What is your opinion of the booklet (Al-Albani: His Anomalies and Errors) by Arshad al-Salafi?

The questioner : We have looked into a booklet by Arshad al-Salafi.

The Shaykh : What is his name?

The questioner : ... the author of this book.

The Shaykh : What is the author's name?

Another questioner : It is written as Arshad al-Salafi.

The Shaykh : Arshad al-Salafi; we know this name, but what is the name of the book he is discussing ... .

Another questioner : ... Arshad al-Salafi.

The Shaykh : No, I have not seen a book written by or attributed to Arshad al-Salafi; it is a forged name, and the real name isThe Shaykh : What? No, it is not Abd al-Rahman, it is Habib al-Rahman al-Azami, who has passed away, may Allah forgive us and him. He died a year or more ago. The point is that this is a forged name, and the book is a direct response to me. Some of our brothers have responded to him in two printed volumes, and soon, if Allah wills, there will be an effort and interest in publishing the third volume of the response to him. This response is by our brother; what is his name? It is a scholarly response, *al-Radd al-Ilmi*. You can obtain copies of it so that you know that this man has a long story, though we do not have time for it now, and time is short. First, this man is a Hanafi who is fanatical about the Hanafi school, and he has some involvement in hadith. I say "some," and in terms of his fanaticism for the Hanafi school, he is exactly like al-Kawthari. But al-Kawthari was truly a scholar in the science of hadith, in the men of hadith, and in the narrators of hadith, and so on. However, he did not benefit from his knowledge of the science of hadith; he was against the Sunnah and against the Imams of the Sunnah. Similarly, Habib al-Rahman al-Azami is a man ruined by his fanaticism for the Hanafi school, and he has little knowledge of hadith from which he has not benefited. You can know the shallowness of this man's knowledge if you look, for example, at two of his books. One is in eleven volumes, and it is not a book he wrote, but rather his commentary on it. It is the work of Abd al-Razzaq ibn Hammam al-Yamani, who is one of the teachers of al-Bukhari and Muslim. This book, the work of Abd al-Razzaq ibn Hammam, was first printed by a scholarly council in Pakistan, and they tasked Habib al-Rahman with commenting on it. Look at his comments; a beginner among our brothers would be better than his comments. They consist of tracing narrations to Abu Dawud and Ahmad, and he rarely authenticates or weakens. The second book in this style is *Kashf al-Asrar 'an Zawa'id Musnad al-Bazzar*, which is in four small volumes. This man also commented on it, and his comments are very superficial. So he is occupied with hadith, but he does not have knowledge of hadith. I was once like him in the sense that I was Hanafi in school, because my father was Hanafi and my grandfather was Hanafi, and our whole country, the Al-Ban, did not know Islam except in light of the Hanafi school. Then Allah the Exalted guided me, by His grace, through holding fast to the Sunnah. From this, enmity arose between me and him, even though it should have been the shared study of hadith that brought us together. But his occupation with hadith is not for the sake of hadith, because he is fanatical about his school, whereas I am the opposite of that; I did not become fanatical about my school, but I occupied myself with hadith and devoted myself to it. So there is some sectarian fanaticism here. I am fanatical for the Sunnah to the extent that he is fanatical for the school. And from this, he was made to see, and Allah knows best who made him see it, whether it is the devil of mankind or the jinn, and so on. So he began to respond to me first with ignorance, and then with bias. This is what they revealed in this message, *al-Radd al-Ilmi*. So whoever wants to expand on the topic should refer to these two volumes. Glory be to You, O Allah, with Your praise, I bear witness that there is no god but You, I seek Your forgiveness and I repent to You.