3 – His unjust memorandum, which he submitted in 1391 AH—or a little before—to certain officials in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and even to some who held no official post, concerning my hadith authentication in Sharh al-ʿAqidah al-Tahawiyyah. He did this some ten years after having read the book himself, yet never once spoke to me about the criticisms he nursed in his heart, even though during all those years we would meet at the home of our brother Ustadh Zuhayr al-Shawish—or at the very least he could have spoken to Zuhayr about it! After all, Zuhayr is the owner of al-Maktab al-Islami and the publisher of the book. (1)

All these matters, together with other reports that reached me about him, convinced me that we have been afflicted with a wily adversary who hides the opposite of what he displays. It therefore became imperative to compose a rebuttal that would expose his ignorance regarding what he faulted me for in that “unjust memorandum,” as well as the lies, fabrications, distortions, and other qualities unbefitting a believer who believes in Allah and the Last Day. I therefore wrote the reply and placed it as a preface to the fourth edition of Sharh al-ʿAqidah al-Tahawiyyah, so that honourable readers could see at close range the answer to Abu Ghudda’s objections and recognise his intense hostility toward this creed, which he tried to conceal behind criticism of its editor while pretending to venerate its commentator.

After that edition appeared toward the end of 1391 AH, I travelled to perform the pilgrimage to the Sacred House of Allah. I visited the distinguished professor Dr. Muhammad Amin al-Misri at his home in Mecca, and he informed me that Shaykh Abu Ghudda was in another room with some Aleppine colleagues. I said to him, “Would you be so kind as to present to him my wish to meet him and discuss what was contained in his ‘memorandum’?” He agreed.