Islamic groupings or political parties except through adherence to the authentic sunnah and to the methodology of the righteous predecessors—may Allah be pleased with them—not that of the later generations today, whether in creed, jurisprudence, or conduct. Thus Allah benefited whomever He willed among His righteous servants through this, and its effects became plainly evident in their creed and worship, in the construction of their mosques, and in their appearance and clothing. Every fair-minded scholar bears witness to this, and none denies it except one who is spiteful or senile. I hope that, through it, Allah will forgive my sins and record its reward for my father and mother. All praise is due to Allah, by whose blessing righteous deeds are brought to completion:
“My Lord, inspire me to give thanks for Your favour which You have bestowed upon me and my parents, and to do righteous deeds that please You; and admit me, by Your mercy, among Your righteous servants.”
“My Lord, … and set right for me my offspring. Indeed, I have repented to You, and indeed I am among the Muslims.”
Fifthly: I had annotated the chapter mentioned above. When the proprietor of al-Maktab al-Islami printed it together with my annotations, he appended it to my book, Authentication of the Hadiths on the Virtues of Syria and Damascus by al-Raba‘i. This hadith appears therein, as mentioned above. My comment on it amounted to the conclusion that it is a good hadith. I then traced it through the two routes from Ibn Amr, briefly demonstrating their hidden defects, and concluded by saying:
“Yet the hadith is strong through the combined support of the two routes, Allah willing.”
When he undertook to print my project, The Authentic Hadiths of the Four Sunans and Their Weak Hadiths, on commission from the Arab Education Office and without my knowledge, he began tampering with them and annotating them as his ignorance and conceit prompted him, in ways for which there is no room to elaborate here—especially since I have explained some of this in more than one place.
What is relevant here is that I included this hadith in The Weak Hadiths of Abu Dawud because of the weakness of