Shaykh Muḥammad Ḥāmid al-Fiqī, may Allah have mercy on him, writes in his preface to the book:

“(I then began to look for another manuscript so that the various copies might turn out more accurate and reliable, and to make up for the portions our copy had lost to dampness and mishandling. I therefore wrote to my Salafī brother, the researcher Shaykh Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Arnaʾūṭī in Damascus, asking him to help me locate another copy. He replied that the distinguished Al-Shuṭṭī family possessed a sound, well-preserved manuscript. I sent him our copy by air, whereupon he collated it with painstaking care and completed the missing parts …).” End of quotation.

I say: Shaykh al-Fiqī’s words clearly show that the Shaykh (al-Albānī) produced his critical edition on the basis of another manuscript; of this there is no doubt.

At the end of the same printing we read:

“(Collation and correction were completed on Tuesday, 8 Shawwāl 1368 AH, corresponding to 2 August 1949 CE.

‘Damascus’ Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān
Nāṣir al-Dīn Nūḥ Najātī al-Albānī).” End of quotation.

Yet, contrary to his usual practice, the Shaykh left the hadiths of the book without commentary. It seems the manuscript reached him only for collation, not for full verification, or else it arrived when he did not have ample time—and Allah knows best.

Nevertheless, I found three notes bearing his seal:
• a note on whether al-Ḥasan heard directly from Samura (p. 44);
• another grading Jisr ibn al-Ḥasan as weak (p. 120);
• and a third correcting the name of a narrator in Musannaf ʿAbd al-Razzāq (p. 139).

These are the only marginalia I found signed by him. The remaining footnotes appear to belong to Shaykh Muḥammad Ḥāmid al-Fiqī—may Allah have mercy on them both. Allah knows best.

[Note]
I have not seen this book listed by those who enumerate the works of Shaykh al-Albānī, may Allah have mercy on him. The likely reason is that it was printed long ago at the Anṣār al-Sunnah al-Muḥammadiyyah Press in Egypt, and the Shaykh’s name did not appear on the cover; instead it read, “Critical edition by Shaykh Muḥammad Ḥāmid al-Fiqī.”

Yet al-Fiqī’s preface alone suffices to establish al-Albānī’s role in the edition—let alone the marginal notes that carry his explicit seal and the statement he wrote at the close of the volume. Allah knows best.

“al-ʿAqīdah al-Ṭaḥāwiyyah,” by al-Ṭaḥāwī, [explanation and commentary] (printed).