Ibrahim Shuqqa’s introduction before Shaykh al-Albani.

Ibrahim Shuqqa: All praise is due to Allah; we praise Him, seek His help, and seek His forgiveness. We seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our own souls and the badness of our deeds. Whoever Allah guides is not to be led astray, and whoever He leaves astray is not to be guided. I bear witness that there is no deity but Allah alone, with no partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and His Messenger. As for what follows, the truest speech is the Book of Allah, the best guidance is the guidance of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), and the worst of matters are their innovations. Every innovation is misguidance, every misguidance is in the Fire. In this blessed gathering, where we meet our Shaykh and teacher, Shaykh Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani, who has accustomed us to many of these scholarly gatherings in which the knowledge of the Book and the Sunnah occupies a place of truth and a desire to act upon it. Our souls have often longed for many of the issues that revolve in our daily reality, and we reflect on them as they passed in the ages gone by, striving to connect the present we live in with them, despite the corruption and misguidance that existed in them, and the events in our present, so that they may walk with strong legs into the future, perhaps finding people who embrace them as many people embraced them in this present, and as they had many supporters in the past. We have often longed to present such issues, and we do not say this to flatter our Shaykh (may Allah preserve him) and may Allah reward him for Islam and the Muslims with good, but it is the truth without doubt. He alone is the one who can answer these events that occur in our present, whether they relate to economic affairs, educational affairs, or other general affairs that concern Muslims in general. And we, while praising Allah the Exalted for His presence among us, praise Him, Glorified and Exalted is He, once again that He enables us, from time to time, to take from Him what Allah has decreed for him and what He has bestowed upon him with this knowledge that has spread across all corners of the earth. Therefore, now, and tomorrow, and the day after, and we do not know how long these events will continue to follow one another, and these issues will take hold of one another’s throats, and people are confused around them. Some say they will end on their own, but the price of removing them is high. Some say change must have a strong, capable hand to change it. Some say that with patience, perseverance, and taking matters with wisdom and gentleness, and guiding people to the correct, right direction of truth and guidance and justice, this is sufficient to change these events and remove them, even if time is long and much effort is expended. Among the issues and events, we can say that, praise be to Allah, our Lord, and by His grace which He has bestowed upon us, we have been saved from them, and that is by our turning away from them with knowledge we derived from the Book and the Sunnah through the hand of our Shaykh, may Allah reward us for him. I do not wish to introduce Shaykh Nasir al-Din al-Albani to our listeners here, for he is beyond the need for introduction, and perhaps introducing the one who is known should not be done, for I know from myself that I do not attribute to the Shaykh any description that I do not believe in what I say about him, and people know that from me. But I say that the great, magnificent issues need a great, magnificent man, and I do not think that our Shaykh is the one who must be the decisive word in any of these issues, and in any of the matters, and in any of the events. And I must also say that if the events had stopped at one or two or three, the matter would have been light, but they have taken hold of one another’s throats, and every event says to the one before it, “I am your support from behind you. I am responsible for repelling the evil intended for you, so that you are at the front of reform. Indeed, I am responsible and a support that you remain always, while reform is a difficult obstacle that you do not move and do not leave.” The events that occur in our world today, I do not say in the whole world, but in our Islamic world in particular, are events that we cannot describe except as dark and gloomy, and that they are ... oppressive, that they are difficult and hard, and that it is very difficult for a person to think of removing them except to say, “O Allah, Your help which does not cease for the weak and the oppressed on earth, and there is no refuge from You but to You.” We ask Allah to make our refuge in Him alone, Glorified is He, and that they be the support of this righteous, beneficial group about which the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: And the question we direct to our Shaykh, on the occasion of the events taking place in some Arab countries, which are characterized by violence and severity, and I do not wish to name a specific country, for there is hardly a country among the countries of Muslims that is free from these events in which blood has been violated, and wealth has been seized, and innovations have spread, and terror has increased, and security has disappeared, and prosperity has been lost, and every Muslim is searching for himself in the midst of these events, to the right and left, and front and back, and under his feet and above his head, expecting at every moment to be struck by a new spark of fitnah, or a fragment of a terrible event, or a bad thing that he expects or does not expect, coming to him by surprise, unawares. We want to direct a question to our Shaykh, Shaykh Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani, and although it is long, but its length, may Allah reward him with good and lengthen his reach in knowledge, will come to us with the length of this question without boredom or anger. Indeed, the best of the horses, the more they are ridden, the faster and stronger and more enduring and more patient they are in reaching the distant goal. The question: Our Shaykh, may Allah protect you, the matter has become confused for Muslims in these days, and I do not say for us, who is on the methodology of the Book and the Sunnah, and that Allah Mighty and Majestic gives the people of this methodology a conscious insight and a sound idea and an opinion that protects them from falling into the error that other Islamic groups fall into, and the witnessed reality is a witness to that. So I say the matter applies to Muslims in general, and with the existence of Islamic groups, each of which claims to be right, and they all agree on the obligation of enjoining good and forbidding evil, but each group follows a methodology that differs from the other. The most prominent on the scene are two methodologies. The first is one that calls for change by the force of arms, which is violence, on the pretext that the ruling systems today are systems of ... And the other methodology is one that calls for change by wisdom and good admonition and patience and perseverance. And no doubt that what ... upon Muslims in every new morning, and what does not disappear with the appearance of the sun, but increases day after day, makes the Ummah, or makes us at least, and those who are like us, think, sometimes approaching and sometimes receding, to where the Ummah can reach while it is in this state! For its thinking has become corrupt, its scientific thinking, its economic thinking, its political thinking, and its military thinking. And there is no clearer proof of that than the factions striking among us between our backs, for every group of Muslims opposes the other group, and every party seeks good for itself and hides it from others, and every country among the countries of Muslims has a thinking that differs from the thinking of the other country, and has a system that leads it that differs in form and content from the form and content of the other system and its thinking. So where is the way, and where are we now, and how do we determine the direction we follow in the face of these multiplying fitnahs, and some of the appearances or phenomena that appear from time to time, which shy away from a reality that minds cannot imagine what could happen if these realities moved, God forbid, and erupted on the land of Muslims? What will happen? Killing with weapons will happen in the lands of Muslims, and war with knowledge will happen in the lands of Muslims, in the name of knowledge and in the name of fiqh, and it will happen in the lands of Muslims that there are governments where hands and arms meet on matters they rush into, and they have sighs in them, if they waited until its time came, and we leave the field ...