Sheikh Albani Speaking Albanian

[Cora Hickel]

TheSalafis allege that both Ibn Baz and al-Albani have ijazas (authorizations of mastery of a book, etc. in Islamic knowledge from the scholar it was studied with) from great sheikhs. They say that al-Albani has an ijaza from some sheikhs in Syria, do you have any information on this? Answer

Our teacher in hadith, Sheikh Shuayb al-Arnaut, tells my wife and me that Sheikh Nasir al-Albani learned his hadith knowledge from books and manuscripts in the Dhahiriyya Library in Damascus, as well as his long years working on books of hadith. He did not get any significant share of his knowledge from living hadith scholars, according to Sheikh Shuayb, for the very good reason that there wasnt anyone in Damascus at the time who knew much about hadith, and he didnt travel anywhere else to learn. I have heard Salafis say that he has an ijaza from one person in Syria, but it could only be (according to Sheikh Shuayb) from someone with far less knowledge than himself

I believe Sheikh Shuayb about this, because his family, like Sheikh Nasirs, were of the Albanians who emmigrated to Damascus at the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and they all know each other rather intimately. The impression one gets is that Sheikh Nasirs father, Sheikh Nuh al-Albani, was so strict a Hanafi that he produced something of an over-reaction in Sheikh Nasir not only against Abu Hanifa and his madhhab, but against traditional Islamic sheikhs as well. According to Sheikh Shuayb, Sheikh Nasir studied tajwid or Quranic recitation and perhaps the Hanafi fiqh primer Maraqi al-falah [The ascents to success] with his father Sheikh Nuh al-Albani, and possibly other lessons in Hanafi fiqh from Sheikh Muhammad Said al-Burhani, who taught in Tawba Mosque, in the quarter of the Turks on the side of Mount Qasiyun, near Sheikh Nasirs fathers shop. Sheikh Nasir subsequently found that his time could be more profitably spent with books and manuscripts at the Dhahiriyya Library and in reading works to students, and he did not attend anyone elses lessons

As for his ijaza or warrant of learning, Sheikh Shuayb tells us that it came when a hadith scholar from Aleppo, Sheikh Raghib al-Tabbakh, was visiting the Dhahiriyya Library in Damascus, and Sheikh Nasir was pointed out to him as a promising student of hadith. They met and spoke, the sheikh authorized him "in all the chains of transmission that I have been authorized to relate"that is to say, a general ijaza, though Sheikh Nasir did not attend the lessons of the sheikh or read books of hadith with him. Sheikh Raghib al-Tabbakh had chains of sheikhs reaching back to the main hadith works, such as Sahih al-Bukhari, the Sunan of Abu Dawud, and hence had a contiguous chain back to the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) for these books. But this was an authorization (ijaza) of tabarruk, or for the blessing of it, not a warrant of learningfor Sheikh Nasir did not go to Aleppo to learn from him, and he did not come to Damascus to teach him

This type of authorization (ijaza), that of tabarruk, is a practice of some traditional scholars: to give an authorization in order to encourage a student whom they have met and like, whom they find knowledgeable, or hope will become a scholar. The reason I know of such ijazas is because I have one, from the Meccan hadith scholar Sheikh Muhammad Alawi al-Maliki, which authorizes me to relate "all the chains of transmission that I [Muhammad Alawi al-Maliki] have been authorized to relate by my sheikhs," including chains of transmission reaching back to the hadith Imams Malik, al-Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud, al-Tirmidhi, al-Nasai, Ibn Majah (Mecca: Muhammad Alawi al-Maliki, 1412/1992). Though my name is on the authorization, and it is signed by the sheikh, it does not make me a hadith scholar like he is, because aside from some of his public lessons, my hadith knowledge is not from him but from Sheikh Shuayb, whom I have actually studied with. Rather, Sheikh al-Maliki knows my sheikhs in Damascus, that I am the translator of Umdat al-salik [Reliance of the traveller] in Shafii fiqh, that we have known each other for some time, and he approves of my way. The scholarly value of such ijazas is merely to establish that we have met.

