How did you turn to the science of hadith, given that your father was a Hanafi who adhered to the Hanafi school, as I learned from you and from Shaykh Shu'ayb al-Arna'ut?

The questioner: All right; here is a point that draws attention; and that is how you turned to hadith and the like, given that, I mean, through some of your words and the words ofThe Shaykh : Shu'ayb, I learned that your father was a Hanafi who strictly adhered to the Hanafi school? So how did you escape from that?

The Shaykh: That is a favor from Allah, but in terms of the causes, or the cause, it is as they say: when Allah wills something, He prepares its causes. I actually lived in a Hanafi environment that was fanatical. My father was considered, especially among the Arna'uts, the most knowledgeable of them in Hanafi jurisprudence, and he was their refuge and reference. So when I graduated from primary school and studied in detail with some of the shaykhs as mentioned previously, I had a strange passion for reading. But this reading, as it appeared to the observer, seemed to be of no benefit, and might even have harmful effects. However, later on, the effect of this study became apparent in my language; it strengthened my language in my speech. The strange thing is that I was fond of reading modern fictional books, known as novels, especially the stories of the famous American thief "Arsene Lupin." I was truly fond of reading this type of stories and novels. Then I found myself moving to a second stage, which may have been better than that; it was studying Arabic stories, even though they were fictional. For example, I read "One Thousand and One Nights," I read the story of "Antarah ibn Shaddad," the story of "Saladin al-Ayyubi," the story of "Dhat al-Himmah and al-Battal," and so on. I was very passionate about such readings and studies.
Then, as part of Allah's (Mighty and Majestic) planning and His mercy toward me, when I changed my profession and stayed with my father, I found I had free time. We would sit together in his shop; he would come, and I would be with him in the morning until he prayed the midday prayer. When he prayed the midday prayer, he would go home to rest, and I would remain in the shop. He would come back after the afternoon prayer. We were workers; sometimes I had free time in hours when I would fix things. So I would ask my father's permission to go out. And where to? This, too, was a success from Allah. I would go to the Umayyad Mosque and attend some of the public lessons there. I was affected by some of them intellectually; some were correct, as I later realized, and some were wrong. This wrongness related to two types: taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence) and Sufism. Then, in this free time when I went out from my father's shop, Allah provided for me an Egyptian middle-aged man who bought some estates of books and displayed them in front of his shop facing the western door of the Umayyad Mosque. I would pass by the pile of books he spread out in front of his small shop, so I would flip through them and find whatever novels I wanted from them. I would rent them from him, read them, and return them, and so on. One day, I found some issues of "Al-Manar Magazine" at his place. I clearly remember that I read an article in it by Sayyid Rashid Rida (may Allah have mercy on him) discussing the merits of al-Ghazali's book "Ihya' 'Ulum al-Din" and criticizing it from some aspects, such as its Sufism, for example, and its weak and flimsy hadiths. On this occasion, he mentioned that Abu al-Fadl Zayn al-Din al-'Iraqi wrote a book on "Ihya' 'Ulum al-Din" in which he traced its hadiths and distinguished the authentic from the weak. It is called "Al-Mughni 'an Haml al-Asfar fi al-Asfar fi Takhrij Ma fi al-Ihya' min al-Akhabar." My soul was very eager for this book, so I went down to the market asking for it like a lovesick person: where is this book? Until I found it with one of them. It was four volumes, the BabiAl-Halabi : edition, on soft yellow paper. But I was poor, like my father, and could not afford to buy this book. So I agreed with its owner to rent it from him. I don't remember now if it was for a year or less or more.
Al-Huwaini: ...

The Shaykh: Ah, rent.
Al-Hawini: Rent.

The Shaykh: Rent, I rented it from him. So I did, and I took the book, and I was almost flying with joy. I went with it to the shop, and I would take advantage of my father's absence after noon to be alone with my book. I made a plan to copy "Al-Mughni: Takhrij al-Ihya'." So I started copying, bought paper, and made a ruler for myself, which was a piece of cardboard stitched with parallel lines of thread on both sides.
Al-Hawini: All right; before I forget, our Shaykh, what year did you start reading in "Al-Manar"?

The Shaykh: Of course, under twenty, maybe 17, 18, something like that.
So I would take this ruler and put it in the tray and press on the threads, and the page... originally it wasn't visible, because it wasn't a draft, and that was to straighten my handwriting. So I started writing until I organized the first volume. When I got to the middle... an idea came to my mind: that I am now a beginner in seeking knowledge, and secondly, I am a non-Arab, and many hadiths pass by me that I don't understand.
Al-Huwaini: And upon you be peace.

The Shaykh: - And upon you be peace and the mercy of Allah and His blessings - , or some strange words are hidden from me, which I later learned were from the obscure terms of hadith. So I said, why don't I make use of some of the books that were in my father's possession or library to explain these words that are hidden from me? So I did. But I had barely added some annotations when I went back; I went back to blame myself and disparage my work; because now the first volume appeared to have a contradictory style: the first section had no annotations, and the second section had annotations. I did not like this disparity, so I cancelled what I had done and resumed writing from the beginning of the book, using the annotation method where necessary. And so the first volume ended, and I started the second. The difference is very clear between the first volume in terms of its annotations and the last volume and the one before it; because you see that in the first volume, most of the pages are "Al-Mughni," with few annotations, whereas later the situation was completely reversed; so you would see some pages with one line at the top and the rest all marginal notes, in a very fine script. We had quills for writing in Syria, some for Arabic script and some for French script... these with the French quills are very fine-tipped. So I would write the annotations in Arabic letters with the French quill to distinguish the marginal notes from the original text. I wrote a page full of this fine script, and above it with the Arabic quill one or two lines, and so on. So I felt that I benefited greatly from these reviews to fill the gap I felt due to my beginning in knowledge first, and due to my non-Arab status second. I benefited from this work a lot and a very great deal, and it is with me - praise be to Allah - as a trace of this work.