Continuing the discussion on the disagreement that occurred between Nasib al-Rifai and his colleague Muhammad Nasser al-Kirmani, and that this disagreement was the reason Shaykh Al-Albani boycotted him.

The Shaykh : The reason is that both of them were leaders. Listen, at that time I had been staying with Muhammad Nasser al-Kirmani for a long period. Indeed, I went, and I have a regular habit of traveling every month. Then the two men and I gathered in a place with fewer than ten of our leading brothers there. The two men were engaged in a written debate. I do not let anyone write a debate unless it is very intense, a battle between me and him, and I see him digging, searching, turning, and going around. I put it under the writing. The matter was very heavy for me: two Salafis and leaders in the da'wah, and their matter reaches the point of writing. Nasib said such-and-such, Muhammad Nasser answered such-and-such, he replied to him with such-and-such, and so on, a long and wide list. After we understood the point in general, they said they wanted to present the discussion to me. I read it to see. They read something regrettable.

The questioner: Peace be upon you.

The Shaykh : Peace be upon you, and Allah's mercy and blessings. The regrettable aspect is from two sides. One relates to Nasib's character and his arrogance in speech, and his pride in being an intellectual. Our companion, as I told you, is almost an uneducated person, yet he started asking him grammatical questions: Is this raised or accusative? Or such-and-such!

The questioner : To show him his weakness and that you do not understand this matter at all.

The Shaykh : It is, of course, understood.

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh : Tell him: I know I have no knowledge in this issue, but I am just asking. I mean, I am asking Al-Albani if he comes. But what is the relation of this issue to the original matter? The other side, which is the original topic. If Nasib al-Rifai argues with him using the verse I recited earlier: I heard the disagreement between the two men, but I did not know Nasib's viewpoint in this misguidance that he brought up until that moment when I heard him argue with this verse. And when the reader finished reading the recorded discussion on paper, I did not want to make a final judgment to preserve the man's psyche. And of course, it is clear what I mean by that. I feared that arrogance would take him if I confronted him and said, "The truth is with Muhammad Nasser, and you are mistaken." I did not adopt this approach with him, of course. Rather, I thought that the plan we would follow would throw him on his feet, not on his head. That is what I thought. But unfortunately, he did not walk with me. In the Syrian expression, as they say, he ruined my plan, he ruined my scheme, as some of the people who argue with falsehood do with me.
Once in Damascus, and one thing reminds me of another, there is a benefit in it, there is knowledge in it. A middle-aged man came to my shop. I later learned that he was an officer in the Turkish army, named Najm al-Din Bey. He gave me a watch and said, "Look at it. I have complained about it and its repair with many watchmakers, and they did not succeed." While I was opening the watch to examine it, he started joking and saying, "You are good people," and so on, and he exaggerated. I was young at that time, meaning my beard was just a little fuzz. "Easy, easy," and so on. I said to him, "My brother, you have never treated us well before. This is a recommendation and praise. It means there is haste in it." He said, "No, the Muslim has a look, and the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) says—here is the point—: And I said to him at that time, I remember well: "Do not be deceived by this until you have tested us." He said, "No," and gave me the answer. I said to him, "This hadith is weak."

The questioner: There is no power nor strength except with Allah.

The Shaykh : And I would be a child to him.

The questioner : Of course.

The Shaykh : And he was surprised by this word.

The questioner : Perhaps in his life he had never heard it from one person.

The Shaykh : By Allah, you are right. He said to me, "How is it weak? You say it is weak, and we read it recently in"The Shaykh : al-Risalah al-Qushayriyyah. I said to myself, "Masha'Allah..." al-Risalah al-Qushayriyyah is a treatise on the etiquette of the Sufis. But the real difference is that al-Qushayri mentions the hadiths with their chains of narration, unlike the later Sufis. So I insisted on my position. He started saying to me, "Who did you study under? Under"The Shaykh : Ali al-Daqir,The Shaykh : Ali al-Daqir at that time had a reputation that reached the sky among the people because he was the Shaykh of the Tijaniyyah order. I said to him, "No."

The questioner : He knows this methodology. He says this hadith is weak. Correct.

