Moreover, Muḥammad ibn al-Minhāl al-Ḍarīr spoke critically of him, saying, “I used to suspect him. He once told me, ‘I have not heard anything from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAwn.’ Later I asked him, ‘Did you hear from Ibn ʿAwn at all?’ He answered, ‘Yes—about twenty hadith.’

I comment: The two statements can be reconciled by noting that he had in fact heard a few reports from Ibn ʿAwn but neither wrote them down nor memorised them; in that sense it was truthful for him to say, ‘I did not hear from him.’ Otherwise, Abū Dāwūd was trustworthy and truthful. He did make mistakes in a number of hadith because he relied on his memory and did not narrate from a written master copy. Pious caution dictates that a ḥadīth scholar should transmit only from his book, as the imām of the ḥadīth scholars, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, both practised and advised. Al-Bukhārī did not include anything from Abū Dāwūd, for he had already heard those reports from several of Abū Dāwūd’s contemporaries and therefore had no need of him.

Al-Fallās said, “I heard Abū Dāwūd say, ‘I can reel off thirty thousand hadith—without boasting—and I carry in my chest twelve thousand from ʿUthmān al-Barrī. None of the people of Baṣrah ever asked me about them, so I travelled to Iṣfahān and spread them there (1).’

Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf ibn Qutaybah said: I was present when al-Nuʿmān ibn ʿAbd al-Salām was asked about Abū Dāwūd al-Ṭayālisī; he replied, “Reliable, trustworthy (2).”

ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar al-Qazwīnī relates from Ibrāhīm al-Iṣbahānī: I heard Bundār say, “I have never wept over any ḥadīth scholar the way I wept over Abū Dāwūd.” I asked him, “Why?” He said, “Because of his prodigious memory, his knowledge, and the excellence of his discussions (3).”