Notes on Risālat Abu Dāwūd ilā Ahli Makkah

Based on Sh. Yusuf’s Dars.

Compiled by:

Farshid Khan
 Contents:
About the Compilation --- 2

Notes on Abu Dawud’s Letter ---3-18

Short Biography of Abu Dawud & Yusuf Bin Sadiq- 19

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 About The Compilation

Alhamdulillahi Rabbi’l A’lamin.

I have completed the notes on the “Risālat Abu Dāwūd ilā Ahli Makkah” which is a
letter from Imam Abu Dawud to the people of Makkhah. The author speaks in this
text about the methodology of his famous compilation of hadith “Sunan Abi-
Dawud”. This is an important risalah, especially for the Hanbalis, as mentioned by
Shaykh Yusuf Bin Sadiq Al-Hanbali.

The translation of Sunnah.com is used in this text with slight edits. The notes are
based on the dars of Shaykh Yusuf Bin-Sadiq Al Hanbali who learnt this from
two/three shuyukh and awarded us an ijazah.

Bold letters represents the actual text and the rest are notes. Note that here I have
gathered what I understood from Shaykh Yusuf’s Dars and therefore, if I fail to
transmit or describe anything properly, the fault would be mine. May Allah protect
and forgive us.

Farshid Khan

21 February, 2020

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 Notes on Risālat Abu Dāwūd ilā Ahli Makkah

[Bold letters represent the original text]

Firstly, Is Imam Abu Dawud even Hanbali?

All the hanbalis from Qadi Abu Yala and (some before him) agreed that Abu Dawud
was a Hanbali. By the way, a hanbali can be a mujtahid, means he can do ijtihad in
some of the rulings, especially the likes of Imam Abu Dawud.

Introduction to Sunan Abu Dawud:

 Sunan Abu Dawud is one of the six major books of Hadith.

 One of the best books of hadiths for fiqh according to the majority of the
scholars. Sh. Yusuf mentioned that it is a shame that no Hanbali scholar has
explained such a book from the Hanbali perspective.
 One cannot be a faqih in Hanbali or other madhabs unless he studies two
books- Abu Dawud and TIrmidhi.
 It includes Sahih, Hasan, Daif and Daif Ziddan1.
 Ahmad Ibn Hanbal memorized 1 Million of narrations. Bukhari did 300,000,
Abu Dawud 500,000. So he was a major scholar of hadith of his time. [Here,
Narrations mean the number of chains,for example Hadith “ABCD” is
mentioned through 5 chains. So this is considered five.]
 Sunan Abu Dawud was meant for fiqh [unlike Bukhari or Muslim, which
includes Aqeedah, Fiqh, Sirah and so on] and that is why it does not repeat
the same hadith with different chains generally. It was made short and concise
to help people memorize it and understand it.

Narrated by Abul-Husayn ibn Jumay' from Muhammad ibn ‘Abdil-‘Aziz al-Hashimi

from him:

In the Name of Allah, ar-Rahman, ar-Rahim

And there is no might or power except by Allah

1
Sub-Categorizing Daif into Daif & Daif Ziddan is an ijtihadi issue.

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Shaykh Abul-Fath Muhammad ibn ‘Abdil-Baqi ibn Ahmad ibn Sulayman, known as
ibnul-Bati, informed us by way of ijazah, if I did not in fact hear it from him, saying:
Shaykh Abul-Fadhl Ahmad ibn al-Hasan ibn Khayrun al-Mu'addal reported to us, by
way of someone reading to him while I was present listening, it was said to him: You
had it read upon Abu ‘Abdillah Muhammad ibn ‘Ali ibn ‘Abdillah as-Suri al-Hafidh,
saying: I heard Abul-Husayn Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn
Jumay' al-Ghassani at Sayda, and he confirmed it, saying: I heard Abu Bakr
Muhammad ibn ‘Abdil-‘Aziz ibn Muhammad ibn al-Fadhl ibn Yahya ibn al-Qasim ibn
‘Awn ibn ‘Abdillah ibn al-Harith ibn Nawfal ibn al-Harith ibn ‘Abdil-Muttalib al-Hashimi
at Makkah saying:

I heard Abu Dawud Sulayman ibn al-Ash'ath ibn Ishaq ibn Bashir ibn Shaddad as-
Sijistani at al-Basrah, and he was asked about his letter which he wrote to the people
of Makkah and other than it, in response to them, so he dictated to us:

Peace be upon you.