As for Ibn Baz, I do not know who he studied with, though from his broadcasts on the radio, I would be most surprised if he had ever studied with someone uncommitted to what he and his colleagues simply call the dawa or propagation, that is, of the revisions of Islam advocated by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. As it is unlawful to say anything disliked about a Muslim except for an interest countenanced by Sacred Law, the following discussion will not exceed (a) whether these revisions constitute a sectarian emphasis differing from traditional Islam; and (b) if sectarian, how this influences issues that Sheikh Nasir and Ibn Baz might otherwise be believed about I mention this to you, because, as you may know, some people take offense at the word Wahhabiand with good reason, if we mean to suggest that they do not love Islam, or are not trying to practice it to the best of their understanding and ability. I feel this is true of virtually all separatist groups, from the beginning of Islam. Provided they do not negate something necessarily known to be of the religion (necessarily known meaning that which any Muslim would know about if asked), all these groups may be said to have tried to understand and apply the Quran and the sunna, even though their understanding has brought them to a mistaken conclusion. This is why Sharia manuals say things like: They [those who rise in insurrection against the caliph] are subject to Islamic laws (because they have not committed an act that puts them outside of Islam that they should be considered non-Muslims. Nor are they considered morally corrupt (fasiq), for rebels is not a perjorative term, but rather they merely have a mistaken understanding), and the decisions of their Islamic judge are considered legally effective (provided he does not declare the lives of upright Muslims to be justly forfeitable) if they are such as would be effective if made by our own judge (Reliance of the Traveller, 594). The fact that such people may consider other Muslims not of their sect to be non-Muslimsthe hallmark of heterodox (batil) sects of all times and placesdoes not change the above rulings, and the caliph or his representative may use only enough force to end the strife. We find in the Hashiya radd al-muhtar ala al-Durr al-mukhtar sharh Tanwir al-absar [(Ibn Abidins) Commentary: the guide of the perplexed, upon (Haskafis) The choice pearls, an exegesis of (Tumurtashis) Illumination of eyes], whose every word is considered a decisive evidence (nass) in the Hanafi school: (al-Haskafi:) Those who revolt against obedience to the imam [meaning the caliph or his representative] are of three types: (1) highwaymen, and their ruling is known [n: i.e. the death penalty, if they do not give themselves up before they are caught];

(3) and kharijites, meaning men with military force who revolt against the imam because of a mistaken scriptural interpretation (tawil), believing that he is upon a falsehood of unbelief (kufr) or disobedience to Allah (masiya) that necessitates their fighting him, according to their mistaken scriptural interpretation, and who consider it lawful to take our lives, our property, and take our women as slaves, and who consider the Companions of our Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) to be disbelievers. Their ruling is the same as that of rebels (bughat) against the caliphate [n: (2) above] by unanimous consensus of fiqh scholars.

(Ibn Abidin:) His words and who consider the Companions of our Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) to be disbelievers are not a condition for someone to be a kharijite, but rather are a mere clarification of what those who revolted against Ali (Allah Most High be well pleased with him) in fact did. Otherwise, it is enough to be convinced of the unbelief of those they fight against, as happened in our own times with the followers of [Muhammad ibn] Abd al-Wahhab, who came out of the Najd in revolt, and took over the sanctuaries of Mecca and Medina. They followed the Hanbali madhhab, but believed that they were the Muslims, and that those who believed differently than they did were polytheists (mushrikin). On this basis, they held it lawful to kill Sunni Muslims (Ahl al-Sunna) and their religious scholars, until Allah Most High dispelled their forces, and the armies of the Muslims attacked their strongholds and subdued them in 1233 A.H. [1818] (Hashiya radd al-muhtar, 4.262). The Shafii mufti of Mecca, Ahmad ibn Zayni Dahlan (d. 1304/1886), a historian as well as a scholar, recorded the story of the Wahhabis takeover of the holy places in a number of books, one of which, his two-volume history al-Futuhat al-Islamiyya [The Islamic conquests], gives the following description of what became perhaps their most famous, and certainly their most lethal ijtihad; namely, that the sunna of tawassul or supplicating Allah through an intermediary was shirk: Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab claimed that his aim in this school of thought he innovated was to make sincere the belief in Allahs unity (tawhid), and to abjure worshipping false gods (shirk), and that Muslims had been worshipping false gods for six hundred years, and that he had revived their religion for them. He interpreted Quranic verses revealed about worshippers of false gods (mushrikin) as referring to those who worship Allah alone, such as the word of Allah Most High, "And who is further astray than he who supplicates apart from Allah someone who will not answer him until Resurrection Day, while they are oblivious to their supplication" (Quran 46:5),

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