about the book *The Book and the Qur'an* by a communist man named al-Shahrour.

The questioner : Do you have any information about the book written by al-Shahrour?

The Shaykh : Al-Shahrour.

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : The day before yesterday, we were with a man until ten-thirty who is influenced by the book and apparently has a connection to a group, what is its name, the Liberation Organization? His name is Mukhtar, and his nickname is very strange, meaning he told me he is originally from Libya. In any case, I have no news about this book. A religious woman, who is probably on the Salafi path, attends a lesson that my wife usually attends for women. She visited us here and brought the book. She said her husband is very impressed with this book. She is originally from Syria and says she does not know about these people, or about her husband. I heard from the husband yesterday some of that talk, that the Syrians, or the Damascenes in particular, are divided into two groups regarding this book: one group sees the book as one of the most dangerous books for Islam and Muslims, and another group is impressed, meaning by its scientific style and praises its author, and so on. They reported that he is willing, meaning he accepts the ruling of only four scholars or shaykhs whom he trusts, and he does not consider the other scholars. He mentioned al-Albani in the sentence, and on this basis, his husband wished to meet with al-Albani. The woman also came with the book and mentioned these details to me, saying, "I want, meaning, for the husband to meet with you and give him your opinion on it." I browsed the book; the book is a large volume, and I do not have the time to browse through all of it.
Al-Halabi : Our Shaykh, do you know what they are talking about?

The Shaykh : Okay, this is talk about the book.
Al-Halabi : What book? Who is its author?

The Shaykh : Here is the talk: the title of the book is *The Book and the Qur'an*, and its author is named Muhammad al-Shahrour.

The questioner : Ibn Abi Sulayman.

The Shaykh : I know; I did not ask you this question.

The questioner : By Allah, I do not know the name of this book.

The Shaykh : Okay, I know the author. He is from Damascus, the son of one of our Salafi brothers from long ago. Because I fear now that the father was influenced by the son. This is Abu Sulayman, the father. He was a man who, meaning, he stopped or almost stopped a house for the lessons I used to deliver there in al-Muhajireen. When I came here, very bad news reached me about him, but I did not know that he was influenced by his son until this recent time because of this book. In any case, the woman who brought the book, when she told me about the book before bringing it and mentioned that the author is so-and-so, I said to her, "By Allah, if so-and-so is the son of Abu Sulayman al-Shahrour, I know that he is a communist and that he went to Russia and studied there. When he returned, I spoke with him about some matters, and it appeared to me that he is an atheist. So if it is him, I do not rule out that his book contains atheism." Then she brought the book and left it with me. Then I called on the phone: "What do you think? Shall we come? I and the husband." I said to him, "There is no objection." I had browsed the book and taken some points. Yesterday, he and the wife came. The wife, of course, was there, and I sat with the husband. He does not have Islamic culture; he has a mind of his own that is impressed by some of the points he read in the book, but he does not know where these concepts and these interpretations came from. For example, he said he is impressed by his interpretation of the saying of Allah the Exalted: He says that the shaykhs interpret the Throne in an incorrect way, and what is meant by the Throne here is control. So I discussed with this man named Mukhtar, and it was a long session, and he had a lot of repetition in it, intending that he would not submit to the argument, and from me, of course, as you know, for the sake of comprehending him and explaining the truth to him. As he spoke, I reached the point with him where I said, "You, Professor, instead of coming to study such a book, and this book is written by Engineer So-and-so al-Shahrour, what does the engineer bring to the interpretation of the Noble Qur'an?" And I said to him, "What are the conditions for interpreting the Qur'an, especially when he brought the verse of the saying of Allah the Exalted: He asked about ta'wil (figurative interpretation), what is the meaning? I answered him that it is interpreted in the sense of tafsir (exegesis), as is the case with Ibn Jarir, for example. It did not seem to succeed; it did not succeed. I will succeed you. Rest now, rest. This is the secret of the profession. The secret of the profession, O Shaykh. May Allah guide you. In summary, the talk is long, but the important thing is that I said to him, "Do you know the meaning of the saying of Allah the Exalted: He did not know. I said to him, "O Shaykh, you know the creed, and you have no business with such books." We mentioned the conditions for interpreting the Qur'an, one after another, and for each one, I took his agreement. I said to him, "If there is a man who has a global culture in all cosmic sciences, but he does not understand the Arabic language, is he able to interpret the Qur'an?" He said, "Obviously, no." We said to him, "So the first condition we set is that he must be knowledgeable of the Arabic language." We said to him, "Is it sufficient for Peter to be knowledgeable of the Arabic language to interpret the Qur'an, the speech of Allah the Mighty and Majestic, or must he also be a believer in Allah and His Messenger?" He agreed with me. I said to him, "And is there a third thing?" He had brought the verse of the Rasinun fi al-'ilm (those firmly grounded in knowledge). I brought him the saying of Allah the Exalted, which is well known to you all: So the verse, I said to him, is explicit that there is something our Lord revealed to the Messenger, which is the Dhikr (the Qur'an), and a second thing that He commanded him to explain to the people. So here are two things: the explained and the explainer. The explained is the Qur'an, and the explainer is the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) with his speech, which is known to scholars as the Sunnah or the Hadith. Our friend does not want to agree. We said to him, "The third condition is that he must be knowledgeable of the Sunnah, because the Sunnah is the explanation, and 'We have revealed to you the Dhikr that you may explain.'" So now, Professor Mukhtar, what is your knowledge of this al-Shahrour, the author of the book *The Book and the Qur'an*? Is he knowledgeable of the Arabic language? Is he truly a believer in Allah and His Messenger? He said, "He says he was a communist and then returned." We said to him, "Okay, suppose he really returned, and I mentioned to him something that he did not return, as testified by his book. Is he knowledgeable of the Sunnah?" He said, "I do not know." I said to him, "If you want to treat your son or your friend with a doctor, and you do not know about him good or bad, do you take him to him?" He said, "No." I said to him, "You know he is a doctor, but he is, for example, an internal medicine doctor, and your operation is external surgery. Do you not look for the specialist in treatment?" He said, "Yes." I said to him, "Your religion and your creed are more important than all these aspects. So why do you not ask about this al-Shahrour regarding his specialization? Yet he has spared you from asking about his specialization because he wrote for you 'Engineer So-and-so al-Shahrour.' If he is an engineer, what kind of engineer? Civil? Electrical? And so on. The earth is inhabited, right?"

The Shaykh : And the audience laughed.
What is his relationship to interpreting the Qur'an? Then I said to him, "I know the man personally, but I want to understand: have you read the book?" He said, "I read it three times." Subhan Allah, they say in our land in Sham, "The rope of lies is short." They say here too. During the discussion, I said to them, "I want to ask you: since you read the book three times, what is his opinion on matter? Is there anything other than matter?" At first, he ignored it, as if he did not understand. I said to him, "What do you understand? What is my question? Do you know what matter is?" He said, "Yes. It is stone, tree, human, animal, and so on. Everything you touch with one of the senses is matter." I said, "Yes." "Do not bother yourself, you will lose me. Then yes." Peace and the mercy of Allah. In summary, then he apparently understood what my question was. We said to him, "Is there anything behind matter other than matter?" I was asking him about the author. He said to me, "By Allah, I did not read the whole book. Look, he said he read topics from it that I did not like." I wanted to answer him because we would not reach the end of the exchange with him. I wanted to say to him, "You are a liar. You said you read the book three times, and you did not say you read chapters from it." So I said to him, "I hope you will reconsider the book and read this topic, because he says, 'I believe in matter, and there is nothing other than matter.' This is the opinion of the communists, so he is still a communist."