Generally, books, e.g Lumat Al-Itiqad do not start with a Salam. But this is a letter,
so it starts with such.

Indeed, I extol and praise Allah to you, the one whom there is no deity worthy of
worship except for Him, and I ask Him to send salah upon Muhammad, His Slave and
His Messenger, may Allah send Salah and peace upon him whenever he is mentioned.

As to what proceeds:

May Allah grant us a pardon which is not accompanied by anything displeasing and
after which there shall be no punishment.

Indeed, you asked me to discuss the hadiths in Kitab as-Sunan, whether they are the
most sahih of what I know concerning each topic, and I came upon all of that which
you mentioned.

By most sahih, he did not mean that all the hadiths are necessarily sahih and he
chose the sahihest among them. Rather he meant that he picked up the most
authentic narration on a particular topic, and this most authentic thing can be a Daif.
For example, let’s say for topic “A”, we have 5 narrations and all of them are weak.
But they vary in their weakness, i.e one is 10% weak, another is 20% weak and so on.

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In this case, he chose the least weak, and this least weak narration is the sahihest
narration on that particular topic, and this is from what he meant by the words
“most sahih.”

So know that that is the case except if it should have been related from two sahih
routes, one of them having a better chain while the narrator of the other is stronger
in hifdh, so I occasionally would write that, and I do not see in my book even ten
hadiths that are like this.

By two sahih routes, he means both Sahih and Hasan.

Now Imam Abu Dawud is saying that he opposed the previously stated methodology
of picking up the sahihest of all narration a few times. He did so by preferring a
narration which has lesser people in isnad between him and Rasulullah (S), but it is
not the strongest in terms of authenticity [although it is still sahih].

And I only wrote one or two hadiths concerning each bab, 1 even if there were a
number of sahih hadiths concerning that bab, for there would be too many and my
intent was to make it (the book) easy to benefit from

By one or two, he means “less”, not literally one or two. So it could be three, four
etc.

He wanted to make this book beneficial for all level of students of knowledge, so he
avoided repetition and mentioning all the narrations.

And when I repeated a hadith in any bab from two or three routes, then it is only due
to additional speech contained, and perhaps it contains one additional word not in
the other hadiths.

Muhaddith or Hadith scholars mention same hadith [or hadiths with same meaning]
with different narrators to strengthen it in terms of authenticity of chain. However,
here Imam Abu Dawud did not mention in such way generally, and when he
repeated a hadith, this is because it has an additional benefit or information, like
an/some extra wordings.

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And occasionally, I bring a part of a long hadith for if I were to write it completely,
some of those who heard it would not understand the place of fiqh in it so I
summarized it for that reason.

For example, a long-descriptive hadith, most of which is narrating stories and things
which have no relevance to the fiqh of particular bab where Imam Abu Dawud
mentioned it under. So it will be problematic for students of knowledge to find out
its relevance to fiqh, so Imam Dawud only a mentioned a part of the whole hadith,
especially for the reason that he wanted to benefit students of all levels.

And as for mursal 2 hadiths, then the scholars of the past such as Sufyan ath-Thawri,
Malik ibn Anas, and al-Awza'i used to use them as a proof until ash-Shafi'i came and
criticized them (the mursal hadiths) and Ahmad ibn Hanbal and others followed him
in that, may Allah be pleased with them.

