The Shaykh mentioned some of his biography regarding his pursuit of knowledge, his research, and his reading at the Zahiriyyah Library in Damascus.

The Shaykh : There is no deity but Allah, my Lord is Wise and All-Knowing. The truth is that I feel that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) has been, and continues to be, if Allah wills, very kind to me since I was a child. I only graduated from al-Nizamiyyah primary school. My father was one of the strong Hanafi jurists, strict in his adherence to the school, may Allah have mercy on him. I studied some Hanafi jurisprudence from him in the old way, such as al-Quduri, and some books on the science of morphology (sarf), which the Arabs have abandoned, focusing only on grammar (nahw). Perhaps morphology is more important than grammar, because grammar only strengthens the words.

The questioner : ... withThe Shaykh : recitation and tajwid...

The Shaykh : The point is, I studied some jurisprudence from him and some other shaykhs, including from *Maraqi al-Falah*, and some grammar and rhetoric. But I did not persist in that as students used to in the past, not recently. I found myself turning to studying books that are strange to me now: fictional stories, the story of Antarah ibn Shaddad, the story of Dhat al-Himmah and the heroes. You know these stories. Then I moved on to studying history, and a person from among you, an Egyptian, made the path easy for me. Allah sent him to Damascus. To make a living, the man bought up office estates. He had a shop in front of the Great Mosque, the Umayyad Mosque. The shop was less than a meter wide, less than a meter deep, with a frontage of about two and a half meters. He scattered books on the sidewalk for passersby, books of all shapes and colors... facing the Great Mosque. He scattered these books, containing both good and bad, as we say in Damascus. I don't know if you have heard this saying: "O you who enter Egypt, do not turn or search, for there are thousands like you." O you who enter Egypt, there are thousands. Meaning, if you are good, there are thousands of good ones; and if you are bad, God forbid, there are thousands of bad ones too. (He laughed, may Allah have mercy on him.) So he scattered these books, and every person was his target. Without a long story, they say in our region in Sham that I got hooked on a book, some parts of *al-Manar*. The path opened up before me, and I walked the path of hadith. Then Allah (Mighty and Majestic) willed that I learned the trade of watchmaking from my father, and that was the means to earning my livelihood. Through it, I got married and built my modest home there. But I was free, and I remain free, by the grace of Allah. (He laughed, may Allah have mercy on him.) That is from the grace of Allah upon me and upon people, but most people do not give thanks. But most people do not know. So I would work in the shop for an hour or two, extracting just enough for my daily sustenance. I would close the shop and go to the Zahiriyyah Library. These hanging cards are from the Zahiriyyah Library. These are all hadiths arranged alphabetically. Yes; and now I have left the Zahiriyyah Library, but I do not say in exaggeration that I have left it, but I have come close to leaving it because of these hanging cards. Because I selected the elite from thousands of manuscripts there. And what is mentioned and narrated are two things, and I mention them for history: I do not believe there is a shop, not only in Syria, not only in the Arab countries, but in the whole world, God knows best, that is like mine. My hours are like mine, my library inside. I work the time I believe I have earned my daily sustenance, then I enter the library. It is half the shop from the inside. When the time for the Zahiriyyah came, I closed the library and went to it. The second thing mentioned for history, and I believe it did not exist except then, is that it was made easy for me to benefit from the manuscripts of the Zahiriyyah as it was not made easy for a high-ranking official in any library in the world, if he wanted to benefit. How so? This library is tall. I would place the ladder, stand on the ladder, and flip through the books, because these books contain everything and anything. We are now talking about manuscripts. They contain everything and anything. This book is good, I recorded it in a draft while I was on the ladder. It is not an electric elevator or an electric staircase like the bridges in some countries. No, I passed through more than ten thousand hadith books, from a treatise consisting of a few pages to volumes of over a hundred parts, large and bulky. So what was transferred? The history of Ibn Asakir. This is a copy, yes. This is nineteen volumes. Nineteen volumes. That one was abridged by the Syrian al-Badrani al-Dumani. This is the original. In any case, in this way I passed through all the manuscripts. I recorded their names at a time when no one was allowed to enter the manuscript library. So any person who wants to study submits a request, and he is given only one book. If he finishes studying the book, they may give him another book, or they may not. But my Lord (Mighty and Majestic) made the employees subservient to me. Among the things Allah made subservient to me was a dark room that does not see the sun, but it has a light bulb. Not like these bright bulbs now, a small bulb. So I worked in it day and night. I worked where there was no one from the employees at all, except the guard. So I would place the ladder, and I was as if alone in that library, until I recorded the names of all the books that I feel we need to study, after I finished this draft. I took the names and recorded them on cards, small cards like these here. Then I classified these cards, gathering them under the names of their authors, each author and his books. Then I made an index for them. If you saw the index, and showed the index.

