Ali Ataie – The Forgotten Fourth Lessons from the Hadith Jibril
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
This is Ali Atay.
I'm dean of undergraduate studies at Zetuna College
and associate professor.
The tradition of Gabriel or Hadith Jibril is
a foundational and iconic Hadith in our tradition.
It is a brilliant summation of this entire
religion.
I highly encourage people to memorize this hadith.
The entire hadith is less than 200 words.
That's less than the average American song, and
there are people who have hundreds of songs
memorized.
The hadith Jibril is a sound hadith authenticated
by Imam Muslim. It is hadith number 2
in the famous
of Imam An Nawawi.
Its narration in Sahih Muslim begins as follows.
So Sayidna Amar
said, one day while we were sitting with
the messenger of Allah, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
a man appeared before us, a man with
exceedingly
white clothes and exceedingly black hair. There were
no signs of travel upon him and none
of us recognized him.
Jibril alaihi sallam sits in front of the
prophet, sallallahu alaihi sallam, to the point where
his knees are touching the knees of the
prophet.
And then Jibril puts his hands on the
thighs of the prophet, sallallahu alaihi sallam,
and he says to the prophet, tell me
about Al Islam.
And so the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
says,
So then the prophet
said, and Islam is that you witness that
there is no God but Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala,
and that Muhammad sallallahu alaihi sallam is a
messenger of God, and that you establish the
prayer, you give charity,
you fast the month of Ramadan and that
you make pilgrimage to the house of Allah
Subhanahu wa ta'ala in Mecca, if you're able
to do that.
And then Gabriel said, that's right.
So then Omar said, that was surprising to
us. He's questioning him, and then he confirms
his answer.
And now Jibril alaihi salaam, he asked the
prophet
a second question. Tell me about al iman.
Now the linguistic meaning of iman is to
protect or safeguard oneself
so that the mummin billah is someone who
safeguards himself,
protects himself
by means of God.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is Al Mu'min,
the one who causes safety, the one who
gives protection.
Now iman is usually translated as faith in
this hadith, which is fine, but perhaps the
word confidence is more appropriate in our context.
The word confidence suggests that it's belief or
faith, if you wanna use that word,
belief that flows from reason,
from that which is rational. We believe because
of evidence. This is very important.
Faith and rationality are not opposites.
They're not antithetical.
Faith means to trust the evidence.
The opposite of rationality
is irrationality,
not faith, not iman. There is nothing irrational
in our religion. There is nothing irrational about
our faith. We are not fideous.
We don't discount reason to follow our feelings.
The opposite of faith is distrusting the evidence.
I have faith in Allah and His Messenger
because of evidence. When I was a kid,
I had Christian and Jewish, Jewish friends in
school. One side was telling me that Eisai
alai salam, Jesus peace be upon him, was
God. The other side was telling me that
Jesus was no one of particular importance.
Neither one of these positions made any sense
to me. Neither one of these was reasonable.
Jesus, peace be upon him, must have been
someone of consequence.
Look at his impact upon the world. But
God Himself,
didn't he eat and sleep? Wasn't his knowledge
limited?
When I was, 18, I read the Quran
for the first time and I learned that
Jesus, peace be upon him, was a great
prophet and human being in all respects.
This made sense to me. This was reasonable.
This was plausible historically. And at that moment
I felt iman enter into my heart,
iman that flowed from reason.
So the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said,
Al iman is to believe in Allah, in
his angels, in his scriptures, in his messengers
in the last day, meaning the day of
judgment, and to believe, and the prophet repeated,
and tukminah because quadr is difficult for people,
and to believe in the divine decree, it's
good and it's
evil. And all of these are reasonable beliefs.
Qala sadaq, and then Jibril alayhis salam said,
that's right.
The hadith Jibreel continues.
So then Jibril, alayhi, salam, asked the prophet
sallallahu alayhi wasallam a third question. Tell me
about spiritual excellent excellence.
And the response of the Prophet
is amazing. It's beautiful. It's
incredible.
He said that al Ihsan, spiritual excellence,
is to worship Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala as
though you can see Him. And if you
don't see Him, then know that He sees
you. And volumes can be written just on
this one statement.