Mursal Hadith means a narration where Sahabi is omitted in the chain. So it is a type
of disconnected chain and a tabiee who never saw rasulullah narrates saying “qala
rasulullahi sallallahu alayhi wa sallam…”

Two possibilities:

There are two possibilities in this case-

1. The Tabiee took it from another Tabiee.

2. The Tabiee took it from Sahaba [r].

For the second case, there should not be any problem. Even if we don’t know exactly
who is the Sahabi [r] whom the Tabiee heard/narrated from, the hadith is still
connected and authentic. Because, Allah (SWT) witnessed in the Quran that all the
companions are righteous, so it is not a necessity to know the exact Sahabi [r] he
narrated from.

But for the other possibility, it might be that the Tabiee heard from another Tabiee
who is weak in memory or maybe he is not upright, or not even a muslim. So this
mursal is weak according to Imam Ahamd & Imam Ash-Shafi.

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View of Scholars on Mursal:

Sufian Ath thawri, Malik and Awzai took it as a Hujjah or evidence, but Imam Shafi
opposed. Imam Ahmad followed him, however, this “follow” does not mean he just
made taqlid of him. Rather he performed Ijtihad and his ijtihad matched with Imam
Shafi’s, in the same way Imam Suyuti told he was a Shafi because his ijtihads
matched with those of Shafi’s. Imam Ahmad said, Mursal is weak. Yet it can be used
as evidence. How? This will be explained.

The vast majority of the scholars of the first and the second century accepted mursal
narrations to the extent that Imam Tabari claimed an agreement that all the scholars
before ash shafi accepted it. However, he did not mention IJMA, so his wording can
mean vast majority, not absolutely everyone.

Imam Shafi’s position about mursal is not clear/decisive. Sometimes he accepts it

and sometimes he does not. Although, books of shafi usul shows it decisive, just with
some conditions. For example, he used to accept all the hadiths of Sayyid Ibn
Musayyib, who was a great aimmah, even if it is mursal. Some other time he did not
do the same etc.

An important point to mention is that, being considered as sahih and being

considered to be evidence aren’t the same thing. A weak hadith is not sahih, but it
can be evidence. Ibn rajab in his sharh Ilal at-tirmidhi, which is the greatest
contribution in this arena by a hanbali, said,

Imam Ahamd did not have one opinion about Mursal. [unlike what might be
understood from the statement of Abu Dawud] He considered the hadith
from a narrator who takes from shuyukh who cannot be trusted as mursal.

View of Imam Ahmad:

What appears from Imam Ahmad is that he considered Mursals as weak. If the
mursal is not that weak and have other supportive things, it can still be used as a
proof in the rulings, not because it is a complete proof but a part of complete proof.
By supportive things, we do not mean it is another hadith because another hadith/s
can raise the status of a weak hadith to Hasan li-Ghayrihi, and in this case it is not
even weak anymore. So maybe the supporting thing is another weak narration,
fatwa of companions and so on.

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The relied upon position in the madhab is that mursal is Hujjah, even if is weak. Weak
can be used as Hujjah, in a way that Imam Ahmad can only do, and the way others
do it are not same as his.

So when there is no musnad 3 hadith in opposition to the mursal hadiths and there is
no musnad hadith to be found, then the mursal is used as a proof (because there is
nothing better in this chapter), and it is not like the muttasil 4 in strength/authenticity
(meaning it is weak).

Musnad means a connected isnad, a chain of narration.

So when there is no musnad, mursal is used as a proof because there is nothing

better in that particular chapter. But it is not like the muttasil means it is not same
in strength/authenticity, i.e it is weak.

Abu dawud doesn’t use in his collection very weak mursals or mursals which have
other problems other than just being mursal, for example, someone with a bad
memory in the chain. etc. He thought in the same way Imam Ahmad taught him. So
it supports the claim of the hanabila that he is hanbali even if he is mujtahid. So as a
mujtahid, if all or vast majority of ijtihads from one match with hanbalis, he is a
hanbali.

An important thing to note here ism acceptance of a mursal hadith by a tabiee is

different from the acceptance of mursal hadith by the later generations. The reason
is, for the later generations, the number of people increased in the chain and hence
the chance of other defect increases. In earlier times, people used to take hadiths
from anyone. After the fitna of Khawarij, Mubtadiyyah etc. they started to judge
because there were liars. However, even if we consider mursal hadiths to be weak,
we can use it as evidence as explained before.

