Abu Dawud al-Tayalisi

Abu Dawud al-Tayalisi, the great memoriser Sulayman b. Dawud b. al-Jarud, of Persian origin, client of the family of al-Zubayr of Basra, one of the celebrated memorisers; he heard Ibn Awn, Ibn Abi Mulayka, Hisham b. Abi Abdallah al-Dastuwa'i, Shu'ba, and their layer, while Ahmad, al-Fallas, Bundar, Abbas al-Duri, and many narrated from him. ²

Al-Fallas said "I never saw a better memoriser", his companion Ibn Mahdi called him "the most truthful of people", Amir b. Ibrahim heard him say "I wrote from a thousand shaykhs", Waki' said "no one memorises a long hadith like Abu Dawud — nor a short one", Ibn al-Madini said "I never saw a better memoriser", and Umar b. Shabba says they wrote forty thousand hadiths from him by memory; he leaned on his memory and so made slips in his hadiths. ³

He died in 204 AH in his eighties. ³

Al-Dhahabi calls him the great memoriser and author of the Musnad, Abu Dawud, Persian then Asadi then Zubayri, client of the family of al-Zubayr ibn al-'Awwam, the Basran hafiz, and places his death in 203 or 204 AH. ⁴

He heard Ayman ibn Nabil — a Follower — Ma'ruf ibn Kharrabudh, Talha ibn 'Amr, Hisham ibn Abi 'Abdallah, Shu'ba ibn al-Hajjaj, Sufyan al-Thawri, Bistam ibn Muslim, Abu Khalda Khalid ibn Dinar, Qurra ibn Khalid, Salih ibn Abi al-Akhdar, Abu 'Amir al-Khazzaz and the two Hammads. ⁴