Zakariyya Harnekar – Naseehah Hadith #1 contagion and pandemics
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The importance of having hadiths and authentication in Islam is discussed, as well as the negative consequences of superstitions and their connection to the coronavirus pandemic. The negative implications of superstitions and their connection to the pandemic are also discussed, along with the importance of the relationship between heat and fire, the design of Allah's actions, and the importance of taking precautions to prevent future infection. The speaker explains that Allah's actions are based on effort and risk, not just rest, and that everyone should take precautions, not just act according to the design of Allah.
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Of
all
these.
So
so
it's completely correct.
I'm I'm gonna move on now to
I'm gonna move on now to our our
Naseeh. Welcome to the senior prospect,
with us here.
Once again to 1 and all.
In our
in our we were busy last week, actually,
in in the session. And Nasia, I'm just
speaking a little bit about,
what we were gonna do in the session
and also,
a little bit about the technicalities
of Hadith. Right? And
we didn't even get into the first Hadith.
We spoke about we spoke about the
the rigorous,
methods that hadith undergo
who attained authentication.
Like we said, we had,
last week, we actually just spoke about
this part of the hadith,
which we said over here, we don't even
have the complete sanad.
But
we just spoke about that first part, being
the sanad. We say there's 2 parts to
it. Right? There's the
and
the.
Chain of narration.
The and then the actual text of the
hadith.
Which we call the matin.
Matin is a text. All you can think,
it's the matin. It's the meat of the
hadith. It's it's the information.
But before we can give that that that
that,
that meat in the value, we have to
check if it's halal, and the senate will
tell us how it got to us.
If we have any problem in the senate,
any doubt in the senate,
then that devalues the matter.
That we also spoke about
the importance of,
Hadith
as a tool in the epistemology
or the the sources of knowledge
that we have as Muslims. Right? So our
our window into divine knowledge, the main sources
of our window into divine knowledge. By divine
knowledge, I mean knowledge
that comes to us
from Allah
via Rasulullah
is the Quran and the Sunnah.
And when I say the Quran and the
Sunnah,
the Quran, all of it is canonically,
transmitted. So it's it's rigorously authenticated to the
highest degree. In fact, impossible
that in its transmission
is incorrect.
That and and, yeah, when I say impossible,
I mean, like, from a from a
from
a,
like, from a study sciences,
perspective.
Like, transmit transmission is actually a science in
as a subset of history.
So from that perspective, it's impossible. That is
rigorous authentication.
And then when I speak about the,
I mean,
that is that is authenticated
or at least sound.
Those are main windows or sources of knowledge
into,
into divine knowledge, methods of the unseen, things
that we can't know,
empirically,
or by subjecting them to
to our senses in some way. Because that's
essentially what what science does.
Right? So we spoke about the importance of
hadith. Now we're actually gonna look at some
of those hadith. And and I said the
last time, we were gonna look at, some
hadith from this compilation put together by
on
put the hadith on pandemics and contagion.
The first hadith in the book,
we have here
is.
Just give me a second. I wanna see
something.
No. Just don't mind.
Okay. That's fine. I was just checking, actually,
if I
add a copy of my sanity, then I
would already do this hadith with my entire
senate.
Then you could also
add that.
Make that your senate inshallah, but we'll do
that another day inshallah.
So, Rasoolullah says what?
You know you guys know,
the Right?
In Arabic,
when you want to, in fact, communicate something,
an entire genre of things, you use the.
How that how that is identified
is by the fact that the word
following
it will be,
and it will have neither an,
like,
Here we have,
and then we have means contagion. And
the they're saying no contagion.
Is a bad omen.
Is a bad omen. Why it's called Tiara,
you she she has words with,
because the Arabs,
they
you know, as one of their suspicions,
they would look at, you know, the way
in which birds fly, and that will indicate
to themselves if birds fly that way, then
it's a bad sign. If birds fly other
way, then it's a maybe not such a
bad sign.
Means an owl.
Right? So, again, they would look again, or
or or the Tianna would be looking at
the birds, and then would be looking at
the owl, specifically, you know, some action that
an owl does. If an owl does this
action, and then it would be a a
sign for them. And, like, you know, we
may have a cat walking under a ladder
or something like that.
And no
Again,
Safar,
there's a number of meanings that the scholars
of Hadith mentioned in relation to Safar. But
Safar is also the name of a month,
Muharram Safar.
