A dialogue between the Shaykh and one of the Saudis regarding the comments of Shaykh Abdullah al-Duwaysh.

The questioner : He sends you his greetings.

The Shaykh: Peace be upon you and upon them.

The questioner : Muhammad ibn Salih al-Uthaymin andThe Shaykh : Hammad al-Ansari, Abd al-Muhsin al-Abbad, and Abdullah al-Ghunayman.

The Shaykh : Were you in Madinah?

The questioner : Yes, I was in Madinah.

The Shaykh : What Allah willed, peace and mercy and blessings of Allah be upon you and them; and how are they all doing? Are they all well?

The questioner: They are all well.

The Shaykh : Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds; you reside in ...

The questioner : In Unayzah.

The Shaykh : In Unayzah, and you passed through Madinah?

The questioner : Yes, I stayed there. I performed the lesser pilgrimage, then I returned to Madinah and sat with the brothers and the shaykhs.

The Shaykh : How many days did you spend there?

The questioner : I spent two days.

The Shaykh : Two days, two days.

The questioner : Yes, two days.

The Shaykh : What Allah willed, may Allah accept your lesser pilgrimage.
Al-Halabi : Our Shaykh, this is what you tasked us with; it reached thirty-one individual responses.

The Shaykh : Allahu Akbar.
Al-Halabi : This is what I remember, and there are other things, what Allah willed, I will remember them later. Our Shaykh, this is a picture of the book; nothing came from it except pictures of it.

The Shaykh : Did you not bring me the manuscript?
Al-Halabi : By Allah, I remembered while I was coming, glory to Allah, what Allah decreed, He did what He willed.

The Shaykh : Good, if Allah wills.
Al-Halabi : If Allah wills, I will bring it, my professor.

The Shaykh : If Allah wills.
Al-Halabi : It is small, and its carrier is approximately all of it.

The Shaykh : Regarding the Manhaj al-Sunnah, do you remember where you saw it?
Al-Halabi : This is it, the verified edition, nine volumes. I found in it the hadith, the hadith, the baseless one, which is transmitted from the Shaykh of Islam as a lie.

The Shaykh : How?
Al-Halabi : Of course, he means he does not say that he said it in the Manhaj al-Sunnah. He says: "And the Shaykh of Islam said about it, and Ibn Taymiyyah said about it, and Ibn al-Jawzi said about it that it is fabricated," and Ibn Taymiyyah added from his own pocket, by the consensus of the hadith scholars. Now, I saw in the indexes and found the hadith here, saying: "And likewise his saying, 'Close all the doors except the door of Ali.'" If this is what the Shi'ah fabricated, following the method of comparison, then what is in the authentic hadith from Abu Sa'id is the well-known hadith. Yes, but this one who brings it does not bring anything else.

The Shaykh : Relax, I drew your attention to two things on this occasion.
Al-Halabi : Please, my professor.

The Shaykh : The first thing is that Ibn Taymiyyah, as you know from his style in discussing some matters, takes a broad stride in dealing with what is in his focus and digresses a lot into matters that do not appear to the researcher to be related to what he was focusing on. So, these digressions allow the researcher to benefit from things that do not cross his mind. This is from one side. From another side, he may digress into such a hadith in another place. Therefore, it is necessary to follow up the research so that it is most likely that he did not address speaking about this hadith in another place.
Al-Halabi : Correct, may Allah reward you with good, O Shaykh.

The Shaykh : This is one thing. The second thing, which is important to me as a way to verify what I mentioned earlier regarding the thoroughness of the research, is that al-Muntaqa by al-Dhahabi helps with that. Al-Muntaqa by al-Dhahabi, because the index follows it at the end. First, it is precise, then it is condensed. So, you can find a reference to this hadith in more than one place in it.
Al-Halabi : My professor, the copy now, I returned to it. The verified copy has a complete volume of indexes. This is the Manhaj al-Sunnah. So, it means we are limiting where he speaks about the hadith. And the same verifier, Muhammad Rashad Salim (may Allah have mercy on him), means in every place he says, "The hadith preceded in such and such, and it will come in such and such," and here he is not saying anything.

The Shaykh : I mean, does he have a detailed index?
Al-Halabi : A complete volume of indexes in this edition.

The Shaykh : Okay, but here, you are drawing my attention or reminding me of something else. It is possible that the hadith starts with a word other than the word that ...
Al-Halabi : Yes, the hadith has three wordings: "Order," "Close," and "They closed."

The Shaykh: All right.
Al-Halabi : So, there is only here "Close all the doors except the door of Ali," Allah knows best. But, my professor, your word is in a higher place, meaning from the perspective of thoroughness.

The Shaykh : There is a benefit in returning to al-Muntaqa.
Al-Halabi : May Allah bless you, correct.

