His kunyah (teknonym) was Abū Bakr. He was a faqīh (jurist). His father was also a faqīh. He belonged to the Ẓāhirī madhhab (school of law). He was a scholar, of brilliant intellect, a man of letters, a poet, and a skilled faqīh. The work entitled Kitāb al-Zuhrah is attributed to him. He studied under his father's teaching desk. He followed his father's madhhab and path. He adopted his father's approach. His father loved him greatly and kept him close.
Ruwaim b. Muḥammad said: “One day we were beside Dāwūd, and this son of his, whom we mentioned, came to him weeping. When his father asked, ‘What is the matter?’ his son Muḥammad said, ‘The children call me the name of the nightingale!’ Upon this, his father laughed, but Muḥammad became even angrier and said to his father, ‘You are more harmful to me than the children who gave me this name.’ His father embraced him and said: ‘Lā ilāha illā llāh. Nicknames come only from heaven, my son; you are only a nightingale.’”
When his father passed away, he took his place and began teaching. But people considered him too young to undertake this task. One day, when a man asked him about the limit (ḥadd) of wine, he replied: “A person loses his understanding because of wine and reveals his secret; then he is considered intoxicated. This is the limit of wine.”
Those present at his assembly found this answer good, and because of this, he grew in the eyes of the people.
In the work al-Muntaẓam, Ibn al-Jawzī said: “Muḥammad b. Dāwūd became afflicted with loving a boy named Muḥammad b. Jāmiʿ or, according to another report, Muḥammad b. Zuhrūf, but in this love and passion he did not abandon chastity and religion. However, this love and passion continued in this way. Eventually, he died because of this.”
I say: In this state, he falls under the scope of the ḥadīth narrated from Ibn ʿAbbās:
“If a person falls in love and conceals his love, behaves chastely, and dies in this state, he dies as a martyr.”
It is narrated that he considered love permissible on condition of chastity. According to his own statement, he had been in love since he joined the class of scribes and at a young age composed the work Kitāb al-Zuhrah on this subject. When his father suspected him of this, he denied being in love.
He and Abū al-ʿAbbās b. Shurayḥ would engage in many debates and disputations before Qāḍī Abū ʿUmar Muḥammad b. Yūsuf. The people liked their debates and disputations. One day during a debate, Ibn Shurayḥ said to him:
– You wrote Kitāb al-Zuhrah, but I am more famous than you in this matter.
– You reproach me by citing Kitāb al-Zuhrah, but you cannot even properly read it, nor smell its scent. For we compiled it as a joke. But you compile a serious book like it and let us see you.
Qāḍī Abū ʿUmar said: “One day, while Abū Bakr b. Dāwūd and I were riding, a slave woman came before us reading one of his poems. The poem was as follows:
‘Like a sick person complaining to the friend and beloved who consoles him, I complain to you about a heart you have destroyed.
My illness increases as the days pass.
Yet you belittle the great calamity I face.
Allah, out of mercy for me, has forbidden that I be killed on the path of love.
O you who are my killer! You permit yourself to kill me unjustly.’
Abū Bakr said: ‘What is the way to bring her back?’ I said: ‘Alas, the caravans have already taken her away.’”
Muḥammad b. Dāwūd died in the month of Ramaḍān of this year. May Allah have mercy on him.
Ibn Shurayḥ convened an assembly to receive condolences for him and said:
“The late
Muḥammad
b.
Dāwūd’s
tongue
eaten
by the earth
I will praise
nothing else.”