And Kitab as-Sunan which I have compiled does not contain narrations from a person
who is matruk al-hadith (as agreed upon by the scholars). And when there was any
munkar hadith in it, I clarified/showed that it was munkar (according to him, no haqq,
just ijtihad) and that there was nothing like it in that bab (maybe I’ll name a chapter
to show you there is nothing other than munkar hadith) .

Matruk al-hadith means he should be left out we shouldn’t even write his hadith.

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However, In Sunan Abi Dawud, one may find some very weak hadith. By by “who is
matruk-al-hadith”, Abu dawud means here that it has to be an IJMA of the hadith
scholars that he is matruk-al-hadith, not just one or two opinions.

In Ilm’l Hadith, things are based on ijtihads of the scholars, like whether a narrator
is matruk or not etc. If there is an agreement that all hadith scholars agree on
something (e.g a narrator), we can only use ‘fact’ in this case.

Munkar is a narration that has defect and cannot reach (the level of) Sahih, like some
other weak narrations sometimes are elevated to Hasan for supporting evidences.
An example of a reason of narration being Munkar is having a person in the chain,
who is accused of lying. By accused of lying, we do not mean he is caught to lie in
narrating hadiths, rather maybe he is a liar in his daily life. We take it as a precaution
that he lies in narrating hadith as well, so he is accused of lying. Other examples of
a hadith being munkar are i) including in its chain a person whose memorization is
very bad, ii) if we know he made a mistake in a particular hadith, by comparing it
with the narration of Aimmah.

And only a small portion of these are hadiths are to be found in the book of ibn al-
Mubarak or the book of Waki', and what is generally in their books is mursal hadiths
And Kitab as-Sunan contains (a good bit) of hadiths from the Muwatta' of Malik ibn
Anas and likewise from the musannafs of Hammad ibn Salamah and ‘Abdur-Razzaq
<teacher of Imam Ahmad>. And a third of these books, in my estimation, are not to
be found in all of their books – I mean the work of Malik ibn Anas, Hammad ibn
Salamah, and ‘Abdur-Razzaq.

Ibn Mubarak was a great Muhaddith. Waki’ was the teacher of Imam Shafi.

Abu Dawud is saying here that in the books of Ibn Mubarak or Waki, most narrations
are mursal unlike the collection of Abu Dawud, because they did not care about the
chain being connected back then. Rather they cared about having less people in their
chain.

Lastly, by “a third of these books”, he means the books from his collection [Sunan
Abi Dawud]. He says that his collection contains much more than that of Malik Ibn
Anas, Hammad and Abdur Razzaq.

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And I have authored it in an organized way depending upon what I have gathered.

I used my narrations, the narrations which I took from Shuyukh and for which I have
Isnad going back to the prophet [s]. Back then they used to know most of the
hadiths, even if they haven’t heard them all them from Shaykhs. But they did not
narrate all those, they confined to those for which they had a connected chain> so

If some Sunnah <related to fiqh> is mentioned to you from the Prophet (sall Allahu
`alaihi wa sallam) which I did not report, then know it is a waahi hadith.

Meaning, It is very weak. So he used all sahih, weak, munkar hadiths and if he doesn’t
mention something, it is very weak or irrelevant to the topics of fiqh. However, Al
Muntaqa of Al-Majd Ibn Taimiyah has more narrations than Sunani Abi Dawud and
Abu Dawud even did not narrate some of the ahadith which are from Bukhari. That
is why the likes of Imam Nawawi disagreed with the claim that he mentioned all the
authentic hadith, even the majority. However, do we say so that Abu Dawud made
a mistake? No, we do not do this with the Shuyukh if there is a possible
interpretation which can excuse him and this applies more for an Imam like Abu
Dawud. So a possible interpretation which seems to be the case is that he did not
mean thatvery single hadith outside it was very weak, rather he meant the ahadith
which has a different fiqh than his are weak. Meaning, there are some authentic
narrations which are Sahih but Abu Dawud did not mention them, but he mentioned
some other narrations containing the same fiqh. And it is not a sensible claim that a
great Imam Abu Dawud would even miss the narrations of Bukhari which he had
access to, so what is mentioned above seems to be the case Insha-Allah.