Right? And people attribute
superstitious
beliefs to the month of Safar.
Some people have the idea, you you shouldn't
get married in the month of Safar, or,
you know, Safar is a bad month, etcetera.
But from the earliest colleagues, when Malik, they
said that Safar here means the month there's
no superstition in relation to Safar.
Is a leaper.
Person that's been afflicted by,
leprosy.
So Rasoolullah
says, and flee from the leaper
as you flee from a lion.
As you flee from a lion.
Now there's some discussions to be had here.
Right?
What is this hadith telling us? Again, I'm
I'm mentioning these hadith because it speaks about
matters that are important in our time, and
it will, perhaps guide us in acting responsibility
in this, responsibly in this period of time.
Now
if Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam had simply
said to us, there is no such thing
as contagion,
and there were no
there were no,
there were no what would I say? What
else could I say?
There were no qualifications to that statement
that exist from the Quran and from the
Hadith, etcetera.
Then as a Muslim,
the the majority of Muslims would have held
the belief that there is really no such
reality as contagion.
That a,
a virus cannot
pass from one person to another.
If there was no qualification of that statement,
then it would be proper for Muslims to
believe
that there is no such phenomena as contagion.
But alhamdulillah,
Allah, Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, gave us
through the hadith of Rasool Allah,
through the Quran,
a world view that is not at loggerheads
with the phenomena that we see around us,
that we observe.
It's not at loggerheads with it. Sometimes there's
more to reality than what our eyes can
see.
But we are not expected to say that
what our eyes see is not real,
that what we observe is not real.
So here we have there is no Adwa,
no contagion.
There is no,
evil omen
or bad omens.
There is no bad omens in
in Owls. There is no bad omen in
the month of Safar.
So what Rasulullah SAWSAWA is doing there, he's
negating
things that superstitious beliefs that the Arabs held
in the time of Jahiliyyah.
People nowadays
I mean, you maybe know better than me.
Do people still hold superstitious beliefs in terms
of the direction which are owl flies?
I never heard of it in my life.
Although, Alan, maybe it's used the case. I've
heard of stuff like salt falling, and get
under, leather, and stuff like that. But
Rasoolullah SAWSAW doesn't address those.
Maybe there's a bad omen in a cat
walking under a ladder or salt falling up.
No.
That's what I understand you. That's what I
understand,
addressed the issue of superstition
using the manifestations of that that were applicable
to his context.
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
Us understanding this hadith of Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam, in light of our context,
would be that any superstitions held by people
in our time, those should also be,
negated.
Those should also be negated.
Why?
You see,
the belief of these people was that all
of these phenomena, these bad omens, how the
owl flies, etcetera, how the stars move, that
is going to affect
reality.
That, in and of itself, is going to
affect reality. And that's why Rasulullah SAWSAW
also negates contagion of it. Contagion
contagion isn't in and of itself a superstition.
And that's why, if you look at the
qualification in the in the next part of
the hadith,
There, it is a qualification there.
There's no qualification in relation to ad omens,
in relation to the owls, in relation to
the month of suffer. But there is a
qualification in relation
to contagion. That is what when you see
a leaper,
when you come in contact with a leaper,
remove yourself from there.
Why? Why would I remove myself from the
leaper?
There's no contagion, isn't there? Why would I
remove myself from the leaper?
So that indicates to us that very same
hadith indicates to us, no. There is some
kind of reality
to contagion.
It's not an intrinsic reality,
but it is a reality.
Right? So what do we mean by that?
What do we mean by that? We mean
that contagion.
Is not
a is not a necessary reality.
For example, if I come into a per
contact with a person that has leprosy, or
if I come into contact with a person
that even for that matter has COVID,
and
the virus
gets transferred from that person to me,
It's not the virus in and of itself
that can affect me,
or that can infect me.
Not in and of itself.
It can do that, but only if Allah
wills.
Only if Allah wills. It's not a necessary,
reality.
It is only so by the design of
Allah because Allah allowed for certain things to
have a relationship
of causality with other things.
And it can also happen in every specific
scenario if Allah wills.
If Allah wills.
Okay? And that's what that second part of
the hadith tells us. Yes. Anwar is not
intrinsically real,
but it is real as part of the
design of Allah. That's why you leave the
leeper. That's why you run away from the
leeper. Now there are other interpretations of the
hadith.
