Did you study under Shaykh Ahmad Shakir, and how many times did you meet him? And what is your story with Hamid al-Faqi?

Abu Ishaq: All right, if you please, my Shaykh, I was in the process of writing a biography of Shaykh Ahmad Shakir (may Allah have mercy on him) based on the statements of contemporaries or the like, so I am left with your opinion and how many times you met himThe Shaykh : and whether you studied under himThe Shaykh : in reality, or was it just brief moments.

The Shaykh: No, I was not given the opportunity to study under him; rather, I met him the first time I met him in Makkah during the first Hajj I performed. I was probably around thirty-five years old at that time. This Hajj was not something I could afford on my own, because I was a young man in knowledge and in my profession, which is repairing watches. So I was not able to perform Hajj at that time. But Allah the Exalted provided a means for me: some of them chose me to be the guide for the Saudi-Palestinian group that left after the fighting between the Arabs and the Jews, with the known result, and the Arab armies returned to their capitals. This included the Saudi-Palestinian army, which was a mix of people from many Arab countries, some of whom were originally Saudi. When the Saudi King decided at that time that these people should return, they had a commander named Fahd al-Mariq. It appears that the name did not please him later, so he changed it to al-Marak with a kaf. In any case, I understood from him at that time that he was a student of knowledge at Dar al-Tawhid in Ta'if. So he was the commander of this group, and he had, as they say, a background of religion and knowledge. He asked for someone to accompany him as a guide for this Saudi group returning to Riyadh. They were told, "You have no one but so-and-so and so-and-so." The first one wasThe Shaykh : Bahjat al-Baytar (may Allah have mercy on him), and the other was me. SoThe Shaykh : Bahjat, of course, was an elder at that time, so he excused himself. When it came to me and they offered me the chance to go with the Saudi group, this turned out to be a result that enabled me to perform Hajj and visit the Prophet's Mosque. I am a person who is accustomed to saying to our brothers, "If someone invites me, I say to him, 'I am not joking.'" If you are inviting me seriously, I am a man who responds immediately.
This is a Syrian expression, "I am not joking," because it is the custom there for a person to be doing any work, and when his friend passes by, he says to him, "Please come in." Of course, this is said when they meet, for example, near the man's house, and he says to him, "Please come in." So he says to him, "I am not joking, I am afraid you will say it is serious." Ha. So I was eager to perform Hajj but unable to. When this was offered to me, I said, "I have no objection." But I would consult my father. My father was a pious man and a scholar of Hanafi jurisprudence and what is called the auxiliary sciences of language. But I rebelled and deviated from him when I followed the path of the people of Hadith. So I took his opinion in any case. And I was working at that time in my own shop. He said, "There is no objection; you know what is in your best interest." In any case, I traveled. One of the motivations for this trip was that the trip itself was not desirable, was it? Because it involved riding in the large military trucks used for heavy loads and cargo. But the longing, first, was for Hajj to the House of Allah the Sacred, and second, for meeting the people of knowledge there. Because I was reading in the magazine *al-Arab* and I had knowledge ofThe Shaykh : Ahmad and I had knowledge of Hamid al-Faqi and some Salafi figures. So I said, "I will not be able to meet them except in the Sacred Mosque." So the first person I asked about was Hamid al-Faqi (may Allah have mercy on him).