The Fifth Copy:
It is a photographic reproduction of the original manuscript located at Princeton University in America, in the Yahuda Collection, under number (596). We have designated it by the symbol (H).
Its copying was undertaken, as stated at the end of its final folio, by Sulaymān ibn Dāwūd ibn Yūsuf ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Aslamī, then al-Alshī, known as Ibn Fartībīb. He completed copying it on Friday, between the noon and afternoon prayers, which was the twenty-fifth day of the noble month of Ramaḍān, in the year five hundred and eighty-nine.
It came into the possession of Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik al-Judhāmī, as stated on the title page. It then passed to the Shaykh Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad al-ʿAknūn, as indicated at the end of the final folio of the copy.
This copy is complete, and its script is the customary Maghribī style. Its number of folios is (222), with approximately (41) lines per page, and about (22) words per line.
In its margins are numerous valuable annotations and notes, as well as references to the transmissions of *Sunan Abī Dāwūd*, particularly the transmission of Ibn al-Aʿrābī and the transmission of Abū ʿĪsā al-Ramlī. We have referred to these transmissions on many occasions. The copyist has made clear that most of these annotations are derived from the copy of the Ḥāfiẓ Abū ʿAlī al-Ghassānī, as he will mention shortly.
On the title page appears the following text:
"A volume containing all the Sunan related from the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace. The composition of Abū Dāwūd Sulaymān ibn al-Ashʿath al-Sijistānī, may God be pleased with him, transmitted by Abū Bakr Muḥammad..."