except by adhering to the authentic sunnah and following the methodology of the righteous predecessors; not according to what the successors adhere to today in terms of creed, jurisprudence, and behavior. Allāh benefited whomever He willed from His righteous servants, and this was clearly evident in their creed, worship, the construction of their mosques, their appearances, and their clothing, as testified by every fair-minded scholar, and denied only by every spiteful or deluded person. I hope that Allāh will forgive my sins through this, and that He will record the reward for this for my father and mother. All praise is due to Allāh, by whose grace good deeds are completed: "My Lord, enable me to be grateful for Your favor which You have bestowed upon me and upon my parents and to do righteousness of which You approve and admit me by Your mercy into [the ranks of] Your righteous servants." My Lord, "and make my descendants righteous. Indeed, I have repented to You, and indeed, I am of the Muslims." Fifth: I had commented on the aforementioned chapter when it was printed by the owner of the Islamic Office with my commentary attached to it. I appended it to my book "Verification of the Ḥadīths of the Virtues of al-Shām and Damascus by al-Rabaʿī," and in it is this ḥadīth as previously mentioned. I had commented on it, summarizing that it is a good ḥadīth, then I verified it through two chains from Ibn ʿAmr, briefly explaining their defects, and concluded by saying: "However, the ḥadīth is strong when considering both chains together, if Allāh wills." When my project "Ṣaḥīḥ al-Sunan al-Arbaʿah" and "Its Weak Ones" was printed by the "Arab Education Office" without my knowledge, he began to manipulate and comment on it as his ignorance and arrogance suggested to him, in ways that cannot be detailed now, especially since I have clarified some of that in other places. The point now is that this ḥadīth, I had included it in "The Weak of Abū Dāwūd" due to the weakness of..