Now oftentimes
when we hear this hadith read in speeches
or lectures or sermons,
the speaker will stop here as if this
is the end of the hadith. Three questions:
Islam, iman, ihsan, good
night. However,
Gabriel asked the prophet
a fourth question,
the forgotten 4th. So, qalaf akhbili anisa'a.
Tell me about the hour. So here, Gabriel
is asking the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam about
the greater hour, assa'atul kubra, also known as
the Day of Judgment. The prophet responded with,
the one being questioned knows no more than
the questioner. Malmasullo
anha bi a'laminasa'il.
No one knows exactly when the sa'a will
occur. There are only portents. There are only
signs and indications. The exact date is a
secret that that resides with Allah, Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala, alone.
Allah
says in the Quran,
They ask you concerning the hour. When will
it be established?
Say, Knowledge of this lies only with my
Lord, only he shall manifest it at its
proper time. And you know something very interesting,
in the earliest New Testament gospel, the gospel
of Mark, written around 70 of the Common
Era, the earliest canonical gospel,
The mark in Jesus, who most Christians believe
to be God, by the way, the mark
in Jesus himself admits that even he does
not know the hour. He confesses in Mark,
chapter 13,
verse 32.
He says, but concerning that day and the
hour,
u desoiden
in the original Greek,
nobody knows,
u de hoi andaloi, not even the angels
like Gabriel,
u dehahuias
nor the son referring to himself,
emi hapater, but only the father, only rapproul
agamin. Mark 13:32.
The prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam is the
final prophet of God and so he is
the first major sign of the greater hour.
He once held up these two fingers like
this and he said, anah wasa'a kahatein.
The hour and I are like this. This
was 1400 years ago,
which is a drop in the ocean of
human existence. But the point is made clear
the hour is close.
The dajjal, the imposter Messiah, is close. If
we have eyes and ears,
then this is very obvious.
If we look around what's happening to our
society right now,
we can only say sadaqah Rasool Allah, the
messenger has spoken truthfully.
His words are evidence.
The word evidence comes from videare
which means to see in Latin. We can
see with our eyes
what the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam predicted
would happen 1400 years ago. And because of
his words, our iman increases,
our confidence in this religion increases.
People are converting all over the West because
they can see the words of the prophet
coming true.
Now, if we return to the hadith of
Gabriel, we see that Gabriel continued to question
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, qalaf akhbirni
anamaratiha.
Tell me about the amarat of the hour,
that is the signs of the hour. And
the Prophet said,
He said, The slave girl will beget
her mistress,
and you will see the barefooted, naked, destitute
herdsmen
competing in the construction of tall buildings.
Now the second statement seems to indicate
that hutudunyah,
right, love of this world, will take root
even in the most unlikely of places.
But let's focus on the first part of
the Prophet's response, sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
He said, antari dan amutur abataha.
The slave girl will beget her mistress,
that is to say, will give birth to
her master. Of course, there are many ways
to interpret this statement. The prophet
was gifted with Jawamir'al Kallim wajawahir'alhekam,
speech comprehensive
in signification.
And inundated with sapiens, his words had this
polyvalence to them. The most obvious meaning is
that children will disobey and disrespect their parents.
And there are several reasons why this happens,
and it's almost always the parents' fault.
Adults in a household must maintain order. You
know, Abraham Lincoln said, quoting the Gospel of
Matthew, by the way, a house divided among
itself cannot stand.
So what are a few of these reasons
why this is happening? Well, number 1, making
false promises to your child.
You see, children don't tend to forget. If
you don't deliver on your promise as a
parent, then your child will begin to distrust
you. And if this happens enough times,
they will disrespect you. You ayuha ladinahamanu
lima taqulu lamalataf alun Allah
says, O you who believe, why do you
say that which you don't do?
Number 2, a lack of quality time. Children
seeking attention but get very little from their
parents.
A child who is deprived of his parents'
attention, even his parents' gaze,
because the parents are busy with the mundane
or the material,
that child will eventually force his parents to
pay attention to him with behavior that cannot
be ignored.
Number 3, the parents' bad attitude.
You know, if the mother and father in
the home are constantly arguing and fighting and
bickering,
that child will also manifest
a similar attitude.