The questioner : ...

The Shaykh : No, it is fine. But look at the index and look at the material life I was living, extreme poverty. No, this is not the manuscript which is the original of this. It means this, and he showed it to him anyway. It means this manuscript, look here, look here. It might be there. Leave it if so. The important thing is that the original of this is an index, a booklet like this, from this paper. Look at the paper. This is the paper of the *sar*, the wrapping for goods like sugar and tea. It is wrapped in it.

The questioner : I worked very hard, O my master.

The Shaykh : Praise be to Allah, the reward is according to the hardship. Yes, I compiled an index from this paper. The cards I gathered, I classified them in paper like this, so I had an index. After that, I placed the index before me. Now it is the turn to read these books.
In the first stage, I climbed the ladder and wrote down the names and titles. Then came the second stage, which is reading these books. Here, a systematic request is necessary, but I do not request a single book in their style; I might request a book like Ibn Asakir's history, which consists of multiple volumes. They accommodated our request and brought us whatever books we wanted. I study the book and provide a translation. The cards contain only the names of the books and authors. Now I provide a brief translation: first, is the author trustworthy or not? Second, what is the subject of the book? Is it about hadiths? Is it about the biography? Is it about the biographies of the Companions? And if it is about the biographies of the Companions, does it contain hadiths or not, and so on. The final stage, after I finished and the index was completed, involved a friend who knows my approach to my scholarly work completely. The man was from Aleppo, named Abd al-Rahman al-Basha; he was an employee in Riyadh in some schools, and it seems he passed away (may Allah have mercy on him). He was appointed director of the al-Zahiriyyah Library. Our friend rushed to this director and said to him, "So-and-so has an index for some of the al-Zahiriyyah manuscripts. In this index are books that the actual indexes of the al-Zahiriyyah Library do not recognize; because in the books listed in their indexes there is a book on hadith, but through my private study I knew the name of the book and the author of the book, so I recorded these facts in my index... he has an index such and such. If you take advantage of your position as director, you should print this index." He told him, "Let the author write me samples on cards according to the standards followed today." So I did. Immediately, I submitted the cards to the Scientific Academy there, the Arab Scientific Academy, which is opposite the al-Zahiriyyah Library, with two facing doors. The Academy agreed, and as a result, this book was printed. After that, the final stage came: "Give me, so-and-so, please, such-and-such a book." I study it, and whenever I find a hadith, I record it on one of these sheets. So I have this first row, and behind it is a second row.
Now I have been forbidden from the al-Zahiriyyah Library for a reason, but I have what compensates me for any of it. All of this was by the guidance of Allah and His success, otherwise, how would I know that I would emigrate from Damascus to here ten years ago? He was attentive to me, and to Him belongs the praise and the grace. I hope that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) will grant us all His success and mercy; this is a brief word.

The questioner : From now on, Your Excellency knows that you have a home in Egypt, if Allah wills, and I will leave my address withThe Shaykh : Abu al-Yusr, and at any time you are welcome to stay with us as long as you wish, a year, two years, three, four; your home is there, so welcome there, and if you remain there, may Allah bless you and preserve you.
Abu Layla : A year, two years, say an hour, two hours. May Allah preserve you, O our Shaykh. Glory be to Allah, it seems they are a good group.