Discussion of al-Tabarani’s al-Mu'jam al-Saghir and al-Mu'jam al-Awsat, and Shaykh al-Albani’s service to them

The Shaykh : This book that was reviewed is "Majma' al-Bahrain," meaning al-Tabarani’s al-Mu'jam al-Kabir and al-Mu'jam al-Awsat, excuse me, al-Mu'jam al-Saghir and al-Mu'jam al-Awsat. Al-Mu'jam al-Saghir was first printed in India long ago, and now it has been printed recently. I was its servant, in what I call "al-Rawd al-Nadhir fi Tartib wa Takhrij Mu'jam al-Tabarani al-Saghir." This makes it easy to refer to it and to its index; its index is al-Rawd al-Nadhir. Al-Tabarani’s al-Mu'jam al-Awsat has now had its first, second, and third volumes printed... It contains about two thousand hadiths, reaching approximately ten thousand hadiths. So, in order to benefit from this book, because its hadiths are not arranged according to the chapters of Islamic jurisprudence, but rather according to the names of the author’s shaykhs, and these names are arranged according to the letters of the alphabet, but not in a precise order like that of a dictionary—so, for example, Muhammad ibn Isma'il might be mentioned before Muhammad ibn Ahmad, and so on and so forth—I, as they say, necessity is the mother of invention, when I encompassed this book, what did I do? I went through the entire book, numbered its hadiths with a pencil, and then I collected the names of the Companions in this index. Then I placed a second index of the names of the author’s shaykhs. Now, in a very concise way, I can extract the hadith here by combining the two indexes.