The Shaykh : What do I know? He is not just that he saw me. Yes, meaning some scholars saw me and said his knowledge is greater than his intellect, and conversely, they sometimes say his intellect is greater than his knowledge, and so on. And I saw that my knowledge is greater than my age. Who did I read under?The Shaykh : Ali al-Daqir? No, then underThe Shaykh : Badr al-Din al-Husayni. He was a hadith scholar of that time in Damascus. I said, "No." It did not enter his mind that I was saying something from here or there. In the end, he said to me, "Insha'Allah, I will bring you the chain of the hadith." We agreed that he would sit with me for a week, then he would come to take it, insha'Allah, after two or three days. I was in the shop. Our shop had a western facade. In summer, when the sun hits it, it becomes hot. I lower the iron and leave a small opening so that if someone has a need from me, we can negotiate. I did not feel anything until a paper was in my lap. I looked, where did that go? Because he threw the paper and left. I opened the paper, and indeed he had transmitted the hadith from al-Risalah al-Qushayriyyah with the chain. He said, "So-and-so narrated to me, so-and-so narrated to me," and so on. I said to myself, "I wish he had stopped here so we could give him the answer." The time for taking the watch came. "Peace be upon you." "And upon you peace." The watch was finished. I told him, "Please." He said to me, "I read the paper." I said to him, "Yes." He said, "What is your answer?" I followed the same approach with him. I said to him, "Did you see the author says it is weak, as I told you?" He said to me, "No, there is nothing of that." I said to him, "Yes." He said, "My brother, I transmitted the hadith in my own handwriting." I said, "Yes, but it seems you are not a student of hadith science." He said, "How do you mean?" I said, "Look, what does it say? 'So-and-so narrated to me' like this, from 'Atiyyah al-'Aufi from Abu Sa'id al-Khudri, he said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: and so on. I wrote it on my palm. I am certain that at that time there was no dry ink in these pens.

The questioner : Copy it.

The Shaykh : They used to call it a copy. Yes, and this copy is written with an open stroke, but if we press it, it makes this.

The questioner : Exactly.

The Shaykh : So I darkened it. I wrote to him "'Aufi" like this, two strokes, which equals weak in the opinion of hadith scholars. The man's surprise increased, surprise upon the previous surprise. The point is, days passed and days came. I moved from my father's shop to a private shop. And I was surprised by his arrival. He came after about two years, and a Shaykh named Muhammad al-Dairani, thisThe Shaykh : Muhammad al-Dairani. Unfortunately, in verification of his saying (peace be upon him): and the rest of the hadith. This man used to study hadith under the dome in the Umayyad Mosque. This is where the great scholars study, includingThe Shaykh : Badr al-Din al-Husayni, and this man was one of his students. He inherited from him and used to teach hadith there. And what does studying hadith mean? He recites the hadith with the chain and the text, but he does not understand what the chain means, as we showed to this Najm al-Din Bey that 'Atiyyah al-'Aufi means weak. So he surprised me with his arrival after about two years with thisThe Shaykh : Muhammad al-Dairani. Subhan Allah, meaning the decrees of Allah are very strange. That day was Friday, and my habit on Friday is to open the shop but not work, just open the shop to receive customers who want to leave a watch or take a watch, because the shop is on the main road of al-Qasara, and the farmers from the Ghouta pass through it. I read, and on that day only, if a customer came wanting his watch or wanting to repair a watch, I would give it to him, but I would not work. I was reading in al-Targhib wa al-Tarhib, the same copy that is with me now, and we divided it into authentic and weak, and so on. When he enteredThe Shaykh : with Najm al-Din Bey, I stood up, which I rarely do. I stood up to them and welcomed them and seated them.

The questioner : He was known to you beforeThe Shaykh : al-Dairani.

The Shaykh : Of course, I know him by appearance. The point is that no sooner had they sat down than Najm al-Din Pasha immediately directed the question. It seems there was a planned strategy. He said, "Is it true, Shaykh, that the hadith: is a weak hadith?" I said, "No, this is an authentic hadith narrated by Abu Dawud and so-and-so and so-and-so. Its tracing and narration are authentic; he did not err. This is the evidence: it is preserved in the texts and the takhrij (tracing of hadiths). But I said, this is the answer of a scholar of hadith. He is asking him, 'Is the hadith authentic or weak?' He said, 'No, so-and-so narrated it.' We say in our language, 'And so-and-so narrated it.' If so-and-so narrated it, and he did not say to him, 'Al-Bukhari and Muslim narrated it,' but said, 'Abu Dawud and so-and-so and so-and-so narrated it,' well, these people narrate like this and like that. So it was supposed that if he had to mention the narrators, he should conclude with a sound chain or a good chain. I did not hear any of this. I judged immediately that the man is empty; he has no knowledge. How am I supposed to deal with him? Immediately, I turned on the divine computer.

