theclearpath.com

Foreword

All praise be to Allaah and may the peace and blessings of Allaah be on His Messenger. This book you have before you is a translation of a small pamphlet that was prepared, printed and distributed by Maktabah Al-Idreesee from San'aa, Yemen concerning "The Scholars' Praise for Shaykh Rabee' Ibn Haadee Al-Madkhalee."

This treatise was also made available over the Internet as a downloadable file in such sites as rabee.net and alsalafia.com. This is where we obtained our source for this current translation. So we encourage all readers who wish to access the Arabic source for this book to go to the above mentioned web sites and download the file called "Shifaa-ul-'Aleel fee Thanaa-il-'Ulamaa 'alaa Ash-Shaykh Rabee'"

There were many reasons for selecting this current book for translation and publishing. The first and most important of them was to allow the Muslims to become acquainted with who the scholars of our time are and to get a first hand look at how the scholars of Ahl-us-Sunnah praise and commend one another. Secondly, in recent times there have been big debates amongst the Muslims, especially those of them who adhere to the way of the Salaf, on certain issues concerning this noble Shaykh. We felt that this is largely due to their being unaware of who Shaykh Rabee' is and what the scholars have said about him. Shaykh Rabee', as indicated by Shaykh Al-Albaanee, is in our current times, the leading personality in the field of Al-Jarh wat-Ta'deel (i.e. declaring who is reliable, trustworthy and upon the correct way from those who are unreliable and on a deviant way). At times, this field requires those specialized in it to speak about certain popular and renowned figures in order to clarify their mistakes or expose their deviations. So no doubt, Shaykh Rabee' has spoken against some callers and teachers in the Muslim world that are esteemed by many. But this was only part of his sincere advice, as he was fulfilling his duty of clarifying to the ummah the mistakes of certain people so that the Muslims will not follow them in that. But unfortunately the result of this at times is that the Muslims do not readily accept from him and question his authority, and even go further and ridicule and belittle him. So we felt that it was important, especially amidst the rumors and lies being spread about this noble scholar, to present our Muslim readers with the present treatise.

Furthermore, we ask Allaah to reward all those brothers in charge of putting the book together in its Arabic form, namely the brothers in Yemen. They have also included several footnotes, which add clarification to certain issues and they have categorized the treatise into easy to read and access sections. So may Allaah reward them with the best of rewards and may He make this treatise a source for strengthening and putting light to this blessed da'wah of the Way of the Salaf.

Written by:
Abu Maryam Isma'eel Alarcon
For The Salafi Society of North America
On April 25, 2001