The Shaykh's account of the story of the lost leaf when he tasked one of the copyists to copy a book for him
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : Now, we had stopped at the leaf in the previous session.
The Shaykh : The lost leaf?
The questioner : The lost leaf.
The Shaykh : Is it not enough that I refer you to the book that is now in your possession, or must you hear it from my mouth?
The questioner : Yes, I do.
The Shaykh : So, the truth is that I was afflicted with a condition in my right eye. When I looked at a white wall, I would see an image in my eye like a fly moving. When I presented myself to the doctor, he said: This is called a flying fly in their terminology. It is a fine, disintegrating blood vessel, and a very fine drop of blood came out of it and fell on the eye. That is what you see going and coming. So, the important thing is that he asked me: What is your work? I said to him: I am a watchmaker. He said: That is it. This came to you from the fatigue. I clarified to him the reality that I am a watchmaker and read a lot. He asked me to rest for a period of six months, and to use some drops and treatments.
So I returned to my shop and began to sit in the shop, doing nothing, neither in the trade nor in reading and studying. About a week or two passed, and boredom began to creep into me. So I began to console myself and justify it with various excuses. It occurred to me that in the Dair al-Kutub al-Zahiriyyah there is a collection of many treatises, one of which is *The Condemnation of Amusements* by Ibn Abi al-Dunya. So I planned in my mind to task the calligrapher there, the copyist, to copy this treatise. And while he was finishing the copying, I would perhaps have rested and recovered some of my rest and the health of my eye.
And I went to the Dair al-Kutub al-Zahiriyyah and tasked our friend to copy the treatise. And he actually began. When he reached the middle of it, he came to me to say: The treatise has a hole, there is a missing part. So I went there to the library, I looked at the treatise, and indeed there was a missing part. I said to him: Proceed on your way, and Allah creates what you do not know. The man finished copying the treatise.
And it was as they say: My subconscious mind was working day and night searching for where this missing part went. So I hypothesized that when these treatises were gathered in this volume, like other volumes, perhaps the binder of this volume lost the one or two missing leaves, and he stitched them into another collection. So there is no way but to search in the collections present in the Dair al-Kutub al-Zahiriyyah. The manuscripts of the Dair al-Kutub al-Zahiriyyah are arranged by sciences; that was the general system in all libraries of the world. Except that there are about one hundred and fifty volumes called "The Collections", which is a name that fits its description, because every collection gathers many treatises of different systems, arrangements, and topics. And so they placed them under the title "The Collections". So I said to myself, the best is to start with these collections. So I began. And what facilitated the search is that these collections, just as they differ in topics and authors, also differ in the type of paper. You find something long, something short, something white, something gray, sometimes something blue, and so on. So it is easy for a person to flip through these collections. All of this facilitated my method of searching.
So I started with the first volume, the second, the third, I no longer remember exactly. And then I came across the title of a treatise. By Allah, this is an important treatise. But I found the second part. If I had the first part, the matter would have been complete. And I would record it with me so that one day we would copy it and benefit from it. So when I found the second or third part, I would turn away from it. And after many volumes, I came across the first volume of a treatise from those treatises. So I regretted and repented and said: If only I had written the title and number of the second part, and here is the first part. So I took it as a lesson. I began to record anything that pleased me, even if it was incomplete. And you notice here that I was in one state and became in another. I was searching for the lost leaf, and now I am recording titles that are considered treasures, even if they are not complete. So the important thing is that I finished the one hundred and fifty volumes and did not obtain the lost leaf, but I came out with a very great profit from the scientific aspect.
The Shaykh : The lost leaf?
The questioner : The lost leaf.
The Shaykh : Is it not enough that I refer you to the book that is now in your possession, or must you hear it from my mouth?
The questioner : Yes, I do.
The Shaykh : So, the truth is that I was afflicted with a condition in my right eye. When I looked at a white wall, I would see an image in my eye like a fly moving. When I presented myself to the doctor, he said: This is called a flying fly in their terminology. It is a fine, disintegrating blood vessel, and a very fine drop of blood came out of it and fell on the eye. That is what you see going and coming. So, the important thing is that he asked me: What is your work? I said to him: I am a watchmaker. He said: That is it. This came to you from the fatigue. I clarified to him the reality that I am a watchmaker and read a lot. He asked me to rest for a period of six months, and to use some drops and treatments.
So I returned to my shop and began to sit in the shop, doing nothing, neither in the trade nor in reading and studying. About a week or two passed, and boredom began to creep into me. So I began to console myself and justify it with various excuses. It occurred to me that in the Dair al-Kutub al-Zahiriyyah there is a collection of many treatises, one of which is *The Condemnation of Amusements* by Ibn Abi al-Dunya. So I planned in my mind to task the calligrapher there, the copyist, to copy this treatise. And while he was finishing the copying, I would perhaps have rested and recovered some of my rest and the health of my eye.
And I went to the Dair al-Kutub al-Zahiriyyah and tasked our friend to copy the treatise. And he actually began. When he reached the middle of it, he came to me to say: The treatise has a hole, there is a missing part. So I went there to the library, I looked at the treatise, and indeed there was a missing part. I said to him: Proceed on your way, and Allah creates what you do not know. The man finished copying the treatise.
And it was as they say: My subconscious mind was working day and night searching for where this missing part went. So I hypothesized that when these treatises were gathered in this volume, like other volumes, perhaps the binder of this volume lost the one or two missing leaves, and he stitched them into another collection. So there is no way but to search in the collections present in the Dair al-Kutub al-Zahiriyyah. The manuscripts of the Dair al-Kutub al-Zahiriyyah are arranged by sciences; that was the general system in all libraries of the world. Except that there are about one hundred and fifty volumes called "The Collections", which is a name that fits its description, because every collection gathers many treatises of different systems, arrangements, and topics. And so they placed them under the title "The Collections". So I said to myself, the best is to start with these collections. So I began. And what facilitated the search is that these collections, just as they differ in topics and authors, also differ in the type of paper. You find something long, something short, something white, something gray, sometimes something blue, and so on. So it is easy for a person to flip through these collections. All of this facilitated my method of searching.
So I started with the first volume, the second, the third, I no longer remember exactly. And then I came across the title of a treatise. By Allah, this is an important treatise. But I found the second part. If I had the first part, the matter would have been complete. And I would record it with me so that one day we would copy it and benefit from it. So when I found the second or third part, I would turn away from it. And after many volumes, I came across the first volume of a treatise from those treatises. So I regretted and repented and said: If only I had written the title and number of the second part, and here is the first part. So I took it as a lesson. I began to record anything that pleased me, even if it was incomplete. And you notice here that I was in one state and became in another. I was searching for the lost leaf, and now I am recording titles that are considered treasures, even if they are not complete. So the important thing is that I finished the one hundred and fifty volumes and did not obtain the lost leaf, but I came out with a very great profit from the scientific aspect.