The Shaykh’s mention of a story that happened to him with a Turkish officer in Damascus regarding the authenticity of the hadith, “Fear the insight of the believer, for he looks with the insight of Allah.”

The Shaykh : Thank you. Once, a person came to me. At that time, I was still in my father’s shop repairing watches. It was my father’s habit, may Allah have mercy on him, to leave for the house after the midday prayer to take his nap, while I remained in the shop alone. The shop, despite its small size, had a western-facing front. We had a metal shutter to block out the sun’s heat, leaving only a small opening for customers during the day.

The questioner : It was open during the day.

The Shaykh : It was open, so I was sitting when a man with a light beard came to me, although beards were rare at that time. I later learned that his name was Najm al-Din Bey and that he was an officer in the Turkish army, from the group of Turkish officers. He took a watch out of his pocket, a very expensive "Zenith" brand, and said, "Look at it for me. We took it and repaired it; many people have it." After he finished complaining about people, he began to praise us. When I heard this praise, I said to him, "Hold on. My beard was just a bit of fuzz, like a seven- or eight-year-old's." I said to him, "Do not be deceived by this. What is this exaggeration in praise?" He said, "A Muslim has insight, and the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: " I said to him, "But, Professor, this hadith is weak," and he rolled his eyes like that.

The questioner : Heh

The Shaykh : He was much older than me, and he had the right to be so; he had the right to be so. He said to me, “How is it weak? We read it today in al-Risalah al-Qushayriyyah.”

The questioner : That is enough, my brother, without al-Risalah al-Qushayriyyah.

The Shaykh : We read al-Risalah al-Qushayriyyah to the Shaykh, and the Shaykh at that time had a reputation that filled Syria. His name was Shaykh Muhammad al-Dairani. I said to him, “Yes, but your reading of the hadith in al-Risalah al-Qushayriyyah does not mean that the hadith is authentic, because every science is taken from the specialists in it. Al-Risalah al-Qushayriyyah is a book on Sufism and the etiquette of seekers with their Shaykhs. As for us, our subject concerns the science of hadith. You can say that al-Bukhari authenticated it, and so on. This hadith is weak, my brother.” He became even more surprised and said to me, “Who did you study with?” I said, “With Shaykh Badr al-Din. Shaykh Badr al-Din was the scholar of Syria at that time in hadith. He was the father of Shaykh Taj al-Husayni, who was the president of the republic during the French occupation.” I said to him, “No.” He said, “Then with Shaykh Ali al-Duqan?” I said to him, “No.” He said, “Then with whom? How did you acquire this knowledge and where did you reach?” I said to him, “I have personal study, meaning I heard something and was not convinced by it.” In any case, we agreed to repair his watch, that he would come at a specific time, as was our custom, in two or three days. He surprised me at the same time with this energy, and a paper was in my lap, because we were sitting on a raised wooden bench, not chairs, on the ground. I opened the paper and found that he had brought the hadith from al-Risalah al-Qushayriyyah with the chain of narration, from so-and-so, from so-and-so. I said to myself, “I wish he had waited for me; I would have given him the answer.” In any case, the time came for him to take the watch. He came and said to me, “Is the watch finished?” We said to him, “Please.” He said to me, “Did you see the hadith?” I said to him, “Yes.” He said to me, “What did you see?” So I took a somewhat strange path with him. I said to him, “I saw that the author is saying that the hadith is weak.” He said, “No, my brother, there is nothing of that.” I said to him, “Yes, there is.” He said, “My brother, I wrote it with my own hand from the book.”

The questioner : How... weak?

The Shaykh : I said to him, “My brother, but this is a language not everyone understands. Al-Qushayri, may Allah have mercy on him, when he mentioned the hadith, why did he mention the chain? He said, ‘So-and-so narrated to me,’ he said, ‘So-and-so narrated to me,’ so that the scholar who is proficient in knowing the biographies of hadith and proficient in the science of al-jarh wa al-ta'dil (the critique and vindication of narrators) can understand from the chain whether the hadith is authentic or weak. Look, at that time we did not have dry-ink pens like now. In the old days, they called it a dip pen. I did this a little, and it came out dark. Yes, I wrote for him two lines, which equals ‘weak’ in the terminology of hadith scholars. ‘Atiyyah’ is at the top of the chain in its isnad: ‘Atiyyah al-Aufi from Abu Sa'id al-Khudri, who said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: ‘Atiyyah is weak in the opinion of hadith scholars. Whenever this man narrated a hadith and was unique in its narration, the hadith would be considered invalid. He took the watch, paid the fee, and the man left. It has been, by Allah, more than a year since I moved from my father’s shop to a shop of my own. I did not see him except on a Friday when he came with Shaykh Muhammad al-Dairani.

