The Albaani Site

Our Call

1) To return to the Book and the authentic Sunnah, understanding it according to the methodology of the Pious Predecessors, may Allaah be pleased with them all.

2) To inform and make the Muslims acquainted with their religion of Truth, calling them to practising what it instructs and orders, to adorn themselves with its virtues and manners which will ensure that they earn the pleasure of Allaah, and will make happiness and glory a reality for them.

3) Warning the Muslims from associating partners with Allaah (shirk) in all its forms, from innovations and foreign ideologies, from munkar and fabricated hadiths which have disfigured the beauty of Islaam and has prevented the Muslims from progressing.

4) Reviving free Islamic thinking within the boundaries of the principles of Islaam, removing that rigid thinking which has pervaded and taken hold of the intellects of many of the Muslims and distanced them from the pure Islamic sources.

5) Striving to revive an Islamic way of life, establishing an Islamic society implementing the law of Allaah on earth. This is our call, and we call all the Muslims to support this trust that will raise them and spread the abiding message of Islaam.

Purification and Cultivation

From an ideological and knowledge-based perspective I regard the situation of the Muslims to be better than that of thirty to forty years ago. A quarter of a century ago we used to complain about the lack of Muslims studying modern sciences, it was what the reformers used to talk about.

Then the result of this movement was that the next generation turned to these sciences but at the same time almost totally turned away from the other side, and I mean by that the Islamic sciences, and that has many dangers on the fate of that generation.

As for the remedy to this predicament, then I believe that it rests on two points: purification and cultivation. By purification I mean cleansing Islaam from every thing foreign and all defects. The way to achieve that is firstly to purify the Sunnah from the fabricated and weak things that have penetrated it, and then to interpret the Quraan based upon this authentic Sunnah and the understanding and thinking of the Pious Predecessors.

By that I do not mean that we stop as regards tafseer at the limit the Salaf reached, but rather that we adhere to their methodology in tafseer, and in doing so there is a unity of direction and an obstruction to becoming separated.

This purification that I am referring to includes purifying that which has reached us as regards Islamic sciences and ideologies, so that we eject everything from it which opposes the sound methodology. It also includes purifying the Islamic ideology from all foreign defects which have crept into the ideology of present day Muslims by way of western education, especially the philosophy and educational training and skills,  fields through which it is possible to inject a great amount of poison into the Islamic ideology.

By cultivation I mean nurturing a generation upon the correct, authentic Islamic creed taken from the Book and the Sunnah. I make special mention of the nurturing of young children upon worship without excessive talk about the material benefits of worship as some do. So if such material benefits must be mentioned then they should be the last thing that it is fitting to mention.

I do not forget to mention Islamic legislation here, what I see fit is that this subject should be studied upon the foundation of complete submission to the order of Allaah and total trust in His Wisdom without too much mention of its material benefits, and by so doing the student is provided with an invincibility from all plots and an immunity from all poison.

Concerning this, I recall the incident of the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah and the importance of submitting to the judgement of Allaah and His Messenger.

His Eagerness to Implement the Sunnah

When I performed umrah during Ramadaan last year I went up to the top floor of the building in Madeenah in which I had gone to visit one of my friends to check the time for sunset since I was fasting. So the call to prayer was not given except thirteen minutes after sunset! As for Jeddah, then I went to the top of the building in which one of my in-laws lived so the sun had hardly set when I [immediately] heard the call to prayer and so I thanked Allaah for that.

Some of the Sunnahs he revived

The Sermon of Need (Khutbatul-Haajah):

Then Allaah, the Most High, granted me the ability such that I started using this khutbah in my lessons and my books, and I was able to spread it in the Islamic world through the treatise I wrote concerning it.  Many of those who loved the Sunnah responded to it, and all praise is for Allaah, especially the khateebs [preachers] in the mosques, since it had been abandoned before that.

Praying the Eed prayer in the Musallaa

From that was that the prayer of the two eeds was established in an outside area [musallaa] in Damascus, then our brothers in Aleppo revived it there, and then in other cities in Syria, and this Sunnah continued to spread until some of our brothers in Amman, Jordan revived it there too.

A funny story yet sad at the same time

I led the people in prayer for Fajr prayer on a Friday once in one of the villages of az-Zubdaani.  So after reciting al-Faatihah I read what I was able to from Surah al-Kahf [the Cave], because my memorisation of Surah as-Sajdah was not firm.  So when I said the takbir [i.e., Allaahu Akbar] for the bowing [rukoo] all of the people went straight into prostration!  Since they thought that I had in fact said the takbir for the prostration for recitation which occurs in Surah Sajdah [since the normal Imaam would read that Surah and that is what they were used to.]  But those who were immediately behind me noticed that I was bowing so they got up and joined me in that.

As for the ones who were behind the minbar and who could not see me, they remained in prostration until they heard me say, “Allaah has heard the one who praises him …” [Sami’allaahu liman hamidah] and so they broke their prayer and a clamour broke loose.  After I made the tasleem [i.e., said salaam to end the prayer] I admonished and reminded them of the obligation upon them to have khushoo [humility] in the prayer and to pay attention to what is being recited to them from the aayaat of [the Book of Allaah] and that their attention is not distracted in it to [their worldly things such as] farming or milking the animals!

Hayaatul-Allaamah al-Albaani, rahimahullaah, bi qalamihi, pp. 41-46.