The praise of Shaykh Al-Albani for the scholars of Saudi Arabia in their adherence to the Book and the Sunnah. And that disagreement among the people of the Sunnah unites and does not divide.

The questioner : In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and blessings and peace be upon our Prophet and Messenger Muhammad, and upon his family and all his Companions.
Your Excellency,The Shaykh : Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani (may Allah preserve him)

The Shaykh : Yes.

The questioner : This statement, may Allah preserve you, O Shaykh, leads us to another topic.

The Shaykh : Yes.

The questioner : It is an old topic that occurred among the Companions and those after them, which is the disagreement of the scholars, as Imam Malik said, "Every one of us is one who rejects and one who is rejected, except the occupant of this grave."

The Shaykh : (may Allah have mercy on him)

The questioner : Some of the responses ofThe Shaykh : Nasir al-Albani (may Allah preserve him) to some of the scholars in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are interpreted as taking a path other than the required Shari'ah path in responses, and so on. Then in the responses, and also this may lead to another matter interpreted asThe Shaykh : Nasir al-Din al-Albani being in disagreement with the scholars in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. And of course, this is what we do not think, and praise be to Allah. So I would like a comment from your Eminence on such a matter.

The Shaykh : Yes. Praise be to Allah, we praise Him, seek His help, seek His forgiveness, and seek refuge in Allah from the evils of our souls and from the badness of our deeds. Whom Allah guides, there is no one who can mislead him, and whom He misleads, there is no one who can guide him. And I bear witness that there is no god but Allah alone, with no partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and His Messenger. As for what follows: We, praise be to Allah, are with all the scholars wherever they are and in any land they live in, among those who adopt our methodology based on following the Book and the Sunnah and on what our righteous predecessors were upon. And I believe that in the Saudi lands, to this day, many of the scholars among them are still upon this methodology, influenced by what we were influenced by, like them, by the call of Shaykh al-Islam, truly, Ahmad ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him), then his student Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, then by those who followed their methodology and took their path, such asThe Shaykh : Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab, who had the primary merit in reviving the call of tawhid (the oneness of Allah) in the lands of Najd first, with a detailed explanation until we felt it among the young before the old there. Also, he laid the foundation for the call to follow the Sunnah and not preferring any of the four schools of the people of the Sunnah over the Book and the Sunnah. And although I believe that his ijtihad (independent legal reasoning) for the call of tawhid first in those lands, which were similar to the lands of Egypt in terms of the spread of shirk (associating partners with Allah) and idolatry therein, I believe he was not given the opportunity to expand the circle of the call to the Book and the Sunnah and make the Book and the Sunnah a fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) that walks on the face of the earth, as he was successful in that regarding tawhid. But in any case, he had the third merit afterThe Shaykh : the two mentioned, Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, in my belief, in reviving the methodology ofThe Shaykh : them in the Najdi world first, then in the Islamic world second. He had the merit in his era of spreading this blessed call, and many scholars committed to it, not only in Najd, then in the Hejaz which follows it, but also in the rest of the Islamic world in India and Pakistan and in other lands. And although, unfortunately, many of the non-Arab lands have not yet smelled the scent of the Salafi call except briefly in this present era. In some of those lands, I say this as an acknowledgment of the merit of these shaykhs first, and as a clarification of what I profess to Allah second. And I believe that the scholars in Najd, most of them, grew up on the madhhab (school of jurisprudence) of Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, and I find a very big difference between these scholars who adopt the Hanbali madhhab as a madhhab and other Hanbalis who live in lands other than the Saudi lands, to use the contemporary technical term. For there is no difference between these Hanbalis who live outside the Saudi lands and the followers of the other madhahib in terms of their rigidity on their madhhab and not stepping out of it by a hair's breadth, unlike the Hanbali scholars in Najd, who are greatly influenced by the call of the shaykhs mentioned above. But I say a word of truth: these shaykhs are not all the same. Some of them are predominantly followers of the Book and the Sunnah, and they rarely issue fatwas based on the madhhab unless they do not find a contrary evidence. As for the majority of them, they are Hanbalis. But because the madhhab of Imam Ahmad is first, the closest of the madhahib to the Sunnah, and second, because this madhhab has been considered by scholars, old and new, who adopt our methodology of the Book and the Sunnah, the weight of Hanbali sectarianism has been lightened in the Saudi lands, unlike the other lands that we know. For example, in the eastern part of Damascus, some villages are all Hanbali, such as Dabir, Rahibah, and Dayr 'Atiyyah, and so on. These people grew up on the Hanbali madhhab, but in tawhid, let alone other matters, before the Salafi call reached them, they did not know anything about tawhid except what these Khalaf (the later generations) know. As for the Hanbalis in Najd, the difference between them and those people is complete. And therefore, as I say on other occasions, I hope that the followers of the other madhahib in the other Islamic lands are on the madhhab of Imam Ahmad for two reasons: the first is that the Imam himself is the Imam of the Sunnah, and the second is that his madhhab is now protected and preserved by the Sunnah to a great and very great extent. Then I return to answer regarding my disagreement with some of the shaykhs there in Saudi Arabia. I do not find a difference in such a disagreement between me and the shaykhs there, or in any other country, even if they were from Damascus, let alone if they were Al-Albanis like me. There is no difference for me in disagreeing with a Saudi, a Najdi, a Hijazi, an Egyptian, a Damascene, or so on. That is first. As we spoke on another occasion, disagreement is a very natural matter and has its known reasons, which Ibn Taymiyyah explained in his famous treatise called "I'lam..." What is it?
Al-Halabi : Raising the Blame

