publications and manuscripts in verification of the text for our publication of the Arabic text.
In verification of the Arabic text, we used the edition published along with the commentary 'Awn al-Ma'būd as the main source, while comparing it to that of Al-Khaṭṭābī in Ma'ālam As-Sunan, as well as a number of other valuable printed editions of Sunan Abū Dāwūd.
There are some discrepancies of variation in some of the manuscripts and reported versions, as well as published editions. Sometimes there is an additional word here or there, or one Ḥadīth or chapter is cited earlier or later in sequence.
In cases of additional words or phrases found in one or few of the manuscripts and editions, the addition has been marked by square brackets [ ]. This method is visible in the English translation as well, and whenever it was deemed necessary to insert an explanatory term, then parenthesis ( ) were used for that purpose.
For this English translation of Sunan Abū Dāwūd, translating was done by Yaser Qadhi (USA), and Nasiruddin al-Khattab (Canada) and editing by Huda Khattab (Canada), finally reviewed by Abu Khaliyl (USA).
This publication represents the completion of our journey, which lasted for a number of years, in the efforts to complete the translations of the Six Books, and Allāh praise is due to Allāh.
Lastly, all of the Ḥadīth in the text have been graded by the great research scholar Ḥāfīz Abū Tāhir Zubair 'Ali Za'ī.
We ask Allah to accept our good works in this endeavour, and to cause all of the readers to attain the best benefit from it.
'Abdul-Mālik Mujāhid
Servant of the Qur'ān and Sunnah
Director, Darussalam
Riyadh and Lahore.