Awn al-Ma'bud, commentary on the Sunan of Abu Dawud

Awn al-Ma'bud is a commentary on Abu Dawud's Sunan by Muhammad Ashraf al-Azimabadi. He wrote it as a shorter companion to his larger commentary, Ghayat al-maqsud, to give students the meanings of hard passages, the sense of rare words and the grammar of difficult phrases, without long digression. ¹

The editor notes that scholars have disagreed about who wrote the commentary. Some name Abu al-Tayyib Shams al-Haq al-Azimabadi, author of Ghayat al-maqsud; the title page of the Indian printing names his younger brother Muhammad Ashraf. The editor quotes the author saying the shorter work was requested by his elder brother, who helped him at most points. This printing follows the name on the title page. ^{1 2}

The first volume opens with an introduction that quotes Abu Dawud on his own book: he says he chose it from about five hundred thousand reports and kept some four thousand eight hundred, including sound reports and reports close to sound, and that he marked the very weak ones. ³ The introduction says the Sunan collects only the traced-back reports on rulings and leaves out works on asceticism and the merits of deeds, and that its chapters begin with acts of worship. ^{4 5}

The editor sets out Abu Dawud's conditions on narrators and continuity, and the grades he used. He reports criticisms that the book includes weak reports it does not mark, and the replies: Ibn al-Jawzi's charge of fabrication against three of them was contested, and al-Nawawi and Ibn Hajar held that silence in the Sunan does not mean approval. ^{6 7 8}

The introduction then names the transmitters who carried the book on from Abu Dawud and ranks their versions, placing al-Lu'lu'i's version first and the one used most widely today. ^{9 10}

Volume one opens the Book of Purification at scan page 29 and covers hadiths 1 to 339. It includes the chapters on relieving oneself and its etiquette, on urinating standing, on istibra' (clearing the last drops), on cleaning with water and with stones, and then on the siwak, the obligatory parts of ablution, and on what makes water impure. ^{11 12 13}

Volume eight covers hadiths 2810 to 3202. It begins with the Book of Sacrifices at scan page 5, then the Book of Slaughter, which takes up the ritual slaughter, the aqiqah and the slaughter of People of the Book. The Book of Hunting starts at page 35, the Book of Bequests at page 47 and the Book of Inheritance at page 70. ^{14 15 16 17}

Headings and numbers here are as they appear on the scan; page numbers are scan pages. These are printings of the Dar al-Fayha edition. The Indian printing used in another source is a different edition. ^{18 19}