been mistaken about by declaring a report authentic or weak, with no need to refer any of it back to him. He alluded to this arrangement in the statement preceding his introduction. The first, second, and third volumes of the book have been published, and they contain some of my aforementioned comments, which end with either my name, (Nāsir), or the initial (N). I recently completed examining the manuscript sources for the Book of Pilgrimage Rites, the Book of Zakat, and other sections, annotating them and undertaking the necessary critical verification. I pray that the Lord, Glorified and Exalted, will facilitate its publication soon (1).
His Eminence Dr. Shaykh Yūsuf al-Qaradāwī then followed their example when he and Professor Zuhayr al-Shāwīsh, the publisher of his book The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam, agreed that I should trace its hadiths to their sources and identify which were authentic and which were weak. This likewise attested to his virtue and noble character, which I know firsthand. It is his courteous and habitual practice, whenever we happen to meet, to ask me immediately about a hadith or a matter of jurisprudence, seeking whatever opinion I may have from which he could benefit. All of this demonstrates to the reader his immense humility and consummate courtesy. May Allah preserve him and benefit the Muslims through him.
The original plan—as Brother Zuhayr told me on the day he proposed that I prepare the hadith documentation—was to print it in the margins of the book (The Lawful), since that would be more useful to the reader and would connect each hadith more firmly to its subject in the book. I do not know, however, what happened afterward. To date, the book has gone through twelve editions (2), not one of which contains any of my hadith documentation. Perhaps one reason for this was the recent war in Lebanon: scarcely does it calm down for a short while and conditions stabilize before it returns to something like its former state, or worse. This causes people’s work and interests to be disrupted or delayed. Even when it appears to have subsided somewhat, fear of its return has gripped everyone. The turmoil and senseless killing still continue—to the point that some members of my family and I nearly became its victims when snipers in some of Beirut’s ruined buildings treacherously fired upon us on 2 Safar al-Khayr 1399 AH, striking my car in three places—