Some,
some scholars interpret this Hadith to mean
that
you must run away from the leaper like
you run away from the lion. Because
if you find yourself
if you find yourself
in the presence of a leper,
and then you become affected with leprosy,
then that may make you believe that there
is such a thing as Adwa, and that's
problematic for your faith.
That's why they say you must run away
from the deeper.
Others say no.
We believe in in cause and effect, not
as as an intrinsically real thing,
but as part of the design of Allah.
So why we must live from the leeper,
is because
that leprosy can pass to me.
Not by itself. Not by the leprosy having
its own agency to actually,
affect me. No. But because the design of
Allah necessitates or dictates
that certain things bring about certain effects by
the will of Allah.
Like, nobody denies nobody denies us in relation
to most phenomena in the world.
The relationship of causality.
When you create a fire,
do you expect it to be heat?
Yes. We expect it to be heat.
That's why we tell our children, don't put
your hand in the fire. If we didn't
expect it to be heat, we'll let them
put their hand in the fire.
We tell our children, don't put your hand
in the fire, because we expect when there's
fire, there is heat. So we're saying that
the fire causes
heat. However,
if one truly believes that in in in
the iman, that the fire causes the heat,
in and of itself,
that is shit.
According to the majority of the traditional scholars
of Islam, that is shirk. If you believe
that the fire in and of itself with
its own ability, without any permission of Allah,
causes heat,
then that's they say that's shirk What
they say is no.
In relation to Allah,
fire is a creation,
and heat is a creation of Allah. Allah
creates the fire, and Allah creates heat.
But Allah also created this a design, and
that design is that is the relationship
created by Allah between fire and heat.
That we usually,
the norm of Allah, the Adah of Allah,
is that when he creates fire, he creates
heat as well.
Now what indicates to the fact that that's
not a necessary relationship?
We have instances
informed by the Quran
that there are cases of fire that didn't
burn.
Allah tells us of Ibrahim, alayhis salam,
where Allah
says to the fire,
oh, fire be cool upon Ibrahim
So there we had a fire, a huge
fire, in fact,
that didn't bring about burning,
or that didn't bring about heat.
If heat was a necessary,
effect
of fire,
then that fire would have had to have
burnt.
No matter what Allah wanted, or anyone wanted.
So we don't believe like that. We say
no.
The the relationship of causality that we observe,
it exists, but it only exists because of
the design of Allah. It doesn't exist in
and of itself.
If Allah didn't will for there to be
a relationship between heat and fire, there wouldn't
be a relationship between heat and fire. All
of it is the design of Allah. And
that is the, the view of the majority
of Allah Mahbakeda. And so they say we
apply the same to contagion. Yes. We negate
contagion as an intrinsic reality. That one virus
can can can harm you. No. Nothing can
harm you. Not even a virus. It cannot
harm you. If it if it touches you,
if it befools you, even if it gets
into your body, it cannot harm you.
Except if Allah wills.
Except if Allah wills. But the design of
Allah tells us that, usually, when the virus
gets inside you, it's going to infect you,
and it's and you're going to be harmed.
Not because the virus does it in and
of itself, but because that is how Allah
designed things.
Things. Right? And this is how we say
that when somebody
takes precaution
against
when somebody takes precaution
against
some harmful
cause,
that does not go against the iman infected.
That is the dictate
of the iman in the design of Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
That's the dictate of the recognition
that Allah has a norm.
And I am not so arrogant to think
that Allah must change his norm for me
all the time. No. Allah changes his norms
on very, very, very rare occasions
for the
and for
the when they have either
or Karamat.
Right?
But other than that, we live our life
according to that system of cause and evict
effect, which comes about on a core on
account of the design of Allah.
We don't go,
sit at home, and expect,
a risk to come away. No. We know
that Allah created a a relationship
between
effort putting effort to earn and actually getting
risk.
We don't expect ourselves to become
refreshed and to get a rest
whilst remaining awake all the time. We know
that Allah
created a relationship, of course, and effect between
sleep and rest.
We don't expect
to become nourished
without
eating.
Because we know that Allah created a relationship,
of course, and effect between nourishment and eating.
Similarly, we apply the same exact
standard
to contagion.
If it were
if it were
that we applied the reasoning that some people
would have a supply,
to contagion, to all of those other things,
then we should say
that believing that if I eat, I'm gonna
get nourished. And if I sleep, I'm gonna
get rest. And if I go out to
earn a living, I'm going to earn a
living.