The questioner : There is no god but Allah.

The Shaykh : I wanted to find a hadith for him that has no basis, and I wanted to ask him like this. I assumed here that the point is that he ruined my plan, ruined my scheme. He wanted to say, "This hadith, excuse me, before that, when he mentioned to me that so-and-so and so-and-so narrated it, I said to him, 'Shaykh, but these people narrated it from the route of 'Atiyyah al-'Aufi, and 'Atiyyah is weak according to the scholars of hadith.' What did he answer me? He said, 'If it were weak, the jurists would not have mentioned it.' This... you need a brain. I wanted to find a hadith that the jurists mentioned, and I wanted to see what he would say about it. If he has knowledge, he will tell me it has no basis, and the jurists mentioned it. Therefore, his argument against me has no value. And if I bring him a hadith with no basis, he gives it a basis, just as we say, 'We were under the rain, then we were under the gutter.' At that moment, a famous hadith came to my mind: . I said to him, 'Professor, what is your opinion of this hadith?' He said, 'The hadith is established.' Glory be to Allah! Certainly, if we assume the best of him, he is mistaken; and if we assume the worst, he is a liar. I said to him, continuing the discussion with him: 'Who narrated it?' He added straw to a camel's load, as they say. He told me, 'Imam Ahmad narrated it.' A liar again! Imam Ahmad does not have this report. By Allah, this is a disaster of this type. The point is, who narrated it? Imam Ahmad? Do you all know that Imam Ahmad's Musnad is in six volumes, containing forty thousand hadiths with repetitions, and thirty thousand hadiths after removing repetitions? ThisThe Shaykh : is what the one who says this means. He read the entire Musnad of Imam Ahmad. If he read it as they say, 'with the blessing,' well, I said to him, 'Did you read the Musnad?' He said, 'No.' I said to him, 'Then who attributed it to Imam Ahmad?' Allah wants to expose him. He said, 'Al-Hafiz al-Mundhir in al-Targhib and al-Tarhib.' In front of me! Glory be to Allah, something strange. I was reading in it until when they came, I left it open on the table because I did not want to work. I said to him, 'Please, here is al-Targhib and al-Tarhib!'

The questioner : The hadith came out for us.

The Shaykh : Yes, he gave me an answer that confirms he is more ignorant than Abu Jahl. What did he say to me? He said to me, 'Where am I supposed to find it? I do not know where he says this.'

The questioner : Tell him from a place he has not read.

The Shaykh : We said to him, 'Shaykh, this hadith has a connection to mosques, so you need to look for it in the book of prayer.' He started taking this book and flipping through pages, not just one. His mind is not with him; he is lost. I finally said to him, 'Shaykh, do not tire yourself. This hadith does not exist in al-Targhib, and I know the people of al-Targhib because I was finishing it, nor in the Musnad, nor in any other book. Rather, Al-Hafiz Zayn al-Din al-'Iraqi said in his book Takhrij al-Ihya, 'A hadith with no basis.' I was planning to say these verses to al-Ghazali, one of the great jurists of the Shafi'i school, I brought them, and this has no basis. I thought he would say that, but he ruined my plan with his successive ignorances. In the end, we settled the matter. We said to him, 'Shaykh, this hadith has no basis, and I have a transmission from Zayn al-Din al-'Iraqi in Tafsir al-Ayat that it has no basis. And despite that, I will be a little lenient with him. And despite that, So I ask you, if you return to your library in your house, and it is with you, Najm al-Din Pasha, to look for this hadith in any part, on any page of al-Targhib or of Ahmad's Musnad, and send it to us with Najm al-Din Pasha or with someone else.

The questioner : I preserved a drop of his dignity.

The Shaykh : Yes, and as they say about us in Syria, 'This is the face of the guest.'

The questioner : Is he still looking for you?