The Shaykh Ali Hasan al-Halabi reading his introduction in response to the author of the book (Alerting the Muslim to al-Albani’s Transgression against Sahih Muslim) and clarifying the contradictions

Abu Layla : I ask Allah for your recovery.

The Shaykh : O Allah, amen.
Al-Halabi : Our Shaykh, I am writing a lengthy response to Mahmoud Sa’id’s response, *Alerting the Muslim*. Glory be to Allah, one finds very strange things in the research. It opens up before him vast horizons, meaning terrible things.

The Shaykh : Authentic
Al-Halabi : It is enough to mention the contradictions of the Ghumariyyun, his shaykhs, in this issue. They are strange contradictions. Ahmad al-Ghumari has a statement in *al-Rawd al-Basim* that the two Sahihs are agreed upon, and so on. In *Buhjat al-Mughir*, our Shaykh says that in the two Sahihs there are fabricated hadiths and denounced hadiths, and so on. Abdullah, in his book *al-Hawi fi Fatawa al-Ghumari*, has a statement like his first one regarding al-Ghumari, that no one should dare to challenge the two Sahihs, or something like that. In *al-Fawa’id al-Maqsurah*, he denied ten to twelve hadiths. Abu Ghuddah has a statement as well in *Nihayat Fawa’id ‘Ulum al-Hadith* by al-Tahawi. He has a complete chapter on Abu al-Zubayr from Jabir in Muslim. Al-Tahawi even says: “And what the scholars authenticated from the narration of Abu al-Zubayr from Jabir without explicit mention contains confusion.” And Abdul Aziz al-Ghumari, in *Nihayat*... he has
a complete chapter, three or four pages, on the invalidation of the narration of Abu al-Zubayr from Jabir. I mean, these are very strange things, our Shaykh. These things, in their own right, actually produce a topic that is almost complete.

The Shaykh : I assure you that the group are from the people of desires.
Al-Halabi : So I had written an introduction like this, and I would like to read it quickly, if Allah wills.
Al-Halabi : He says: After the sermon of necessity, as for what follows, the noble Imam, the Shaykh of critique and vindication of narrators, and the master of the craft of hadith, whose status is attested to in the past and present, al-Hafiz al-Daraqutni, narrated in his *Sunan* with his chain from the trustworthy, steadfast Imam, Waki‘ ibn al-Jarrah al-Ru’asi, his statement: “The people of knowledge write down what is for them and what is against them, and the people of desires do not write down except what is for them.” The callers to the Sunnah and the people of hadith have been afflicted, in the past and the present, by groups of people who have overreached against them, and equated them in their blame with the disbelievers, and did not respect in them any kinship or covenant. Rather, they sought to slander them and attack them in the eyes of the community. Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi narrated in *Shurut Ahl al-Hadith* from the trustworthy Imam, Qutaybah ibn Sa’id, his statement: “When you see a man who loves the people of hadith, like Yahya ibn Sa’id al-Qattan, and Abd al-Rahman ibn Mahdi, and Ahmad ibn Hanbal, and Ishaq ibn Rahawayh, and he mentioned other people, then he is upon the Sunnah. And whoever opposes this, know that he is an innovator.”

The Shaykh : Allahu Akbar.
Al-Halabi : And in this era, we see, praise be to Allah, a praiseworthy return to the study of the science of hadith and the Sunnah, and this is a sign of good, and the student of knowledge hopes thereby to ward off harm. But at the same time, we see heads raised here and there, weaving on the pattern of their predecessors who slandered the scholars of hadith and the Imams of the Sunnah. You see them hinting at them sometimes, and explicitly criticizing them other times. If only that were all from them, but rather they represent the benefit of the community from them, following various paths and methods that serve their goals and confirm their aims, treading, alas, with great sorrow, the path of those who do not believe in Allah and the Last Day. “The end justifies the means.” The observer who reflects with composure sees proof of this plainly in explicit examples, which they cannot deny, and which, due to their seriousness, they cannot downplay. The origin of their innovation and the preamble to their misguidance is that biased, unjust person named Muhammad Zahid al-Kawthari, who took upon himself a pledge not to leave a single scholar of the Sunnah and hadith without accusing and slandering him. In *Ta’nib al-Khatib*, he slandered dozens, indeed hundreds, of trustworthy narrators and mountains of memorization, and he refuted them. The Imam al-Mu’allimi defended them in *al-Tankil*. In his articles, on page so-and-so, he accused Ibn Khuzaymah

