Translated by Ahmed Abu Turaab

Al-Albaani said, “There was a problem with my eye so the doctor asked me to rest and stop reading and writing for some time. I said [to myself]: so that time is not wasted, I’ll give one of our brothers a small manuscript to copy out for me, such that by the time he finishes, I would have taken sufficient rest.

The brother started to copy out the manuscript and I would look through what he had copied, consoling myself by saying that such reading would not [adversely] affect [my eye] or overstrain it.

[While doing so] I came across a word [in the copy] which I didn’t understand and which I could not read. I went back to the manuscript [the copy was taken from] and found that the brother had copied the word [correctly] just as it appeared in the manuscript, he was a [skilled] scribe.

I started to look over it and ponder, hoping that I’d discover the correct way of reading it. I didn’t [however] and became preoccupied with it.

When the evening came and I slept, I awoke from a dream and I started saying, “Separately, separately! Separately, separately!”

I had no idea what this dream meant? So I said [to myself], ‘O Naasir, write down what happened,’ so that I wouldn’t forget the dream and in the morning I could take a look at it.

So indeed in the morning I started to think and said: maybe it has a connection to the [difficult] word [that I am trying to read in the manuscript].

I brought the manuscript and started to look at the [difficult] word and [at the same time] started to repeat the word [that I said when I woke up from the dream, i.e., ‘Separately!’]–until I came upon the solution to the problem.

The word found in the manuscript was [in fact] two words joined together by the scribe, so I separated them and was able to read it.

Al-Imaam al-Albaani, Duroos, wa Mawaaqif, wa Ibar, of Abdul-Aziz ibn Muhammad Abdullaah as-Sadhaan, p. 58.