The Shaykh Al-Albani mentions his meeting with Sa'id Hawwa and the discussion that took place between them.

And among the most important of these—and you may be surprised by this surprise—is that Sa'id Hawwa visited me.
Al-Halabi: Allahu Akbar.

The Shaykh : Yes, exactly.
Al-Halabi: I mean, was he sleeping in the hospital or what?

The Shaykh: No, he came for a check-up. He is an invalid and does not walk except in a wheelchair. He is alert, but it appears his eyesight is weak. I was truly surprised to see him.
Al-Halabi: Did you know him before?

The Shaykh: I know him, but when I saw him, I did not recognize him, because it has been a long time—twenty years. I have now been away from Damascus for about ten years, and before that, years passed and I did not see him, meaning we separated because each of us followed the path that Allah the Mighty and Majestic made easy for him. So he came to me, and he was the fourth of four, one of whom was a young man with a handsome appearance. He said, "I am the brother of so-and-so from Latakia, from the Julaq family." I know the Julaq family because, in fact, the Julaq family in Latakia was a center for the Salafi da'wah, and I used to stay with them when I went out to travel in the cause of da'wah. For example, in Aleppo, my residence was Muhammad Nasser Turmanini's. Have you seen him, perhaps?
Al-Halabi: Yes.

The Shaykh: Yes, in Idlib my residence was the house ofThe Shaykh : Nafi' Shamiyyah. In Latakia, my residence was the Julaq house. These are three or four brothers, and they were originally from the Muslim Brotherhood, but they accepted the da'wah and opened their hearts to it, and even their home. So I always used to gather there and we would hold lessons. Then, unfortunately, this revolution against Hafiz al-Asad by the Muslim Brotherhood occurred. One of them, Salim, who was the most intelligent and most interested in and receptive to the Salafi da'wah, is unfortunately still a prisoner with the Ba'athists to this day. They have another brother named Kharit, who came to visit me here in the house about a year and a half or two years ago, and he is now in Iraq. The one who came withThe Shaykh : Sa'id Hawwa is a brother to these men, so he knows me in his heart. He said, "Do you know me?" I said, "I do not remember you." And indeed, I did not remember him, because he was young at the time, and he is now a young man. He said, "I am so-and-so, the brother of so-and-so," and so on. I told him, "I know Salim and I know Kharit, and Kharit visited me at home," and so on. The point is that this man from the Julaq family told me aboutThe Shaykh : Sa'id Hawwa, but the truth is, I did not know what the reason was, even though he is a Shami Syrian, so his dialect should not be hidden from me. I do not know why I did not notice that it was himThe Shaykh : Sa'id Hawwa when he was introduced to me. But during the conversation, "welcome" and "we are pleased to see you," and so on. ThisThe Shaykh : Sa'id Hawwa, in any case, I did not change my demeanor, but I prepared myself fully to discuss with him matters related to the da'wah. And Allah the Mighty and Majestic opened up very pleasant opportunities. He has with him his sonThe Shaykh : Sa'id.
Al-Halabi: Muhammad al-Nasikh.

The Shaykh: Yes, but there are two of them.
Al-Halabi: I do not know the second one; I know one of them.

The Shaykh: There is a second one, meaning his build is a bit slimmer, but he is also not bad. He said this one studies hadith at the university, and this second one studies fiqh. "Welcome," he said, "if you would give them some advice."The Shaykh : Sa'id, I mean, if you would give them some advice.

The Shaykh: Fine, Allahu Akbar.

The Shaykh: And listen, what happened. There is no god but Allah, I have believed in Allah. I told him, "By Allah, O Shaykh, I understood from the flow of the conversation and noticed completely that he was Sa'id Hawwa. I said, 'By Allah, I am the one in more need of someone to advise me. But if it must be, I advise both brothers to derive from their knowledge, because fiqh without hadith is of no benefit, and hadith without fiqh is of no benefit.' The truth is, it was a surprise for him, and his face brightened up.
Al-Halabi: Because their perception is that we are in hadith without fiqh.

The Shaykh: And this is...
Al-Halabi: Allahu Akbar.