For a similar thing, Imam Ahmad’s Musnad can be an example. Sh. Abdul Fattah Abi
Guddah, one of the best contemporary scholar of Hadith, mentioned Imam Ahmad
saying that he chose his musnad [arpund 40k narrations] from 750 thousands hadith.
Imam Ahmad said that hadiths outside Musnad are not even worthy of proof,
meaning it’s even worse than the general weak ahadith [because he accepted weak
hadiths as proof]. But again, he also did not narrate some narrations which are in
Bukhari! So similarly, those sahih narrations can be a different hadith but with same
meaning. So as long as they both carry the same general meaning, even if not every
details, there is no need to mention all of them, because Imam Ahmad also wanted
to make his Musnad a Mukhtasar[concise].

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Except if it should be in my book from another route for I did not seek to report all the
routes for that becomes too much for the student.

He wanted to make a short book as explained before, so he did not mention ahadith
from every routes or chain and kept it concise to help the students of Knowledge
and others.

And I do not know of anyone who has gathered in a comprehensive manner other
than myself. And al-Hasan ibn ‘Ali al-Khallal had gathered of them some nine hundred
hadiths and he mentioned that ibn al-Mubarak said that the sunan <hadiths related
to ahkam> from the Prophet (sall Allahu `alaihi wa sallam) <excluding those from
companions r. and Tabeyis r.> are about nine hundred hadiths. So it was said to him
<Abdullah ibn Mubarak>, “Abu Yusuf said that they are one thousand and one
hundred.” Ibn al-Mubarak said, “Abu Yusuf accepts those defective ones <very weak,
munkar and doesn’t filter> from here and there from the weak hadiths.”

Imam Abu Yusuf is one of the two companions of Imam Abu Hanifa and is an Imam
of the Ummah.

For the reasons why this counting differes, Sh. Ghuddah mentioned four:

1. The way they count the hadiths. One actual text with different chains can be
1000 hadiths. So depends on how they did it, [considering every chain or
something else.]
2. The definition of Ahkaam. Some fuqaha considered some hadiths of manner
in the fiqh. So it depends on what you consider to be Hadith Al-Ahkam.
3. Some scholars excluded weak hadiths. (and some included) They also disagree
about the definition of Authentic Hadith. In Hanafi perspective of Usul Al-
Hadith, mursal can be better than connected Hadtih, as long as the person or
tabeyi narrating “Qala Rasulullah …” is thiqah or reliable. According to them,
mursal is authentic, to us it is weak but can be used in fiqh unless it meets
certain criteria, the same of that of Imam Shafi. Imam Malik rejected mursal.
4. Their different levels of the scholars in knowledge of hadith. Meaning,
everyone might not know all the authentic narrations, like what Shaykh Al-
Islam Ibn Taimiyah said in his book “Raful Malam”. But Shaikh Yusuf
mentioned that he does not like this reason. This can be true for the hadith
science in general, but here we are talking about a small portion of the total

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 ilm of Hadith, which is the authentic/acceptable narrations in Ahkaam. These
are not much, and someone from the great Imams like Abu Hanifa did not
even know it? Okay, then what about Abu Yusuf? What about Muhammad
Ash-Shaybani who narrated a version of Muwatta? What about rest of Abu
Hanifa’s students? What about Imam of Ahlul hadith, Imam Ash-Shafi? Abu
Hanifa had scholars around him, but no one pointed out that he didn’t know
these hadiths. But this is the claim we frequently hear nowadays. It is also
important to mention the difference between “having the (chain of)
narration” vs “having the knowledge of hadith”. They did not have all the
chains, yes, but it is unlikely that they did not even know those ahadith. Imam
Abu Hanifa was a scholar from the Tabeyis. Also, we can see this from Imam
Malik, he narrated some ahadith in his Muatta and then said he did not act
upon it. So acting upon a certain understanding of a hadith does not mean
that scholar or Imam did not even know the hadith.

