Concerning Bashing Imām al-Barbahārī’s Book (Sharḥ al-Sunnah)
The following questions were directed to Shaykh Muḥammad ʿAlī Farkūs (حفظه الله):
“What is your opinion about al-Barbahārī’s book Sharḥ al-Sunnah and the one who defames it?”
He (حفظه الله) stated:1
Al-Barbahārī—who died 329 years after the Hijrah—is Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan ibn ‘Alī ibn Khalaf, and he was the shaykh of the Ḥanbalī scholars in Iraq in his time. He was a muḥaddith [i.e. a scholar of Ḥadīth], a ḥāfiẓ [i.e. a great memoriser], and a faqīh [i.e. a scholar of fiqh], and Sharḥ al-Sunnah—in which he established the creed of Ahl al-Sunnah wa-al-Jamāʿah in issues such as Allāh’s Names and...