The Shaykh: ...Look at the other one, and it is more beautiful. After I was reassured that he was Sa'id Hawwa, I have an idea about Sa'id Hawwa. I do not know if you have formed in your mind what formed in my mind, that he has developed intellectually in his last writings.
Al-Halabi: Certainly, my professor.

The Shaykh: Ah, I do not memorize the names of the books, but I have a complete awareness that Allah the Mighty and Majestic raised this man, despite his own will, and made him understand that the Salafi da'wah is the da'wah of the truth. Had he not previously joined the Muslim Brotherhood, his status and benefit in his writings would have been greater. So I have this idea, and I wanted to test and see what his position is regarding the da'wah face to face. I said to myself, let me briefly present a translation of my life, to reach what the enemies of the da'wah say, that this man has no Shaykh, and he who has no Shaykh, his Shaykh is... and so on. And indeed, I presented something of a translation of my life; but with as much brevity as I can, and my staying in the Zahiriyyah Library, and that I collected from it about forty volumes, which are my spiritual food now, and from which I derive the benefits that I nourish my books with, and so on. And how, when I was in primary school, the teacher for the Arabic language subject used to tease me and say, "O Arnaut, as soon as you leave here from school, you will become a firewood splitter." I would say to him, "No, I want to become a carpenter." Why did he say this? Because it is well known about the Arnauts in the Levant that they are dervishes with no profession, and their livelihood is from the earnings of their hands and the sweat of their brows. And this fact is a virtue for them because they are migrants. Do you see, we had no one but my father (may Allah have mercy on him), who was a watchmaker, repairing watches, and my uncle was a carpenter. I used to tell myself when I was thirteen or fourteen that I would work in carpentry. And indeed, I did not leave school except to accompany my carpenter uncle, whose name is Ismail (may Allah have mercy on him). I worked with him in carpentry and Arab carpentry, which mostly consists of work in patching buildings that were built in ancient times with wooden planks. Columns are installed between the pillars, approximately ten centimeters apart, and bricks of clay are interlaced between them, then plastered on both sides. This does not withstand the passage of time, winds, rains, and snows. So I would go out with this teacher of mine and my uncle on one side, and another teacher, especially in the days of winter. But on the occasion of winds and rains, we would be delayed. What do I do? I pass by my father's (may Allah have mercy on him) shop. He sees me return after I had gone out in the morning and knows that there is no work today because of the rain and wind. He said to me, "My son, I see this work is not work. What do you think about working for me?" I said to him, "As you wish, my father." And that day and the next day passed, and a dead animal went with me, and Allah the Mighty and Majestic made this profession easy for me. I opened an independent shop, and I would open and work for an hour or two, then, oh Allah, to the Zahiriyyah Library, and I would open the books and manuscripts that no hand had touched. I would open the book sometimes and hear the crackling of the paper, because it had not been opened since the day it was written. And you know, the ink at that time was not like our ink; you would write from here and it would dry immediately. There was a method of writing at that time by sprinkling fine sand, so when there is fine sand on the paper, and the paper has cohesion between the two sheets, when you open it, you hear a slight crackling sound. I am telling all this to Shaykh Sa'id, and so on.
Al-Halabi : Glory be to Allah.

The Shaykh: And then Allah the Mighty and Majestic blessed me with strength, patience, and perseverance, so I studied about ten thousand books and more. The book ranges from a small treatise to a book that exceeds one hundred volumes and more, from which I extracted treasures and hadiths. I used to feel that we needed them, either because they are missing from the printed books, to the best of my knowledge, or because we need routes to some of the well-known hadiths in the printed books, and so on. I have now collected about two thousand volumes. I am now this old man, and I am not able to benefit from the Zahiriyyah Library now. The point is, I told him, Allah the Mighty and Majestic opened up for me from this angle without any wave and without any Shaykh, in the expression known today. And then the days passed and the days came, and if this student of knowledge who has no Shaykh takes on teaching the subject of hadith at the Islamic University, and if after that students graduate under his hand and become doctors in hadith, what is the effect of this? The effect of a man who has no Shaykh in this field. Oh, Glory be to Allah, people say it is a defect of Al-Albani that he has no Shaykh. Well, I have read in the books of biographies of the Sufis, and here is the point, thatThe Shaykh : 'Abd al-'Aziz al-Dubayyagh (may Allah be pleased with him) — ... — This man was illiterate; he could neither read nor write. Yet the people of knowledge from all fields of specialization used to learn from him how to study, and he was illiterate? So, what made the Islamic society accept that an illiterate man should be in their minds as someone from whom professors learn, while they do not accept that Allah the Exalted might bestow upon a young man, in all his strength, youth, and eagerness, after years of study and so on, that Allah does not open the doors of understanding to him? I brought him this Naqshbandi phrase, and he said to me, "I see you, O Shaykh, are also studying Sufism from the books of the Sufis." ... Yes, in truth, no matter how deeply you delve and probe, but in an indirect way, perhaps I might find some movement from him. Absolutely, what I hoped for did not move; that we would enter into a discussion to see if the latest phenomenon we saw recently in some of his books is like soap foam, such as this title for example, or is it a reality? But, glory be to Allah, he did not move at all. He was always smiling and nodding and being cheerful, and so on. His two sons were also like that, and their position was that of listeners and enjoyers. This was on the first day, around noon, and it ended with me at one-thirty.
Al-Halabi : That is, an hour and a half.

