It is the oldest copy in our possession among the copies of Abu Dawud; the earliest recorded hearing (samāʿ) in it dates to the year 389 AH, which means that it was transcribed before that date. It is known from the chain of transmission of the copy, as recorded on its first folio, that between its copyist and Abu Dawud there were only two men, namely: the jurist Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn Dāwud al-Samarqandī, and Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Bakr ibn Dāsah.

This hearing, dated to the year 389 AH, was from Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn Dāwud al-Samarqandī, as explicitly stated by name at the beginning of the sixth and tenth parts (juzʾ) of the Book of Prayer (Kitāb al-Ṣalāh).

It also contains a hearing, in the copyist's own hand, from Abū al-Ḥasan Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Sahl al-Māsarjisī, and from Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭūsī al-Rūdhbārī, both of whom transmitted from Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Bakr ibn Dāsah, from Abu Dawud, as recorded at the end of the eleventh part of the Book of Prayer and at the end of the first part of the Book of Zakat (Kitāb al-Zakāh).

Thus, the copyist had three teachers transmitting from Abū Bakr ibn Dāsah: Abū al-Ḥasan al-Māsarjisī, Abū ʿAlī al-Rūdhbārī, and Abū ʿAlī al-Samarqandī.

Another man was appended to the chain of transmission of the copy in a different hand, namely al-Ḥākim Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm al-Ismāʿīlī.

This copy was written in an ancient script.

It is a precious copy, but it is incomplete; what survives of it begins with the hadith of Ibn Masʿūd, numbered (815), and ends with hadith (2426) from the book.