The Shaykh continues his account of his illness, along with his story about the lost page in the al-Zahiriyyah Library.

The Shaykh : We return to where I was.
Therefore, when the eye specialist advised me to stop working on repairing watches and reading for a period of six months, I resolved to comply with him. However, the nature of my work does not allow me to close the shop, because there would be people with watches and appointments to collect them. So I had to keep the shop open, either to hand over the finished watches or to complete the watches I had promised to repair, and then I would not accept any new watches. So I opened the shop and sat waiting for customers from among those customers only. A week passed, then two weeks, and they say in Damascus, "The ants have started moving inside me." That is a Syrian expression, meaning that boredom started to creep into me. What am I doing, sitting between four walls, leaning against the walls as they say? No reading, no studying, no work, no business, nothing. And as they say, necessity is the mother of invention, so my mind started to work and wander. I remembered that in the al-Zahiriyyah Library there is a treatise by al-Hafiz Ibn Abi al-Dunya titled "The Dispraise of Amusements." I had wished that I would be able to copy it, then edit it, annotate it, and publish it, when I saw people’s attention and interest in amusements and musical entertainments, and their indifference to their prohibition. So I remembered this treatise and said to myself: Since you are now in a period of rest, assign the calligrapher so-and-so, who used to sit in the al-Zahiriyyah Library sometimes, to copy the manuscript for you. And you, having passed a period of rest, will start little by little with the research and editing.
And indeed, when I decided on this and went to the al-Zahiriyyah Library and retrieved the manuscript, it was in a collection. In the al-Zahiriyyah Library, there is a section called "Collections." The books, like the printed ones, are arranged by sciences: hadith, tafsir, fiqh, history, biography, and so on. Likewise, the manuscripts are divided into these sections, but there is a section that deviates from this classification, which they call "Collections." These are volumes that gather treatises of different subjects, paper, size, and script, in a collection. So you might find a treatise, for example, the size of a palm, and next to it a larger treatise; one with yellow paper, one with green paper, one with red paper, and so on. It is a scrapbook, so to speak, called a collection. There are more than one hundred and fifty such collections in the al-Zahiriyyah Library alone. This is under the heading of Collections. So I examined the treatise from one of the collections and gave it to the calligrapher, saying: From here to here, copy this treatise for me. It is not large; it is just a booklet, meaning twenty pages. I left the treatise with him to start copying... After a few days of his starting the work, he came to me and told me that there was a missing part in the treatise. He had reached the middle, and there was a gap in the middle. I went to the al-Zahiriyyah Library and examined the treatise; indeed, there was a missing part. I said to him: Then continue copying, and we will see what Allah (Mighty and Majestic) creates. The treatise was finished. Of course, between two and three months had passed; I no longer remember exactly. I started to return to what? To my habit. And I was unable to complete the entire period the doctor had set for me, six months, meaning!! I started to think about this lost page. Where did it go? Perhaps I would tell myself, considering that the treatises were treatises, and some people in the past collected them to preserve them, so they gathered them in a volume, or in volumes. Perhaps the binder was a craftsman, a man of a trade, not a scholar, and did not have this interest in preserving this precious treasure. Perhaps during the binding, a page fell out, and he did not care about it and did not pick it up, or he picked it up and put it in what? In another collection. So what is to be done?
One must study these one hundred and fifty volumes, turning through the treatises to see if one can find the lost page in another collection. And so, a search opened up before me that I had not at all had in mind. The story is long, and we have no time for it. I finished with the one hundred and fifty volumes and more, and I did not obtain the lost page. Perhaps it remained in the hadith section, perhaps, perhaps. The important thing is that I went through the manuscripts present in the al-Zahiriyyah Library, which are more than ten thousand manuscripts. And Allah (Mighty and Majestic) facilitated the way for me, because the system followed in all libraries is that you submit a form, which they call... meaning a sheet where you fill in the blanks, put your name, the date of the request, and send it to the responsible manager or supervisor, who in turn gives it to the employee who brings the books. It takes time, meaning. Allah (Mighty and Majestic) paved the way for me; I started entering the library, setting up the ladder, taking the book, and studying while on the ladder. Because what is the study? Turning pages, meaning. And in this way, I went through all the books. But here, a second issue opened up for me; I started writing down the names of the books that passed by. During this search, I finished with the ten thousand and did not find the sought-after lost item.
They have what they call "the dust," meaning chests in which various types of papers from lost manuscripts are thrown, and they keep them as heritage, so to speak, preserving them. I said to the employee: Please, show me where these papers are. So I started turning through these papers—here is the point—and I found there treatises in their entirety, "discarded" there and not mentioned in the library’s index. And the greatest thing I found in this booklet is that in our al-Zahiriyyah Library, there are two copies of the book "Musnad al-Shihab" by al-Qudai. Both copies are incomplete. One is in a normal script, and the other is in a very, very beautiful Maghribi script, and it has been served by scholars of hadith, with marginal notes written in the hand of one of the hafiz, saying "weak," "fabricated," and such things. The Maghribi copy is in the al-Zahiriyyah Library, but the first booklet is missing. And because the first booklet is missing, it is not known what this book is. Whereas the second copy, which is in an Eastern script, is known because it is complete at the beginning and incomplete in the middle. And if I find the booklet that completes the Maghribi copy that is with them and is not known, it will tell you: A part is missing at the beginning of the hadith; because it is chains and hadiths. But what is the book? They do not know. And if I find the booklet that completes the book in its entirety, I went to the manager responsible for the manuscripts and said to him: Please, this is the book you have, and this is its name... A part in hadith, and this is its completion, "Musnad al-Shihab" in a very beautiful Maghribi script. So, for the sake of history and clarifying the reality, I wrote: Extracted from the dust by Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani. Then it was the turn of our friend Hamdi, this Salafi, 'Abd al-Majid, may Allah guide him, and he took photos of it. And he said to you, as you heard: This our friend Shu'ayb, out of malice and envy, erased this name!! This effort, if employees were assigned and given regular salaries, they would not do this work at all. But a person for whom Allah (Mighty and Majestic) facilitated this work and created him with activity and an urgent desire found things that were lost in the al-Zahiriyyah Library, not present in the indexes, and no thanks or gratitude. We do not want a reward or gratitude from you, and praise be to Allah.
This person comes and gets jealous, so he erases this name. What do you think comes from this thing, other than this deep-seated malice, unfortunately?!
Abu Layla : Whoever erases the truth, Allah will erase him.

The Shaykh : Yes?
Abu Layla : Whoever erases the truth, Allah will erase him.

The Shaykh : ... .

The questioner : The Salafi youth... it is not part of the Sunnah to say "May Allah accept it" after the prayer every time someone finishes. So, which is better: that when a person reaches another, he should greet him with the salam? We know that one says "As-salamu alaykum" to each person. So, what should one say, for example, when he comes to a group of people who have finished their prayer? We do not say "May Allah accept it"; rather, we greet everyone with the salam and offer our greetings to them.

The Shaykh : Yes.

The questioner: ... May Allah reward you with good.