The Shaykh : And finally, you can then say, "And al-Dhahabi agreed with him."
Al-Halabi : Very good,

The Shaykh : So, this would be a strengthening.
Al-Halabi : This is what did not cross my mind, my professor. May Allah reward you with good.

The Shaykh : May Allah preserve you.
Al-Halabi : May Allah bless you.

The Shaykh : Welcome, and how are you? And what are you doing in Unayzah?

The questioner : I work in the court.

The Shaykh : How in the court, and what is the nature of the work there?

The questioner : A court clerk.

The Shaykh : A court clerk.
Al-Halabi : Six pages, so he says, and it is like his saying: So, this is fabricated by the consensus of the people of knowledge of hadith.

The Shaykh : Good, he mixed it up.
Al-Halabi : He mixed it up, meaning perhaps this is closer, our Shaykh? By Allah, O Shaykh, it is amazing, very amazing.

The Shaykh : I mean, they are more lying than the people of desires and innovations. None of them consider lying permissible. Your eyes, your eyes, it is a terrible thing.
Al-Halabi : Our Shaykh, do you remember our professor in the introduction of the third volume of al-Da'if, you criticized the al-Muqni' in its statement? One of the criticisms was the fabricated one that adds the salutation to the Companions along with the salutation to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). And you mentioned very good examples that it actually occurred in it, and his older brother and his younger brother. But today, I saw something amazing: he researched the issue in a lengthy research, about three pages in the book al-Hawi fi Fatawa al-Ghamari, three pages, and he transmitted and established the permissibility, and so on. He brought strong evidence, so glory to Allah, how the people of desires ...

The Shaykh : We have an example in Syria, ugly, but regarding the one who is ugly, it is not ugly. He said: "To spite purity, he sneezed in his clothes." These people are like this, meaning they want to bring down someone, even by fabrication and lying, even contrary to what Allah has made them believe.

The questioner : Perhaps you remember when I presented it about three years ago, we sat, and I came to you with the brother Ali, then I gave the brother Salim a memorandum. I had called you that I would come to you to show it to you, but you mentioned that you were busy, and I was on the verge of traveling, so I gave it to the brother Salim to deliver it to you. And I called you a few months ago regarding the comments of Shaykh Abdullah al-Duwaysh, close to sixty comments, and I said that he hit the mark in some and erred in some. And one of the brothers, perhaps he has some haste, and we advised him not to be hasty in presenting this, as you know, thatThe Shaykh : he has passed away.

The Shaykh : Abdullah?

The questioner : Abdullah al-Duwaysh.

The Shaykh : Yes, I was informed, may Allah have mercy on him.

The questioner : So, after his death, this brother took these comments, which reached close to four hundred comments, and presented them to the printing press. So, this haste, we advised him not to proceed with it, but he loves to show the fruitThe Shaykh : of the authorship, perhaps he will benefit from it after his death. And despite that, we advised him, but he is insistent, saying becauseThe Shaykh : Nasser does not have time to review this memorandum, so we are printing it. I am bringing the rest ... this, may Allah do you good.

The Shaykh : The rest from whom?

The questioner : This, I copied it and took it from him.

The Shaykh : I understood. Is the rest from Abdullah or from this second one?

The questioner : From the comments in the handwriting ofThe Shaykh ، The Shaykh : Abdullah al-Duwaysh.

The Shaykh : In his handwriting.

The questioner : Some of it is in his handwriting, perhaps you are looking at it now, and some of it is copied by photocopying.

The Shaykh : In addition to the ones I have?

The questioner : In addition to the ones you have, yes.

The Shaykh : Okay, may Allah reward you with good.

The questioner : So, I do not know what your opinion is on this. Do you wish, meaning, is there some time for you to look at them so that this brother can wait, and we tell himThe Shaykh : he has approval to review this memorandum, for example. And what is achieved is, if Allah wills, the intended goal, if Allah wills.

