“When he examined it, he approved of it and encouraged me to publish it!”
What value, then, does his approval—may Allah have mercy on him—have, when you now know the extent of his learning?! Indeed, any intelligent and discerning person will recognize with me the true worth of something approved by such an approver!
My purpose here is not to refute this grandson in his Establishing the Proof, nor to expose the ignorance of this discipline, inconsistency in judgment, and following of personal whim that it contains. That has another place, Allah willing. Rather, I wish to draw attention to the moral difference between the grandfather and the grandson. The grandfather, may Allah have mercy on him, was content to respond to me in writing, while offering abundant praise, as you will see later under the hadith, “Glad tidings...”; he did not seek thereby to make a display or gain notoriety by refuting al-Albānī. The grandson, however, followed a course other than that of his grandfather, out of a love for prominence. It has long been said: “The love of prominence breaks backs.” He did not write to me and inform me of his viewpoint; rather, he asked me several questions by telephone, which I answered with complete candour, as he himself relates in Establishing the Proof (pp. 11–13). Then he published it for the people under that grand title: “...Containing a Refutation of the Erudite Shaykh Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī”!
On p. 11, he describes him as “the hadith scholar of the age.” If he is truthful with himself in this statement—as appears to be the case—then it is equally apparent that, by that title, he implies that whoever refutes al-Albānī must necessarily be “the hadith scholar of the ages”! His book brims with selfishness, self-conceit, and arrogance. We ask Allah to preserve both us and him from every affliction in this world and the Hereafter.
- A second example of certain students’ audacity in declaring the following hadith weak:
613—“It is not fitting for a believer to humiliate himself...” the hadith.
I documented the hadith there through the narration of Ḥudhayfah. Al-Tirmidhī graded it good, and I explained its hidden defect.
However, I strengthened it with a corroborating report from Ibn ʿUmar, though I was uncertain about one of its narrators: was he