without noting these interventions in his annotations. As noted earlier, it is incorrect to claim that the author relied on his memory when reproducing the texts cited in the book. Even if we conceded that this was true, it would not justify altering the text of the book without indicating each alteration where it occurred. Nor were his interventions confined to making the wording of the hadiths conform to that of the two Sahīh collections or other sources. Whenever he saw an error in the text—or supposed something to be an error when it was not—he corrected it as he saw fit, without drawing attention to what he had done. There is no doubt that this dangerous approach has destroyed confidence in the edition that the shaykh described as critically edited and improved. Examples of Shaykh al-Fiqī’s interventions will appear in the following section, in the discussion of the al-Risāla edition, which relied on his edition.

(5) The Mu’assasat al-Risāla edition: This edition appeared in 1399 AH = 1979 CE, edited by the two shaykhs Shu‘ayb al-Arna’ūt and ‘Abd al-Qādir al-Arna’ūt, may Allah have mercy on them both. It was an attractive, elegantly produced edition in five volumes, supplemented in 1407 AH = 1987 CE by a sixth volume containing indexes.

The two editors devoted attention to tracing the hadiths to their sources and assessing their authenticity or weakness; supplying vowel marks where the text was difficult or ambiguous, while fully vocalizing the hadiths and reports; explaining unfamiliar words; dividing the text into paragraphs; adding punctuation; and reproducing a number of Dr al-Azharī’s comments from Shaykh ‘Abd al-Ghanī ‘Abd al-Khāliq’s edition of Prophetic Medicine. Added to this was the handsome production characteristic of Mu’assasat al-Risāla’s publications. This edition was very well received and was reprinted many times—forty or more.

The two editors stated that they had based their editorial work on two manuscripts: