Publisher’s Introduction

Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds, and peace and blessings be upon the master of the first and the last, our master Muhammad, the trustworthy Prophet, and upon all his family and companions. To proceed:

It is among the complete favors of God Almighty and His grace upon us in this flourishing and radiant institution that He has facilitated for us the publication of this great work, namely the book *Al-Sunan* by Imam Abu Dawud Sulayman ibn al-Ashʿath al-Sijistani, may God Almighty have mercy on him, who was one of the eminent leading imams pointed to by fingers and whose virtue is proclaimed at all times.

This book of his is truly one of the foundational and principal works that remain the mainstay of scholars of knowledge for understanding the Prophetic traditions and the Muhammadan reports—those foundational sources that no specialized student of knowledge or researcher in the field of Islamic studies, whether in jurisprudence, hadith, or otherwise, can do without.

As is our custom—with success from God Almighty and His assistance—in relying on meticulous and collated manuscript sources in publishing the collections of the noble Sunnah, the verification office of our institution, headed by the venerable Shaykh, the hadith scholar Shuʿayb al-Arnaʾuṭ, may God preserve him, has compared the manuscript sources of this blessed work, meticulously edited and detailed its texts, explained the Prophetic hadiths and clarified their jurisprudence, traced them to the books of the Sunnah, and indicated their grading. May God reward them well and grant them abundant recompense.