So we live in a time where divorces
are rampant,
which was also predicted, by the way, by
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. We live in
a time when people are throwing divorce parties,
celebrating their divorces
on social media. We live in a time
in which our culture pits men and women
against each other in some strange gender based
struggle for power.
So listen closely.
Anything,
any person, any ideology,
okay, any worldview that causes hostilities to rise
between men and women is totally satanic.
The Prophet
said that the minions of Satan that are
nearest and dearest to him
are those who are most notorious
in creating dissension,
fitna.
You didn't do anything.
And then another minyan will say, Ma taraktuhu
hatahfaraktuhbeinahu
wa beinahimratihi.
I did not spare so and so until
I sowed seeds of discourse
between him and his wife.
And Satan will say, n'erma'unter,
good job.
Another interpretation offered by scholars in our time
is that the prophet's statement, the slave girl
will beget her mistress, indicates a complete
breakdown of normal society, the utter dismantling
of millennia old social orders and societal hierarchies.
In other words, social chaos.
This is a phenomenon that is happening right
now before our eyes. For those who have
eyes,
we have young self entitled cultural zealots shaking
their fists at 1000 of years of human
civilization
and traditional scholarship
and attempting to, construct some radical, egalitarian
utopia in this dunya by any means necessary.
So I want to quote something from the
Zaytuna College catalog,
which I highly encourage people to read, by
the way. This is under the title Bachelor's
Degree Liberal in Islamic Studies.
And this really highlights the importance and uniqueness
of a Zetuna College education. You know why
other colleges
and universities
are,
tearing down tradition and prioritizing activism over scholarship.
Seituna honors tradition, honors scholarship, solidifies religious devotion,
and produces intellectual warriors grounded in the liberal
arts, the arts of freedom.
So the catalog says, quote, the program, that
is the Zetuna undergraduate and graduate program by
extension,
the program aims to develop graduates,
who strive for a life of virtue,
who love and commit themselves to learning, and
who exhibit the characteristics
that inhere
in the Arabic term adab,
in the concept of education in, in Islam
by Saint Muhammad Nakhni Bal Atas,
he defines adab as, quote, the recognition
and acknowledgment
of the reality
that knowledge and being are ordered hierarchically
according to their various grades and degrees of
rank, and of one's proper place in relation
to that reality,
and to one's physical, intellectual, and spiritual capacities
and potentials.
So let me say that again, the recognition
and acknowledgment of the reality that knowledge and
being are ordered hierarchically.
So let's break this down a little.
Okay. To recognize something is to recognize
it. In other words, it is to rediscover
what we already know as being true. The
Quran is called a dhikr because we know
these truths in our
souls. Allah says
that the people of the book recognize the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam because his sifaat are
in their kutub. They recognize him,
like this perfect description in Isaiah chapter 42.
In this context, we already know inherently,
innately,
that all of existence is ordered and hierarchical.
This idea is built into us as human
beings.
To acknowledge something means to confess that truth,
to admit that truth,
so we recognize
and acknowledge
the reality that knowledge and being are ordered.
This is ada.
Of course, our current zeitgeist that we all
are up against advocates for a leveling of
knowledge and being. It destroys the vertical aspect
of reality
because it is based upon a purely
materialistic
and mechanistic
worldview.
In other words, part and parcel to the
spirit of this age is a destruction of
all hierarchy.
The word hierarchy comes from hieros and arche,
meaning sacred rule.
Hierarchies are effective.
They are tried and tested. They are mujarab.
They work. They are ordained by Allah and
his messenger.
The prophet
said
treat people according to their stations. This is
natural.
There's hierarchy in the workplace. There's hierarchy in
the military.
There's hierarchy in the family. Of course, the
very top of existence, as it were, at
the very summit of all being, is Allah
the sacred
ruler, the higher arkon,
al ali
When it comes to knowledge, Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala is al alim, the omniscient, the all
knowing. Allahu Akbar. Allah is greater. Allah is
the greatest.
Another major sign of the hour is the
coming of the imposter Messiah or Antichrist.
And I've mentioned this before as well, but
I want to mention this again because it
is very, very important.