We should say that that person is actually
doing kufar,
but we don't say that.
And so the same,
the same thinking applies to the contagion. All
that Rasulullah
was was doing in indicating contagion here is
he was indicating
contagion as a necessary
reality.
Right? Because of superstitions that people had in
the time of Jahili.
Right? And that is indicated by the differentiation
that Rasulullah
makes. He make he doesn't qualify any of
the other ones. Piara, Hamma, Safa. He doesn't
qualify any of them, but he does qualify
contagion by saying that you should take precaution.
What's that precaution? Remove yourself from the vicinity
of the,
of the.
Hold on now. Can I say something?
Sure, mister.
Can we go back to that first, please?
The Hadith?
Yeah. That's Hadith.
Let's go.
Okay.
I'm just looking at the
grammar.
Okay. So there is
neither
contagion
nor bad omens, in fact, it is it's
followed but by but free from a leap,
Nadeep.
There's a connection between the 2. Why does
flee from a,
follow
contagion? What is the connection?
But if you look at the grammar,
there is
contagion,
and then you go to but flee.
So but is followed by the verb
flee, which makes the word but a pronoun,
and therefore, the pronoun of contagion.
In other words,
every contagion
you should flee from like you would flee
from Malika.
Now that's just a grammatical,
structure
as it is there. And I know it's
it's Arabic translated to English, but as it
is in the English,
that's that's the that's the that's the structure
there. Free from the contagion as you would
flee from the leaper,
from a leaper as you would flee from
a lion.
Right. Exactly. And and and, yeah, I want
to mention to you that in the understanding
of the Arabs, right,
applied to the Majdun.
Abdua
applied to the Majdun.
PRR didn't apply to the Majdun. Hamid didn't
apply to the Majdun. Safar didn't apply to
the Majdun, to the Lipa.
There there's only a relationship between Adwa and
Majdum.
That's why we understand
this second sentence, wafirah minal majdum mikamata firdum
minal Asad, as a qualification
specifically
for Adwa, not for any of the others.
Because there's no relationship between any of the
others. So we understand that this is very
Hadith. And this is indicated to us by,
by
some of them hadith here as well. The
great companion of Hadith,
Abu Huraira Radiallahu Anhi,
he would always
narrate the 2 Hadith together.
He would always narrate the Hadith
of there's no contagion.
What's the Hadith that speak about taking precaution?
That's the Hadith that yeah. Another Hadith we
might come across where where Rasoolan tells you
that if you're in a place where con
where where plague breaks out, then
do not leave that place.
Right?
And if you are not in that place,
then do not enter that place.
Abu Rehra radiAllahu Anhu would always narrate those
hadith together,
But there came a time,
you see, where the belief of superstition was
removed from the people, and people then clung
to this idea of there's no contagion whatsoever,
and then he stopped narrating
the part of the hadith that says no
contagion.
And he only narrated the part that indicated
that you must take precaution.
Because he said, look, Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihiem mentioned
this with a specific purpose,
was that people,
should not believe in contrarian as an intrinsic
reality.
But
they must not take precaution because it's a
reality by the design of Allah. So when
people started going to the other extreme, superstitious
out, now they want to believe in Allah,
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, like,
almost to the extent that they deny the
very design of Allah.
You stop narrating the part of the you
stop narrating the part of the hadith wherein,
you would say there's no contagion.
And you would only narrate to them the
part that says that they mistake
precaution.
Why? To show them that, yes,
contagion is not an intrinsic reality, but is
a reality by the design of Allah. And
what is necessary for you as a believer
is that you must act according to the
design of Allah.
Allah requires of you. Allah makes you
to act according to his design,
not
according to what is applicable to Allah.
You act according to the design of Allah.
We don't love your life expecting miracles,
or for Allah to deviate from the norm
at every moment for you. No. That's why
we act as,
as believers.
That was when Allah does depart from you,
no. Allah does that
as miracles that he gives to whomever so
whomsoever he wants to. You don't love expecting
miracles all the time.
I thought there was some benefit to be
had from it, and we can perhaps have
some more discussion with it next week inshallah.
But we're in there for
now.
I'm gonna leave this class now,
and I'm just gonna make someone
the host. You can have break for a
will come soon.
So I'm just gonna make someone host,
and then you can make
host when he comes, inshallah,
because I need to join the other class.