He said: His book *al-Sunan* has widespread renown across the regions, and nothing like it is seen at all.(1)

Al-Hafiz al-Mundhiri said: The book *al-Sunan* by Imam Abu Dawud Sulayman ibn al-Ash'ath al-Sijistani is one of the well-known books in all lands. The memorization of its author, his precision, and his precedence are preserved by the hadith scholars of the regions, and the praise of the imams for this book and its author is transmitted through the narrators of traditions.(2)

Imam al-Nawawi said: It is incumbent upon those engaged in jurisprudence and other fields to give due consideration to the *Sunan* of Abu Dawud through complete familiarity with it, for most of the hadiths cited as evidence are found in it, along with its ease of use, the conciseness of its hadiths, the excellence of its author, and his care in refining it.(3)

Imam Abu Ja'far ibn al-Zubayr said: Abu Dawud possesses, in encompassing and covering the hadiths of legal rulings, what no one else possesses.(4)

Imam al-Qasim ibn Yusuf al-Tujibi said: This book is the book of the jurists, the scholars of legal questions, because they find in it what they need in every chapter of jurisprudence, which attests to the soundness of their positions. There is nothing like it among the books of the Sunnah in this field, and it contains of hadiths—

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(1) Abu Tahir al-Silafi, in the introduction to al-Khattabi's commentary, 4/362.
(2) In the introduction to *Mukhtasar Sunan Abi Dawud*, 1/4–5.
(3) In a piece he wrote on the commentary of *Sunan Abi Dawud*, quoted from him by al-Sakhawi in *Fath al-Mughith*, 1/76.
(4) Al-Suyuti in *Tadrib al-Rawi*, 1/170.