The Shaykh : May you have mercy on him.
Al-Halabi : May Allah have mercy on him. Yes, may Allah reward you with good, our Shaykh. And in his articles, on page so-and-so, he accused Ibn Khuzaymah and Uthman ibn Sa’id al-Darimi of having shirk and pagan opinions in their books. With the same thing, he accuses Abdullah ibn the Imam Ahmad in his articles, on page so-and-so. And the stream of his cursing and slandering of the Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah and his student Ibn al-Qayyim, may Allah have mercy on them both, is known and recognized by the slightest glance a researcher casts at his annotations and books. And so too is the one who followed his path and walked in his footsteps, like the Imam al-Shawkani, for whom he transmitted a word from some of the different schools, that he is a Jew infiltrated among the Muslims,

The Shaykh : I seek refuge in Allah

The Shaykh : and then he supported it and agreed with it, leading to a series of words that contain nothing but the most eloquent forms of blame against the elite of the community and the choice of the community. Then, after the hypocrisy of this Kawthari, came his student and protégé, whom he raised on his tongue and fashioned in his image, to whom he attributes and for whom he defends and fights. He is at every stage of the barren, cursed, not to be followed, for he is a source of evil. He concealed in the book *Bara’at Ahl al-Sunnah min al-Waqi’ah fi ‘Ulama’ al-Ummah* for our great, distinguished, virtuousThe Shaykh : Bakr ibn Abdullah Abu Zayd, what acquaints you with the reality of this student and his Shaykh, and reveals to you what he tried to beautify and adorn and display as other than its reality, with explicit evidence, clear proofs, and weighty arguments, without excess or imagination. And today we see that the wave of attack by the innovators has begun to take another path, for when Allah, the Exalted, revealed their reality and exposed the secrets of their hearts, the wise among the nobles and the distinguished among the scholars knew that the goods of these people are unsold in the market of truth, and that their deceptions and concealments do not deceive except those with corrupt minds and opinions. So these losers turned their faces and fletched their arrows toward the contemporary Imams of the Sunnah, sparing no effort.

The Shaykh : Excuse me, what did they do?
Al-Halabi : These losers turned their faces and fletched their arrows toward the contemporary Imams of the Sunnah, sparing no effort

The Shaykh : Fletched.
Al-Halabi : They fletched their arrows toward the contemporary Imams of the Sunnah, sparing no effort in blackening their responses to them, and directing slanders at them, with cold phrases, and mixed words, and limited messages in truth. And I am not in my introduction to this book bringing out everything I have regarding what they slandered about several of our scholars and Shaykhs, but I will bring out now, regarding our Shaykh, the unique scholar of the Sunnah, and the remainder of the Salaf, and the hadith scholar of the era, our noble teacher Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani, may Allah preserve him, and prolong his life and expand his lifespan. And if you look with reflection, you will see that most of those who raised their dignity to respond to thisThe Shaykh : noble one are from the people of innovation, misguidance, and deviation from the Sunnah and the oneness of Allah, Glorious is His status. The habitThe Shaykh : of Abdullah al-Habashi al-Harari in his book *al-Ta‘assub al-Hathith*, and our Shaykh responded to him, passing through that doomed student in his love for his Shaykh and his bias for him, and ending with a student of this student, who is the one who made our book a response to him and an exposure of his falsehood and the blackening of his writings. And during these responses, some of the biased, doomed ones appeared to us with phrases they blackened in some of what they wrote, slandering thisThe Shaykh : one. I do not say regarding his person, for he, praise be to Allah, is based on texts, not on persons, but slandering his scholarly methodology and his blessed call, which came to spoil the innovation of the people of innovation and their falsehoods, and to disturb their sleep, just asThe Shaykh : Muhammad Ali al-Sabuni said in his treatise, which has a greater share of what it revealed, named *Kashf al-Iftira’at* (Exposing the Fabrications), on page so-and-so: “He says: So he is not one who engages in lengthy debates or confronts the knights of the arena, and he has, in his authentication and weakening, strange and wondrous things that make a person’s forehead sweat.” I say, and this is the most amazing of the amazing, for al-Sabuni has no least knowledge of hadith and its sciences, so how can he turn around and speak about this eminent Imam, who spent more than half a century of his life in the service of the Sunnah, distinguishing its authentic from its defective, and establishing its rulings and firming its pillars, in knowledge, action, calling, and jihad. And the virtue ofThe Shaykh : Bakr Abu Zayd, in his delightful treatise warning against al-Sabuni’s methods in tafsir, on page such-and-such, said: “This is the very essence of ignorance and belittling people’s rights without justification. Al-Albani’s standing in the hearts of the people of knowledge, and their support for the Sunnah and the creed of the Salaf, is a matter that no one contests except a ignorant enemy. We leave the judgment to the readers, so we will not prolong this. How beautiful these words are, O our Shaykh.”