The belief in the coming of the imposter
Messiah is an aspect of Islamic eschatology
that is often, unfortunately,
neglected. The prophet
warned us about his emergence due to the
prophet's profound concern for the well-being of his
nation.
The prophet is, in the words of Allah,
harisun alaykum bil muqmininar ra'ufur Rahim, deeply concerned
about you, kind and merciful
to the believers.
In an extraordinary hadith recorded in the sunan
of Abu Dawud, the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam is reported to have said, Mansami
abit dajjad
Let him who hears of the impostor Messiah
keep a distance from him. For I swear
by Allah that a man will come to
him thinking he's a firm believer
and end up following him because of confused
ideas, heretical matters, shubuhat,
roused in him by the impostor Messiah.
The imposter Messiah, and not just the actual
physical person, but the culture, the system, the
zeitgeist of the imposter Messiah,
raises shuphuhat in their religion, people will apostate
from their religion and follow the imposter Messiah,
because the imposter Messiah will confuse them and
cause them to doubt their religion. He will
raise suspicions concerning normative,
that is to say, traditional Islam.
He will attempt to redefine Islam and iman
and ihsan.
And we know that if words lose their
definitions,
then they can mean whatever we want
whatever makes us feel good. I once met
someone who identified himself as a pro choice
Catholic.
I said, that's interesting because the catechism and
magisterium of the Catholic church are very clear
on this issue. He said, I don't care.
So I said, can I be a Unitarian
Catholic? And I expected him to say yes
and then I had another question lined up
for him. But he actually said, No, you
cannot be a Unitarian Catholic. You must believe
in the Trinity.
So I said, Why as long as we're
picking and choosing,
As long as we're redefining things?
Why can't Catholic mean whatever I want it
to mean?
Well, then it means nothing.
No, religions have normative definitions. And here's another
word that postmodern people really dislike, normative.
That is to say, normal.
What is normative Islam? We can answer this
question by asking another question.
What does Islam clearly say about itself?
What are the plain and obvious meanings of
the Quran and sunnah?
What are those things that are ma'aloom in
the deen? What are those commandments in the
Quran that are qata'i, definitive?
This is the normative tradition.
The modern world wants to destroy definitions. The
word definition comes from de infinis,
meaning towards an end of something. The word
in Arabic is had. Right? And had means
a parameter, hudud, a boundary.
In Greek, the word for definition is harismos.
A harismos was a boundary stone that was
used to demarcate property.
It defines
it finds the limit of someone's property.
If definitions are destroyed, then anything can mean
anything, and this is happening right now on
a massive scale. Even words like man and
woman, marriage, family, even beauty and virtue
are becoming more and more difficult to define.
The Prophet
said,
Nothing will remain of this religion. There will
come a time when nothing will remain of
this religion except its name. It's like a
plastic apple, right? It's an apple. We call
it apple, but the essence of apple is
nowhere to be found.
Now one of the ways in which we
can protect ourselves from such antichristic influence
is to establish the prayer.
Remember how the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
defined
Islam
Right? It's to witness there's no God but
Allah, and the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
is a messenger of Allah, And to establish
the prayer, not just to pray,
but to establish it, iqamatu
salah make it the pillar of our lives.
A salah to our imaduddin.
The word for prayer, salah, is related to
the word silah, or connection.
You see, the prayer is our connection to
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. The worst thing we
can do during these times is disconnect ourselves
from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Abandoning the prayer leaves us wide open for
attack.
Let us not render ourselves low hanging fruit
for the culture of the imposter Messiah, a
culture which advocates a myopic worldview,
a worldview in which this world is all
there is, a worldview where the only thing
that matters is matter,
a materialistic and hedonistic worldview
of absolute autonomy,
that is complete self rule, egolatry,
worship of the self, something that looks like
paradise, but in reality leads to the fire.
Here's another quote from the Zaytunah College catalog:
Muslims are committed in the normative tradition to
the moderate realism to a moderate realism not
dissimilar to what occurs in the Catholic tradition.
An undeniable mystical dimension exists alongside this approach
and has a heavy influence upon the tradition,
but is analogous
to, Newtonian and quantum physics.