And any hadith in my book that contains a severe weakness, then I have explained it,

So if it is not so weak, the Imam does not have to give a hint to us. And another thing
is, clarification requires when there is ambiguity. But if there is a very weak hadith
and its weakness is very clear, in that case, the Imam also might not give the
clarification or explanation. Also he is referring to severe weak narrations here,
therefore, clarification for the general weak hadith is not required, especially for the
fact that weak hadiths can be accepted.

And from it is that which does not have an authentic isnad. And whatever I did not
mention [comment] anything about, then it is salih.

Salih means good, acceptable etc. and it can include the weak hadith as explained
before. Imam Abu Dawud should not be blamed for this, because he was a mujtahid
in fiqh also. Imam Nawawi was blamed for using in his Majmoo all the hadiths which
Imam Abu Dawud did not comment on2. He was told these hadith were weak and
asked why he was using weak hadith etc.

2
As far as I remember, this is what I understood from the dars. However, this might require to be re-checked and
re-affirmed, but I hope I did it correctly.

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However, Salih has other meanings according to other scholars, like Imam Nawawi
and Imam Al-Iraqi considered them sahih or hasan, zarkashi said “the common
between sahih or hasan.”

And some of them (the hadiths) are more sahih than others. <meaning, hadiths which
Imam Dawud did not comment on are not same in their level of authenticity or
weakness> And if other than myself had compiled this, I would have said more about
it. <I would praise it more and say more things about it.?

And you will not find any sunnah from the Prophet (sall Allahu `alaihi wa sallam)
with a salih isnad except that it is in this book, except if it should be some point that
is extracted from the hadith, and this hardly ever occurs.
This is a book of hadith that helps the faqih, meaning this is not a book of Fiqh
itself. Like other similar books, he mentions the titles and name of chapters in his
collection, which indicates the fiqh from it, and he might miss mentioning some of
them [titles etc.] and finally he affirms that even this occurred hardly.

And I do not know of anything after the Qur'an that it is more necessary for the
people to learn than this book.
The Knowledge of Fiqh is farde ayn to some extent. This is the best book on
Ahkam, however, being the most important book doesn’t mean being most
authentic one. Nowadays many people memorized Qur’an, but not none does so
for fiqh, so it is more important nowadays.
Sh. Yusuf Further said answering a question, “It is important to memorize a books
of Fiqh. Knowledge is not what is in your bookshelf, it is what accompanies you
when you go to the toilet. If you cannot memorize the exact wordings, at least
memorize the masails. At least do something like Akhsar Al Mukhtasarat or Umdat.
I prefer Dalil-At-Talib, and I saw my shaykh memorizing Sharh Al-Muntaha Al-
Iradhaat, which is of 6 volumes!”

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And it would not harm a person <and he will not loss anything> if he does not write
anything of knowledge [fiqh] after writing these books. And when he looks into it
and contemplates it and seeks to understand it, he will then know its value/rank
<among books of hadith>. And as for these fiqh issues, the issues [madhabs] of ath-
Thawri, Malik, and ash-Shafi'i, then these hadiths are their basis. <Meaning if you
want to learn the madhab of those scholars, my hadiths are the basis on which
those are built upon.> And I like that a man should write the opinions [ijtihads] of
the Companions of the Prophet (sall Allahu `alaihi wa sallam) along with these
books.