The Shaykh : May Allah reward him with good.
Al-Halabi : This is the speech of the people of the Sunnah and the callers to the truth. May Allah increase their like and bless them and benefit through their knowledge. The taunts of the three Ghumariyyun and their refutations are not far from you, and all of them, praise be to Allah, have turned back upon them and been returned to them, and so it is with the likes of these innovators, their followers, and their misguiders in various lands. They are on one tune, one path, and one goal. Their path is fanaticism, blind following, and innovation, and their path is cursing, slandering, and exposing people, and their goal is to deepen innovations and turn people away from the callers of the Sunnah and tawhid (the oneness of Allah). I will not lengthen this further by mentioning the evidence and proofs that confirm what I have said and verify what I have clarified, and this is all but a drop from the ocean, yet it is sufficient for the seeker of truth to know the reality of the slanderers and the ignorance of the pretentious pseudo-scholars. And what Mahmoud Sa’id al-Buti has recently put forth in his refutations of the Shaykh of Hadith in this age clearly indicates that he is devoid of knowledge and empty of hadithic understanding. He has not benefited from his perusal of the books of the Sunnah and hadith collections except with sitting and criticisms that he directs, in a mold of deception and confusion, to the scholars of the Sunnah and the great scholars. Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi narrated in *Sharaf Ahl al-Hadith* from Waki‘ ibn Jarrah his saying: “If a man did not hold onto the hadith except that it prevents him from following his desires, he would have hit the mark in that.”

The Shaykh : Allahu Akbar.
Al-Halabi : I say, how so, when desire is a cause of failure? Oh, woe to us! And I had come across, about three years ago, a treatise by Mahmoud Sa’id Mammad titled “The Principles of Congratulations in Proving the Sunnah Status of the Misbaha in Refutation of Al-Albani,” in about fifty pages. I saw in it grave errors, clear fallacies, and blatant interpretations. So I wrote a refutation of it titled “The Firm Foundations in Critiquing the Principles of Congratulations and Exposing the Fallacies of Meanings therein.” It was larger than twice the size of his treatise. I exposed his confusions and refuted his deceptions and obfuscations. And here is the critique of his second treatise, which he titled “Alerting the Muslim to Al-Albani’s Transgression against Sahih Muslim.” In it, you will compare the facts with the claims and the truth of the speech with the fabrications. And you will see, my brother the seeker of truth, how this Ghumari in inclination, Kauthari in method, and Ghadi in style has completely departed from the methodology of the people of knowledge and fully aligned with the behavior of the people of desires. He wrote what was for him and concealed what was against him. And in conclusion of this brief introduction, I say that every falsifier who fills faces and pages with slandering the people of the Sunnah and transgressing against them should know with certainty that they are capable of... even if they unite against them, and they are able to confront them with a strong confrontation, , , and praise be to Allah. What do you think, O our Shaykh?

The Shaykh : May Allah give you health, and by Allah, it is excellent.
Al-Halabi : Praise be to Allah.
Abu Layla : If the word “student” were replaced with “disciple.”

The Shaykh : ... The word “disciples” is related to pure Sufism, but here in the knowledge he claims, the word is in its place. Did you see al-Kuwaiti’s small treatise? Most of the evidence he mentioned, I take from the introduction, *Adab al-Zafaf* (Etiquette of the Wedding), in any case.
Al-Halabi : Our Shaykh, if this book were printed, it would come out to more than one hundred and fifty to two hundred pages.

