You mentioned in some gatherings that the best book for you from a scholarly perspective is *Irwaa' al-Ghalaal*, so we would like a little detail and explanation regarding this.

The student : Shaykh, you mentioned in some gatherings that the best book for you from a scholarly perspective is "Irwaa' al-Ghalaal," so we would like a little detail and explanation regarding this?!
The student: Peace be upon you.

The Shaykh : And upon you be peace, and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.
It is a fiqh book which, despite its brevity from a fiqh perspective, has gathered the evidence for the rulings mentioned by the book's author according to the Hanbali school for the most part, and for the rest according to the other schools. This is a characteristic rarely found in the books of later jurists, because these scholars are generally characterized by partisanship for their school and arguing for their school without explaining the evidence of the opposing view. This is, in reality, a flaw in their style, given what is known among the people of the Sunnah, namely that one of the characteristics of the people of hadith is that they narrate what is in their favor and what is against them.
This book seems to have deviated from the path followed by the majority of jurists, and it appears to have been influenced by the description of the people of hadith and the Sunnah that Ibn Taymiyyah quotes in his books. This is from one aspect. From another aspect, the Hanbalis, although in their following of their imam, Imam Ahmad, the imam of the Sunnah, are closer to the fiqh of the Salaf based on hadith than others, had they followed the path of their imam. Therefore, I was, and still am, surprised that books on the takhrij of some of the well-known schools, such as the Hanafi and Shafi'i schools, are circulated among the general and specific Muslims, even though the school of Imam Ahmad is more deserving of care in the takhrij of its books and fiqh than all the other schools. This was one of the incentives and motivations for me to care for the takhrij of this book after it distinguished itself in my view by the style I mentioned earlier. Perhaps I mentioned in the introduction to this book or another—my memory is distant—that in this book I served the Sunnah first, and I served the imam of the Sunnah second, who is Imam Ahmad. He is the most deserving of the imams in my view to be served because he is the imam of the Sunnah. From this perspective, and because its evidence covers not only Hanbali fiqh but also, as we said, to a lesser extent, the fiqh of the other schools, this is what made me say that word.
The student : May Allah reward you with good.

The Shaykh : And beware of that.