What are the books you recommend for editing and publication in the world of print?
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The questioner : What are the books that the honorable Shaykh recommends for editing and publication in the world of print, briefly? Or what comes to the Shaykh's mind?
The Shaykh : By Allah, nothing comes to my mind right now, but the general principle is to print books that purify the hadiths and distinguish the authentic from the weak. What comes to my mind now is that there is something of this kind. In any case, the second step is publishing hadith books that narrate hadiths with their chains of transmission, starting with those whose author or compiler is of a high rank; because it is easy to speak about the narrators of such a book.
The questioner: Yes.
The Shaykh : This is different from when the author is of a later rank; it is very difficult for a person to reach a knowledge of whether the chain is established, because he will face many lower-level narrators for whom he finds no biography, or at least no authentication. So publishing these books that narrate hadiths with their chains of transmission is, without a doubt, a necessary step for what some are thinking of, namely establishing a "Hadith Encyclopedia." Perhaps it has reached you that they in "Qatar" are, so to speak, preparing themselves for such a work. And Professor "Yusuf al-Qaradawi" has published a small part as an introduction to the "Hadith Encyclopedia." Have you seen it?
The questioner: No.
The Shaykh : The brother Zuheir—may Allah reward him with good—sent me a copy of it. So may Allah grant them success in performing this obligatory duty, which I do not think they will perform; because the Islamic world still has dozens of people who are qualified and prepared to perform such a duty. And as is the case with many other collective works, like the "Fiqh Encyclopedia"... from the corners of the lands, there are people who do not have fiqh in the correct scientific sense derived from the Book and the Sunnah, but rather they have traditional fiqh. Likewise, perhaps people gather, picking up hadiths from here and there, and they do not know how to classify them or know their ranks of authenticity and weakness. So in any case, I ask Allah to grant them success for this.
The questioner: Amen.
The Shaykh : So undertaking the editing of such books is a fundamental thing for undertaking this general project, which is the "Hadith Encyclopedia."
Yes.
The Shaykh : By Allah, nothing comes to my mind right now, but the general principle is to print books that purify the hadiths and distinguish the authentic from the weak. What comes to my mind now is that there is something of this kind. In any case, the second step is publishing hadith books that narrate hadiths with their chains of transmission, starting with those whose author or compiler is of a high rank; because it is easy to speak about the narrators of such a book.
The questioner: Yes.
The Shaykh : This is different from when the author is of a later rank; it is very difficult for a person to reach a knowledge of whether the chain is established, because he will face many lower-level narrators for whom he finds no biography, or at least no authentication. So publishing these books that narrate hadiths with their chains of transmission is, without a doubt, a necessary step for what some are thinking of, namely establishing a "Hadith Encyclopedia." Perhaps it has reached you that they in "Qatar" are, so to speak, preparing themselves for such a work. And Professor "Yusuf al-Qaradawi" has published a small part as an introduction to the "Hadith Encyclopedia." Have you seen it?
The questioner: No.
The Shaykh : The brother Zuheir—may Allah reward him with good—sent me a copy of it. So may Allah grant them success in performing this obligatory duty, which I do not think they will perform; because the Islamic world still has dozens of people who are qualified and prepared to perform such a duty. And as is the case with many other collective works, like the "Fiqh Encyclopedia"... from the corners of the lands, there are people who do not have fiqh in the correct scientific sense derived from the Book and the Sunnah, but rather they have traditional fiqh. Likewise, perhaps people gather, picking up hadiths from here and there, and they do not know how to classify them or know their ranks of authenticity and weakness. So in any case, I ask Allah to grant them success for this.
The questioner: Amen.
The Shaykh : So undertaking the editing of such books is a fundamental thing for undertaking this general project, which is the "Hadith Encyclopedia."
Yes.
Source
www.al-albany.com
The Arabic text is copied verbatim from the original source, without any edits.