The questioner : His Shaykh.

The Shaykh : Here is the point, yes. I usually opened on Fridays but did not work, because my shop was on the road of the farmers who came from that Ghouta area and those countries. Whoever wanted to take his watch or leave his watch, and so on. But I was sitting studying. By chance, on that day, I was studying the book al-Targhib wa al-Tarhib. The copy is still with me to this day, and I am studying in it. When Najm al-Din Bey came with Shaykh Muhammad al-Dairani, I immediately stood up to receive them, even though I am the owner of the shop, meaning I was supposed to stay in my place. But since a Shaykh came, I stood up to receive him, “Welcome,” and returned to my place. Before he sat down and I sat down, he said to him, “Is it true, Your Excellency the Shaykh, that the hadith is weak?” He said, “No, it is an authentic hadith narrated by Abu Dawud and al-Tirmidhi. His takhrij (tracing a hadith to its sources) of the hadith was perfect. Evidence that he was a huffaz (memorizer) or prepared for one of the two, but no, the truth is that he used to sit in the Umayyad Mosque, if you know it there, in a place like so-and-so, the so-and-so Shaykh, studying under the dome.
The one who studies under the dome means as if he were the preacher of al-Masjid al-Nabawi or the Masjid al-Haram in Makkah, meaning a high rank. So this was what? A teacher under the dome. When he said to me this, the attribution is correct, but the logic is not correct. Why? Because he is using the takhrij of these scholars for the hadith as evidence for the authenticity of the hadith, and this is incorrect reasoning according to the science of terminology. Here the point is, it ruined this for me too. Then came to us “with the muffler” like that al-Azhari, immediately the divine computer worked at the speed of lightning and faster. How am I going to convince him that this statement is not sound? I said to him, “What do you think of the hadith?” Yes, it was perfect in his speech that this hadith was narrated by these scholars, and if it were a weak hadith, they would not have narrated it. I said to him, “What do you think of the hadith ?” What did I plan? He would say, “This hadith has no basis.” But it ruined it for me, meaning a second muffler, see how? I planned that he would say, “This hadith is not authentic,” and I would say to him, “The scholars mentioned it, this so-and-so mentioned it, but “the muffler” was with me. He said to me, “This hadith is authentic, and it has absolutely no basis.”

The questioner : Heh

The Shaykh : I said to myself, “The liar is behind the door. Who narrated it?” Imam Ahmad!! He also lied; he never narrated it. No one in the world is a hadith scholar.

The questioner : Heh

The Shaykh : He said, “Imam Ahmad narrated it. Imam Ahmad, do you know his Musnad? It has six volumes containing about forty thousand hadiths.” I said to him, “Did you see it in Imam Ahmad’s Musnad?” He said, “No.” I said to him, “Then where?” He said, “I saw it in the book al-Targhib wa al-Tarhib!!”

The questioner : Heh

The Shaykh : And now the book was placed on the table. I was reading in it before they came, and when they arrived, I put it aside.

The questioner : Tell him the hadith was published.

The Shaykh : We said to him, “Please.” Out of his ignorance or confusion, one of the two, and the sweetest of them is bitter, he said to me, “How am I supposed to look it up?”

The questioner : Heh

The Shaykh : A man knowledgeable in hadith is unable to extract a hadith. We said to him, “Professor, the matter is simple. What is the subject of this hadith?” The speech is about mosques. Mosques are related to prayer. If it is in the book of prayer, please. He began turning the pages without direction, and I knew he would not find anything. I stayed with him, and as they say, I electrified the air with him a little. “Do not tire yourself, Professor. You will not see this hadith in the Musnad or in al-Targhib. It has no basis.” He said, “No, no, it has a basis.”
I told him, "This hadith was cited by al-Ghazali in *Ihya' 'Ulum al-Din*, and you know, and Allah knows best, whether you know it or not, and you know that this book was compiled by al-Hafiz al-'Iraqi. When he came to this hadith, he said, 'This is a hadith with no basis.' He said, 'It has no basis.' We said to him, 'Then turn to me, Najm al-Din Bey.' I told him, 'I beg you, Najm al-Din Bey, when the Shaykh arrives at the house, he will bring you the hadith from *al-Targhib wa al-Tarhib* in a small booklet, with the part and page number as I wrote it.'"

The questioner : As I wrote, "Fear the insight of the believer..."

The Shaykh : Yes, hmm, "And that one..." they say in our region in Syria, "We haven't seen that man anymore, it's impossible."