ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Jaʿfar al-Ḥanbalī related to me that Abū Bakr al-Khallāl said:
“Abū Dāwūd Sulaymān ibn al-Ashʿath al-Sijistānī was the foremost imam of his age. None of his contemporaries outstripped him in tracing the sources of the various disciplines and knowing where each piece of learning belonged. He was a devout, eminent man. ʿAhmad ibn Ḥanbal heard a single ḥadith from him, one that Abū Dāwūd himself used to cite (1).
Ibrāhīm al-Iṣbahānī and Abū Bakr ibn Ṣadaqah held him in the highest esteem and praised him in terms they used for no one else of their time (2).
I say: The ḥadith that Imām ʿAhmad wrote down from him and heard directly from him is the report [recorded by Abū Dāwūd] (3) from Ḥammād ibn Salamah, on the authority of Abū al-ʿUsharāʾ ad-Dārimī (4), from his father: that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was asked about the ʿatīrah, and he approved of it (5).
Ibrāhīm al-Ḥarbī and others said, “The study of ḥadith was made pliant for Abū Dāwūd just as iron was made pliant for David” (6). Another scholar (7) remarked, “He was one of Islam’s great guardians of ḥadith, its hidden defects, and its chains of transmission; he occupied the highest rank in devotion, chastity, uprightness, and piety—truly one of the knights of ḥadith.”
Yet another said: “Ibn Masʿūd was likened to the Prophet ﷺ in his guidance, bearing, and demeanor; ʿAlqamah resembled him, [and Ibrāhīm resembled him] (8); Manṣūr resembled him; Sufyān al-Thawrī resembled him; Wakīʿ resembled him; ʿAhmad resembled him; and Abū Dāwūd resembled ʿAhmad ibn Ḥanbal (9).”
= Number (1205); Ibn Mājah no. 3984 in al-Fitan; al-Dārimī (2/245); and Aḥmad in al-Musnad (4/267 and 269), all from the hadith of Nuʿmān ibn Bashīr (may Allah be pleased with him). Al-Shawkānī composed a treatise explaining this hadith entitled Kashf al-Shubuhāt ʿan al-Mushtabihāt (Unveiling the Doubts Concerning the Dubious Matters), which has been printed and merits a critical edition in a new format. Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ (13/211).
(1) Ḥāfiẓ ibn al-Jawzī, Tārīkh Baghdād (9/57); Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ (13/211).
(2) Addition in the printed edition.
(3) Addition in the printed edition.
(4) Found in al-Usūl al-ʿAshr; corroborated in Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ, Tārīkh Baghdād, and the standard biographical dictionaries.
(5) Al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Dhahabī comments in Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ (13/211) on this report: “This is a munkar (rejected) hadith. It mentions ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Qays as the narrator from Ḥammād ibn Salamah, whereas the only reliably preserved report from Ḥammād with this chain is the hadith ‘The zakah is only from labba (cream).’” I respond: It appears in this wording in Abū Dāwūd (no. 2825), al-Tirmidhī (no. 1481), and Ibn Mājah (no. 3184); and Abū al-Ashʿarī is unknown.
(6) Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ (13/212).
(7) He is Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Yāsīn al-Harawī; cf. Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ (13/211) and Mukhtaṣar Tārīkh Ibn ʿAsākir (110/10).
(8) Addition in the Zah and Ḥā editions; this refers to Ibrāhīm al-Nakhāʿī, and the remainder of the passage follows source B. It is incomplete in manuscript A.
(9) Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ (13/216).