VERY IMPORTANT by Moosa Richardson
As-Salaamu 'alaykum wa rahmatullaah
There exists the practice among some of the brothers when they write articles or place footnotes to translations, that they use the footnotes of others or their references, without mentioning that they took this footnote from them, or summarized it.
I mean by this, to give a practical example, lets say you am writing an article about the importance of sticking to the ulamaa', so you find a beautiful and highly relevant hadeeth from an article at spubs.com. So you put the quote in your article and use the reference provided by spubs, like "Al-Mu'jam Al-Kabeer of At-Tabaraanee, 12/203" for example.
Some of the dangers of this practice can be outlined as follows:
1) You have conveyed knowledge improperly, without mentioning your sources.
2) You have stolen the research of others.
3) You have violated the trust of conveying knowledge.
4) You have made people think that you are more knowledgable or more capable of research than you really are.
5) You may be using the internet to build an identity for yourself, a researcher, something that you are far from (and this has been seen many times).
Shaykh Rabee' was asked about this practice and he said it is "SARIQAH, SARIQAH!" (Theft, theft!) He said it is a case of a person taking credit for something he did not do.
Dear brother, do not count the number of times you have seen this practice, and thus misguide yourself into thinking that there is nothing really wrong with it!
Rather, increase your humbleness, mention your sources, make things clear, and do not allow a chance for people to credit you with something you did not do.
It was related that the Shaykh Al-Albaanee rahimahullaah had a dawwaar (a rotating bookshelf) that he used to keep on his desk. The shaykh actually built it himself. So one of his students remarked at what a smart invention it was. So the shaykh told him that it was not his idea originally, rather he got it from Shaykh Ahmad Shaakir and just made a bigger version.
Look how our shaykh did not want anyone to think that he came up with a simple idea that was really not his. Look at the purity of the soul in such an action, look at the clarity!
So all that is upon us is to mention our sources fully. If we are translating someone's notes on takhreej of a hadeeth, we just say after mentioning it, "This is Fulaan's takhreej of the hadeeth from the Book "Kathaa", p.xx"
By doing this, we take the way of clarity, and free ourselves from having the aforementioned problems.
Let us mutually advise each other to abandon this bad practice without blaming anyone individually for falling into it due to heedlessness or ignorance, since it is very widespread and perhaps no one has cautioned against it yet.
It is something that must be corrected, as it is something "worse than tadlees" as Shaykh Rabee' described it.
I pray that Allaah benefits you with this, and Allaah knows best.
Moosaa Richardson
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