While appearing mutually exclusive, they nonetheless operate upon
different planes,
something the Islamic tradition refers to as varying
degrees of existence,
maratid algujood.
So at the quantum level, just to give
you an example, there's something called quantum tunneling.
Right? This doesn't happen at the Newtonian level,
at least not normally.
But somehow both levels work together. These marativ
work together.
Another example is the qadr of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala.
Right? On the one hand, Allah's decree and
limited human volition on the other hand, or
free will. There is only an apparent contradiction,
but in reality,
these levels work together. Another example, what happened
to Qaumulut?
Well, according to the secular archaeologists
like Doctor. Christopher Moore, a meteor probably burst
through our atmosphere
and exploded about 3 miles above Sodom and
Gomorrah, raining down fiery debris.
That's probably
what happened.
Okay, but why?
You see, that is the deeper question.
That is the more profound question.
It's not just this explanatory
monism, as John Haught calls it. We wear
the bifocals
of reason and revelation,
aqal and nakal. These work together.
The Quran tells us that Allah
spoke to our master Musa alayhis salam. Allah
said, indeed, I am Allah. There is no
god save me, So worship me and establish
the prayer
for my remembrance.
So after introducing himself to Musa, alayhis salam,
as the only god and commanding Moses to
worship him, Allah
commands Moses
not simply to pray, but to establish the
prayer, make the prayer the pillar of his
life.
Such is the importance of the canonical prayers.
Then Allah
spoke to Musa
shall be requited,
what it strove.
In other ahadith of varying grades, the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam also spoke of the prevalence
of massive violence
and sudden death to occur towards the end
of time, the prevalence of sexual degeneracy leading
to unprecedented
epidemics.
He said that women will walk around in
public naked yet clothed. He spoke of a
time when men will marry other men, when
fornication will be in public,
and when illegitimate children will wreak havoc. He
said people will be suffocated by usury. He
said music will be heard everywhere, and all
kinds of alcohol will become prevalent. He said
time will become short,
sacred knowledge will be withdrawn, temptations will emerge,
extreme avarice
avarice will descend, and haraj will prevail. And
the companions asked, what is haraj? And he
said, utter brutality
and bloodshed. The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
advised us as to how to protect ourselves
from the imposter messiah. So Abu Darda, radiAllahu
anhu, reported and this hadith is in Sahih
Muslim, man hafidha ashera ayatin minawood suratul kaf
ursima minat dajjal, that whoever memorizes the first
ten verses
of Surat Al Kahf will be protected from
the Antichrist.
He also reported, and this is in Atirmidi,
mannqara athalatha ayatin min Awalal kahf Ursima min
fitnatit tijal, that whoever just recites 3 verses
from the beginning of Suratul Kahf is protected
from the dissension of the antichrist.
He also said, sallallahu alaihi sallam,
That he said, if the imposter messiah emerges
and I am among you, then I will
contend with him on your behalf.
But if he emerges and I am not
among you, then every person must contend for
himself.
Wallahu Musta'an
And there's another way to translate this. If
the imposter Messiah emerges, and I am in
you, Wa Anafiqum,
then I will contend with him on your
behalf. The Quran says wa ana mu ana
fiqum rasul Allah.
1 of my teachers said that fiqum could
also mean that we have internalized the love
of the Prophet in our hearts, the reverence
of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam in our
hearts, the beauty and majesty of the Prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam in our hearts, the teachings
and sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
in our hearts, that if he sallallahu alaihi
wasallam is hayyunfiqulubina,
is alive in our hearts, then indeed the
Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is contending
on our behalf. The blessed hadith Jibril ends
with Sayyidina Umar
saying,
Then he left and I stayed for a
while. Thumaqalali,
you Umar atajri manis Sa'in. Then the prophet
said, Oh Umar, do you know who the
questioner was?
And I said, Allah and His Messenger know
best. And then he said,
you animukum deenakum.
Indeed, it was Gabriel who came to you
to teach you your religion. May Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala help us protect us and accept
our efforts. Ameen. And don't forget to support
Zaytuna College.
If you haven't done so already, join the
12,000 Strong initiative.
Our young people need this college, and we
need your support.