The Shaykh : It is clear. I hope for you success, if Allah wills.
Al-Halabi : Our Shaykh, I am consulting you on something now. You know, it involves researching many issues. It just occurred to me that I should do only the first part for Abu al-Zubayr from Jabir, and the second part for the other issues; because half of the book is actually from Abu al-Zubayr from Jabir. So what is your opinion, O our Shaykh?

The Shaykh : Have you finished composing it?
Al-Halabi : The material is all ready, O our Shaykh, as material.

The Shaykh : My intention with the question is that if it truly turns out that the research shows that the narration from Abu al-Zubayr from Jabir takes up half of the book, then I would make it...
Al-Halabi : The most thing is in his narration from Abu al-Zubayr from Jabir, meaning a great deal has gathered. Abu Jabir and Abu al-Ibaham, and you mention the transmission that the brother transmitted in the copy, there are four places in the narration from Abu al-Zubayr from Jabir.

The Shaykh : Four places, yes.
Al-Halabi : He has the rulings, the same rulings as ‘Abd al-Haqq, let alone I saw *Tahdhib al-Athar* for al-Tabari, I saw al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar with the defect of Ibn al-Zubayr from Jabir in what is transmitted from him... meaning very many things, glory be to Allah, O our Shaykh.

The Shaykh : Praise be to Allah, may our Lord support the truth, , and praise be to Allah that our Lord makes defenders of the truth available.
Al-Halabi : O Allah, amen, praise be to Allah.

The Shaykh And by Allah, you are the one with the good.
Al-Halabi : By Allah, your speech benefits us, and you, by Allah, are above us.

The Shaykh : May Allah reward you with good.

The Shaykh : Our brother Hamdi does not receive the new treatises you publish, so I hope you send them to him.
Al-Halabi : Our brother Abu ‘Abdullah gave me some of the book regarding the hijab of the woman, my teacher. So regarding the hadith of Asma’, I have written approximately all the things and compiled a treatise from them. Do you have a copy of it?

The Shaykh: Yes.
Al-Halabi : So I say, regarding the hadith of Asma’, I am not going to look through the papers for anything; because I have transferred all the doubts in this treatise that I wrote.

The Shaykh : I understood what is intended: to follow the points in this treatise where they attack us, just the attack;
Al-Halabi : without the things they brought.

The Shaykh : Because when you mention it, he will go back to see what they are saying, but you draw attention to the points where Al-Albani was criticized regarding the hijab of the woman, whether he was a jurist or a hadith scholar. I do not want you to expand as you sometimes do, but rather it is a reference that in this treatise there is a research in refuting Al-Albani, and you have other treatises, necessarily.
Al-Halabi : Yes, that is it. Well, O our Shaykh, did it become easy for you to read the treatise *Tanwir al-‘Aynayn*?

The Shaykh : I read it all when I first presented it to you.
Al-Halabi : What is your opinion of it?

The Shaykh : Excellent, without a doubt.
Al-Halabi : Praise be to Allah, may He reward you with good, O my teacher.

The Shaykh : But this should be published on its own.
Al-Halabi : Yes, it is printed on its own.

The Shaykh : That is what I am saying.
Abu Layla : Our Shaykh, regarding the lesson on Friday, our brother’s lessonsThe Shaykh : ‘Ali, of course, started teaching three months ago in *Fath al-Bari*. Of course, this is, what Allah willed, sciences of oceans, not a sea. So our brothers here, they cannot bear these sciences; because they are not originally accustomed to lessons and gatherings of knowledge, in front of the Shaykhs, and so on. So we suggested to our brother ‘Ali that he stop after the first seven hadiths.
Al-Halabi : Seven hadiths, about forty lessons, that is a lot.

The Shaykh : Yes, without a doubt.
Abu Layla : We said, if we start with a small booklet first, we will gather more students; because more, why are we sitting and not understanding anything.

The Shaykh : It is certain that knowledge is heavy for the general people, without a doubt. Perhaps the way is that you choose from *Sahih al-Bukhari* hadiths, perhaps it will be easier for you, the *Mukhtasar al-Bukhari*, even if it is the first part, and you teach the hadith preparation,