And he should also write the likes of the Jami' of Sufyan ath-Thawri, for it is the best
of what the people have compiled of Jawami. <Jawami means a collection which
includes chapters of sirah, adab, tafsir, akaid, fitan, Ahkam, Fiqh, Signs of the day of
the judgement, manaqib. Mutakkhirin, the early scholars meant by “Jawami” a
book that has simply different types of hadith.>

And the hadiths that I have placed in Kitab as-Sunan, most of them are mashahir,
and they are with everyone who has written any hadiths, except that not all the
people are able to distinguish between them. And the thing to be boasted about
with these hadiths is that they are mashahir, for a gharib hadith is not used as a
proof, even if it is from the narration of Malik, Yahya ibn Sa'id, and the thiqat from
the Imams of knowledge.
Mashahir means 3 or 4 narrators in every generation, Shaykh Yusuf prefers 4.
However, here, by Mashhur the author does not mean this definition, rather he
means “the being known in a general sense”. For example, “Deeds are according to
the intention.” Is a Gharib Hadith, but accepted.
Gharib means it has one narrator in one of the generations, even if it is the
generation of Sahaba [r]. However, the author here refers to by this term those
Gharib Hadiths which are Shadh, as will be explained.

And if a person were to use a gharib hadith as a proof, you would find those who
criticize him and do not rely upon the hadith he used as a proof when the hadith is
gharib, shadh.
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So by “Gharib”, he does not mean any “Gharib” narration, rather he means those
which are Shadh. Shadhs are weak. A narration becomes shadh when we make
sure it was a mistake from the narrator or when a less authentic narration
contradicts another of higher authenticity.
As for the mash-hur, muttasil, sahih hadith, then none is able to reject it from you.
And Ibrahim an-Nakha'i said, “They used to detest/hate the gharib hadiths.” And
Yazid ibn Abi Habib said, “When you <scholars> hear a hadith, then announce it
loudly like you would a lost animal, so either it is recognized <by scholars and in that
case take it>, otherwise, leave it.”

And there are some hadiths in my book, as-Sunan, which are not muttasil but are
mursal or mudallas and that is when sahih hadiths are not to be found with most of
the People of Hadith that are regarded as muttasil. <So when there was no such
muttasil hadith on a particular topic, sometimes I included some mursal and
mudallas narration.

Mudallis refers to a person who omits someone in the chain to seek a higher
position/chain, especially if that person is someone who he met. So he uses
ambiguous words and pretend he took it from someone higher by omitting the
person he actually took it from.
Example:
“ ‫”حدثنا أحمد عن محمد عن إبراهيم‬

“‫”حدثنا أحمد حدثنا سعيد حدثنا محمد حدثنا ضياء حدثنا إبراهيم‬
Let us have a look at these two chain. The actual chain is the second one, which
shows us that Ahmad narrated from Sayid who narrated from Muhammad who
narrated from Diya’e who narrated from Ibrahim. However, in the first chain we
see Sayid and Diyaa’e are omitted from the chain and rather than using words like
“Haddathana” or “Samiitu”, an ambiguous word “An” is used. However, it does not
mean that any “An” in any narration implies a Mudallas narration.

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And this is such as the narrations of al-Hasan from Jabir or al-Hasan from Abu
Hurayrah, and the narrations of al-Hakam from Miqsam from ibn ‘Abbas while al-
Hakam only heard four hadiths from Miqsam.
As for the narrations of Abu Ishaq from al-Harith from ‘Ali, then Abu Ishaq only
heard four hadiths from al-Harith, amongst which there is not a single musnad
hadith. As for Kitab as-Sunan, then the hadiths in it that are like this are few. And
perhaps al-Harith does not have but a single hadith in Kitab as-Sunan, for I only
wrote it belatedly.
Here the giving examples of probable mudallas narrations, and this can be realized
when one finds out that one narrator did not directly took hadith from the person
he narrates from, or he took a very few number of hadiths.

And occasionally there was something that established the authenticity of a hadith,
so when that was hidden to me, then occasionally I left the hadith off when I did not
understand it, <meaning I think the hadith should be rejected but I am not sure and
I left off.> and occasionally I wrote it and clarified that <I mentioned two opinions
and did not give tarjih whether authentic or not>. And perhaps I did not come
across it, <this shows his humbleness> and occasionally I refrain from these types of
matters for it is harmful for the common people for all of the deficiencies that were
present in hadiths to be revealed to them because the knowledge of the common
people falls short of this.
In balagha, there is a thing “Jawabul Hakim, meaning you don’t answer directly or
on point, rather you say something else because the receiver’s understanding does
not reach the level of the answer you give. Here the author does a similar thing
and this is to distract the listener. So he mentions hadiths with defect depending
on the knowledge of the scholars. But he will not clarify this to the laymen because
this is not within their capacity.