The Shaykh : I, my brother, am unable to address every matter that comes to me; for that would distract me and divert me from the scientific projects I am currently engaged in, which I have been working on for years. If I were to open the door to examining everything that reaches me and responding to it with agreement, disagreement, or a middle ground depending on the situation, that would mean I am turning to getting involved in the problems of back-and-forth debate. Therefore, I have decided that for a project like this, which concerns either weak or authentic narrations, whenever it is feasible for me to review one of my books that was printed for me long ago and for which a reprint is possible, I will look into what has come to me from some of my brothers, such as this, and benefit from it, pointing out whatever I have benefited from, even if it is little. And if there is a scope for criticism and clarifying the error of the critic, I will do that as well. As for my examining such a book in its entirety and writing a book explaining what in it agrees with the truth or what in it disagrees, that is absolutely impractical for someone like me, who is occupied with what he specializes in, which is serving the Sunnah and the Book of Allah.The Shaykh : I have certainly read the book of 'Abd Allah and I have made comments on many of the hadiths he referred to, sometimes agreeing and often disagreeing. And I believe, from my experience in such responses and discussions, that our brothers are indeed hasty. Therefore, what you mentioned earlier, that you advised this brother you referred to to be orderly, is exactly the right thing. Because in my opinion, the young students in this science today are many, and praise be to Allah, which is a good omen for the future. But what clouds this is that they are indeed hasty and think that the science of hadith can be digested in a few years. So whenever they see what they consider an error by some of those engaged in this science, and they deem it an error, they rush to criticize and express their opinion, while they are still, as we say in some of our expressions, "on the shallow water," meaning on the surface, on the shallow water. Is this clear to you?

The questioner: No.

The Shaykh : Yes, for example, the seashore. Whenever the water advances to the shore, what is it? It is not deep; so it is "on the shallow water," meaning at the very beginning when one is able to wade and walk in it. Because he is a beginner in swimming. This is like what is said there. I do not know, but it happened to me long ago that I sat in a gathering with a brother. Was it 'Abd al-Rahman al-Duwaysh or someone else? They used to tell me before I met him that he memorized al-Bukhari by heart. Was that his characteristic?

The questioner : By Allah, O Shaykh, I have been with him and he with me for approximately seven years.

The Shaykh : Then you are the most knowledgeable about him.

The questioner : I visit him frequently, so I had some shyness in asking him this question, but I asked one of the brothers who is close to him, and he informed me that he memorizes the Six Books except Sahih Muslim, which he needs to firm up.

The Shaykh : He needs to?

The questioner : He needs to firm it up. And he has memorized al-Muntaqa of al-Majd, yes, and he has many memorized texts. And we truly sought from 'Abd al-Rahman al-Duwaysh, in our frequent visits to him, what he has of breadth in memorization and breadth in reading, which appears to us when we debate or discuss with him a matter concerning a supporting chain or a corroborating narration. Several occasions have occurred for me and for those with me who come from outside al-Qassim. So when a weak hadith is before me and I ask him about it, he produces from his head, from his memory, supporting chains that if someone heard them, they would accuse him of lying.The Shaykh : Abdullah al-Duwaish, in our frequent recourse to him regarding matters that were difficult for us, possessed a breadth of memorization and a depth of knowledge that, in our view, became apparent when we would compare notes with him or discuss a specific issue concerning a supporting chain or a corroborating narration. Several instances occurred to me and to those with me who came from outside al-Qassim; when I had a weak hadith in hand and asked him about it, he would produce from his head, from his memory, supporting chains that, if anyone heard them, would accuse him of lying.

The Shaykh : What Allah willed.

The questioner : Yes, they say we do not expect, or that one of the jinn informed him before we came.

The Shaykh : This is the one I met once regarding some of the matters written for me. Now, how old was he when he died?

The questioner : He was approximately not yet forty years old.

The Shaykh : Now, how old is the one who is completing his project?

The questioner : A young man who has not reached thirty.
Al-Halabi : Our Shaykh, he is not completing his project; he is just beginning to print it. But I mean, he does not want to complete or finish the annotations. He was encouraged to print the book, as my brother explained to me.

The Shaykh : I truly have no objection to his printing it; because knowledge is not confined to one person over another. But I know from my long, extensive experience that those who have not spent a long time in this science have many errors. For example, I give you a simple example from my scant, weary memory. There is something I have coined a term for that we do not find in the books of terminology, but it is a scientific reality. And if you have followed my writings and articles, you may have remembered what I am about to mention in some of the researches. I mention a hadith and explain its weakness, then I mention a corroborating narration for it, but I follow it by saying: "This is a deficient corroborator." Our brother, of course, is reminded of this. And I mean by this that the hadith contains two sentences or more, and the corroborator testifies to one sentence but not to the entirety of the hadith. So the young students in this science proceed and say, "This is a corroborator for this," and the opposite is the truth. The first hadith has three sentences or paragraphs, and it testifies to the corroborator we mentioned, and not the other way around. And perhaps the matter has become clear to you?

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : Yes, soThe Shaykh : 'Abd Allah (may Allah have mercy on him) falls into this issue and never realizes that this does not serve as a corroborator for the hadith in its entirety. So precision in the matter should be stated, but the first paragraph: the hadith's chain is weak, correct? But the first, second, or third paragraph, according to the reality, has a corroborator by which that paragraph is strengthened. This is something that, to this day, especially among the recent students, I do not find anyone who is aware of this issue. The reason is that it requires practice...