Does a student of knowledge attribute himself to a shaykh by saying, “My shaykh is so-and-so,” when he has only read his books and has not received knowledge directly from him?

The questioner : Yes. If a man agrees with another man in the books, does he attribute anything to him? Does he say, “So-and-so said something before”?

The Shaykh : No, that is misleading. There is an element of concealment (tadlis) in that.

The presenter : And we see this now, our shaykh.

The Shaykh : It is not permissible. If a person says, “I do not know that he was in my era; I assumed he was a student of the Shaykh al-Islam,” and he hears the Shaykh al-Islam say, “The shaykh said,” that is fine. But there is no harm in saying, “He is my shaykh in reading his books.”

The questioner : No, son, and I and 'Abd.

The Shaykh : It is necessary. For this reason, the hadith scholars speak of the issue of ijazah (authorization). Do you know what ijazah is? The authorization to narrate. When the hadith scholars saw that the number of people receiving knowledge from them increased, and it became such that if every person narrated what he had heard, the time would be too long, the shaykh who is a hadith scholar would compile a book and then authorize people to narrate from it. He would say, “I authorize you to narrate this book from me.” If the one who is authorized narrates, he does not say, “So-and-so narrated to me,” but rather he says, “So-and-so authorized me to narrate from him.” It is required that he say, “So-and-so authorized me to narrate from him,” or “He authorized me to narrate from him,” because there is a difference between being narrated to from his tongue and being narrated to from his pen. If he narrates to you from his pen, you may suspect that he did not hear it directly, whereas the one who narrates to you from his tongue is closer to accuracy. In any case, a person who studies jurisprudence based on the book of a scholar from the previous generations whom he did not meet must say, “He is my shaykh in reading his books.”