And the number of the books of the sunan is eighteen juz', one juz' of which is
marasil, <which includes mursal narrations.> And of the marasil that have been
narrated from the Prophet (sall Allahu `alaihi wa sallam), there are those that are not
authentic, <meaning weak> and there is that which is musnad from other than it
<meaning, it has a musnad chain through another route> and it it muttasil sahih .
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And perhaps the number of hadiths in my books are four thousand and eight
hundred hadiths, and about six hundred hadiths from marasil . <modern counts
show that Abu dawud has Five Thousands Two Hundred Seventy-Four hadiths,
however it might vary a little in different versions.>

And whoever would like to distinguish between these hadiths along with their
wordings, then occasionally a hadith comes from a particular route while the
common people have it from the route of the Imams who are well known, except
that occasionally he may have sought after a particular wording which has many
meanings and from those you know are those who have narrated from all these
books.
Meaning, he sometimes preferred a less authentic narration over a more authentic
narration which has big Imams in its chain. It might be for several reasons, like this
narration has more details, or it is clear etc.

So occasionally there will come an isnad while it is known from another narration
that it is not muttasil, and it will not be clear to the listener except if he knows the
hadiths and he has knowledge concerning them so that he would come across the
like of that which has been narrated from ibn Jurayj, he said, “I was informed from
az-Zuhri,” while al-Barsani narrates it from ibn Jurayj, from az-Zuhri.

So the one who hears would think it is muttasil, and it is not sahih at all, so we only
left it off because the asl of the hadith is not muttasil and is not sahih . And it is a
ma'lul 14 hadith, and there are many cases like this.
Meaning, like this example, Basrani narrated it from Ibn Jurayj, from Az Zuhri, so in
the narration “I was informed from az-zuhri”, there is omission and ambiguity. A
normal person might find this narration authentic at first look, but the reality is
different, i.e it is weak.
However, Abu Dawud brings some weak narrations in his collection, and those
weak are less weak than those which he left out.
And the one who does not know will say, “He has left a sahih hadith concerning this
and brought a ma'lul hadith.”

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And I did not gather anything except the ahkam in Kitab as-Sunan, and I did not
gather the books of Zuhd, 15Fadha'il al-A'mal, 16 and other than them. So these four
thousand and eight hundred are all concerning ahkam. So as for the many sahih
hadiths concerning Zuhd, Fada'il, and other than this, I did not report them.
And peace be upon you, and the Mercy of Allah, and His Blessings, and may Allah
send salah upon our master Muhammad, the Prophet, and upon his family, and may
He grant them complete peace. And Allah is Sufficient for us, and the Best Disposer
of Affairs.

[End of The Letter]

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Short Biography of Abu Dawud:

Imam Abu Dawud Al-Sijistani was one of the great Muhaddiths in the history of
Islam. He compiled “Sunan Abi Dawud” which is one of the six major compilations
of hadiths. Many scholars wrote commentaries on it, studied it and taught it. He was
a student of Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal and according to many Hanbali scholars, he
was a Hanbali.

Short Biography of Yusuf Bin Sadiq:

Shaykh Yusuf Bin Sadiq Al-Hanbali is from Egypt. He learnt the Hanbali school from
various shuyukh and among them is the Shaykh Al-Hanabilah of Azhar, Shaykh Dr.
Sayyid Al-Hanbali. He holds Ijazah Am’ in Hanbali school from Shaykh Dr. Sayyid and
also the president of Islamic University of Minnesota, Shaykh Walid Al-Maneesee.
He also learnt the Science of Hadith, Logic, Ilm Al-Qalam, Aqeedah etc. from various
shuyukh of Azhar and others. He also holds a bachelor degree in literature from Al-
Misr International University. Currently he teaches at “Madrasah Shaykh Al-Amoud”
in Egypt and “Madrasah Al-Hanabila” online.

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