The margins of this copy have been adorned with scholarly benefits, comprising symbols for the various transmissions of the narrators of the Sunan. The symbol (ʿAb) denotes the transmission of Abū al-Ḥasan ibn al-ʿAbd, (ʿ) denotes the transmission of Abū Saʿīd ibn al-Aʿrābī, and (S) denotes the transmission of Ibn Dāsah. No symbol was assigned to the transmission of al-Ramlī.

They also comprise explanations of the obscure linguistic words that occur in the ḥadīths, as well as other scholarly benefits, among them: indicating which of the authors of the Six Books transmitted the ḥadīth, in agreement with Abū Dāwūd regarding his shaykh.

This copy was owned by a man of learning whose name was not recorded upon it. He filled the margins of its first section with selected benefits, including explanations of the obscure wording of the ḥadīth, what may be derived from its jurisprudence, and passages relating to the resolution of difficulties that may occur to the reader.

In its opening folios are found the chains of transmission of al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar for the transmissions of the five: al-Luʾluʾī, Ibn Dāsah, Ibn al-Aʿrābī, Ibn al-ʿAbd, and al-Ramlī.

1. As for the transmission of al-Luʾluʾī, he—may Allah have mercy on him—said:

He heard all of the Sunan, the composition of the unique Imām, the scholar of the ḥuffāẓ, the exemplar of the jurists, Abū Dāwūd Sulaymān ibn al-Ashʿath ibn Isḥāq ibn Bashīr ibn Shaddād ibn ʿAmr ibn ʿĀmir al-Azdī al-Sijistānī al-Baṣrī, from the righteous and blessed shaykh Abū ʿAlī Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Mahdawī ibn al-Muṭarriz al-Bazzāz, by virtue of his hearing all of it from Abū al-Maḥāsin Yūsuf ibn ʿUmar ibn Ḥusayn al-Khutanī al-Ḥanafī in the year seven hundred and twenty-four, by virtue of his hearing all of it.