The Shaykh : Yes, and he said to me, "I am now taking my leave for the midday prayer." I went out at the hour and found it was one-thirty. I said to him, "But you still have time with us." He gave a quick hint that his condition required him to take time to prepare for prayer due to his specific situation, that he needs to prepare. He said, "If Allah wills, I will return to you in the evening." We said to him, "Welcome, and the return is better." And indeed, he returned in the evening, he and his two sons, and they brought two of the officials who appear to be in charge of the hospital, whom I do not know. The previous time when I entered the hospital, they also attended, but they attended as listeners; they did not discuss, and we could not understand from them whether they were there for conformity or for creed, and so on. The important thing is that the conversation was going well with the attendees, and Sa'id asked me about what is said that the Six Books have missed only a little of the authentic hadith. So, I explained to him my point of view. I said to him, "First, the two Sahihs are not the four Sunans, and the two Sahihs did not have as their goal the collection of the authentic." Yes, and that what is not present is more, meaning, the authentic that is scattered in the other books, the Musnads and the Mu'jams, and the like. We spoke about the scholars' shortcoming in serving the hadith, and the claim of some that the science of hadith has matured and burned out. We told him this is extreme nonsense. I brought him an example: now the book *al-Jami' al-Kabir* by al-Suyuti is being printed under the supervision of a committee, a committee of scholars from al-Azhar al-Sharif, and you find that this book has no verification and no commentary. It was supposed to distinguish its authentic from its weak, and so on. Where are those who will do this work to present to people the authentic Sunnah? He asked me about *Kanz al-'Umal*. I told him *Kanz al-'Umal* is the same as *al-Jami' al-Kabir* by al-Suyuti, but with a different arrangement. I felt that even when I said to Shaykh Sa'id in the first session at noon, "The truth is, O Shaykh, that this meeting was necessary long ago," yes, but what Allah willed was, and what He did not will did not happen. When you were studying in some places, I said to him ...The Shaykh : Sa'id asked about the claim that the Six Books have missed only a small amount of authentic hadith. I explained my viewpoint to him. I told him, first, that the two Sahihs are not the same as the four Sunan. The goal of the two Sahihs was to collect only what is authentic. Yes, and there is not much more authentic material than what is scattered in the other books, the Musnads, the Mu'jams, and the like. We discussed the scholars' shortcoming in serving the hadith, and the claim by some that the science of hadith has matured and burned out. We told him that this is extreme nonsense. I gave him an example: now the book al-Jami' al-Kabir by al-Suyuti is being printed under the supervision of a committee of scholars from al-Azhar al-Sharif, and you find that there is no critical edition and no commentary in this book. It was supposed to distinguish its authentic from its weak content, and so on. Where are those who will do this work to present the authentic Sunnah to the people? He asked me about Kanz al-'Umal. I told him that Kanz al-'Umal is the same as al-Jami' al-Kabir by al-Suyuti, but with a different arrangement. I felt that even when I told Shaykh Sa'id in the first session, at noon, I told him, "The truth is, Shaykh, that this meeting was necessary a long time ago. Yes, but what Allah willed happened, and what He did not will did not happen. When you were studying in some places, I told you..."