No sooner had that edition gained circulation than criticism began to reach us from various quarters. Accordingly, we corrected the book once more and sent the proofs to Shaykh Nāṣir in ʿAmmān—as is our custom with all of his works—yet, owing to circumstances surrounding him, he returned them without examining them. May Allah decree goodness for him and for us.

On the basis of those fresh amendments—together with the additional corrections we made—we published two further editions: the second in 1404 AH and the third in 1406 AH.

Even so, we still felt uneasy about the matter, for reasons that need not be explained here, since they would be of no benefit to the reader. We therefore entrusted the book to a number of scholars and respected figures for verification—I do not say “re-verification.” They undertook the praiseworthy labor whose results now lie before you. However, they stipulated that their names not be mentioned, fearing the attacks of people who are accustomed to speaking about others—rightly or wrongly—and of those who follow them, blinded by fanaticism and the pursuit of worldly fame. We honored their wish and issued the book with the simple attribution: “critically verified by a group of scholars.”

In doing so, we discarded everything in Shaykh Nāṣir’s copy that was unrelated to the takhrij (hadith documentation), while preserving his hadith-related notes under each narration. We also retained his introduction exactly as it stands, repetitions and all.

During our work an issue arose that must be clarified because it pertains to this book. We had previously handed over to Shaykh Nāṣir the manuscripts, primary sources, and commentaries in our possession so that he might prepare the critical edition—something he himself notes in his introduction (p. 22, line 16) and again when reproducing two rare manuscripts in the introduction to the first edition and thereafter, images that now appear on pages 33–34 of the present edition.