The Shaykh : Raising the Blame from the Famous Imams. So for this reason, there is no surprise that I disagree with some scholars from any country, because this is the natural order. And as I pointed out at the beginning of your question to the word of Imam Malik (may Allah have mercy on him), who said, "None of us is one who does not reject and be rejected, except the occupant of this grave." But I say a frank word: sometimes some of my words may be found by some who read them, and who did not read the words of the one I rejected, even with careful reading, to have something of severity or harshness. I do not deny this severity, nor do I deny such harshness in some of my writings. But I admit that I am not the one who starts it; rather, I take some of my right from one who committed against me and said about me, perhaps what he does not believe, such as some who attributed to me something. I remember his phrase now: from zandaqah (heresy) or that it leads to zandaqah, because I said what the scholars said, indeed what the majority of the scholars said, that the face of a woman is not 'awrah (the part of the body that must be covered).

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : Well, if I say such a word and support it with the Sunnah and the athar (reports) of the Salaf, and so on, and despite that, some attribute to me that I opened the door of fitnah (trial, discord or temptation) and the door of tabarruj (a woman's display of her adornment) for women, and perhaps described me with something of what I mentioned above, then there may be some harshness in my response to such a one who accuses me of such words. I do not deny this. But I cannot start with a person who responds to me with a scholarly response with any harshness. And I hope that every sincere lover of mine, if he sees me starting with an attack and criticism of any scholar in any land of the world, that he reminds me. And I say to him, "May Allah have mercy on a man who points out my faults to me."
So if disagreement is a natural matter, then it is also very natural for me to disagree with some scholars there or here. But I praise Allah that disagreement, as they say, and although I do not support this expression, "is in the branches and not in the fundamentals."

The questioner : Praise be to Allah.

The Shaykh : Yes, that is right. The disagreement is in some matters of Islamic jurisprudence. As for creed, we are all in agreement, praise be to Allah. So it is no wonder that for a long time we have been accused of being Wahhabis. A time has passed in which we have lived between the two stones of a millstone: neither those who attribute us to Wahhabism are pleased with our methodology, nor are some of those to whom we are attributed pleased with us. But we hope that Allah will be pleased with us all. Yes.

The questioner : O Shaykh, you have a great standing with the great scholars there, such as His EminenceThe Shaykh : 'Abd al-'Aziz andThe Shaykh : Muhammad ibn 'Uthaymeen.

The Shaykh : And they are the same.

The questioner : In fact,The Shaykh : Muhammad ibn 'Uthaymeen, during Ramadan, when he was distributing prizes to the students—when he would ask the students questions and they would answer, and he would distribute some of your tapes to them—once said, "And among the prizes are tapes of the Muhaddith of the Levant, or rather, the Muhaddith of the era,"The Shaykh : Nasir al-Albani.

The Shaykh : May Allah reward him with good.

The questioner : AndThe Shaykh : likewise,The Shaykh : 'Abd al-'Aziz ibn Baz knows your virtue. No one denies this.

The Shaykh : That is their good opinion of us. May Allah reward them with good.

The questioner : And so it is with the scholars and every just person.

The Shaykh : Praise be to Allah.

The questioner : There is no doubt, and in any case, disagreement may occur, for example, among the scholars in the same country.

The Shaykh : That is so.

The questioner : In Najd or elsewhere.

The Shaykh : That is so.

The questioner : But I say that in such matters, one should have a good opinion of the believer and the Muslim.

The Shaykh : That is the obligatory duty. We ask Allah to make us among them.

The questioner : Amen. And in conclusion, the truth is that we have no choice but to thank Your Eminence for your broad-mindedness toward us. And also, in truth, I said to my brother 'Ali, whenThe Shaykh : may Allah protect him, he wrote a commentary on my book "Irsad al-Qari' (Guiding the Reader)," I say that if I had not written anything but this book, and he had not commented on it,The Shaykh : that would have been a merit and a favor.

The Shaykh : That is from your kindness, your good manners, and your humility.

The questioner : So we are truly grateful and appreciative. And the brothers there asked us to convey their greetings to you.

The Shaykh : Peace be upon you and upon them.

The questioner : And in any case, as is known from long ago, disagreement exists; it is not new.

The Shaykh : That is so.

The questioner : But as mentioned earlier, one should have a good opinion of the believers. I ask Allah to keep you in Islam and the Muslims, and to bless your life with further spreading of knowledge and supporting the Sunnah of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him).

The Shaykh : May Allah bless you.