Suhaib Webb – A Hadith That Most People Do Not Know Many Scholars Considered Weak and Dangerous
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AI: Transcript ©
The differences that you find in religions,
while Milal and dogmas.
And then the Ummah of the prophet
in different groups
into different parties and groups. What we see
now,
He said that this issue
of the differences of religion and then the
interfaith differences
that you find amongst the Muslim community
is an endless,
bottomless,
deep
ocean
that most people drown in.
And only a few people were able to
be saved from it.
It. Because everyone in the groups, they think
they're the right group, as Allah
says,
that every group assume that they're on the
truth.
And And this is where we're gonna stop.
And he said, and this actually is amplified
by the hadith of the prophet, the truthful
one. Sallallahu
alaihi
wa sallam
that the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is reported
to have said that that my Ummah is
going to divide into 73 *.
Only one of them
will be saved.
This hadith
as we finish today insha Allah is
perhaps one of the most difficult text and
irresponsibly used text by Muslims who have very
little training in the science of hadith and
in the basic understanding of Islam. First
of all,
we're going to look at this hadith. And
the reason I'm spending time explaining this hadith
to you because I think it's important for
you to know because I remember
later on as I moved away from Oklahoma
and I started to engage in MSAs,
I saw
MSA after MSA
after MSA
divided,
split, and wrecked. Even I saw masajid
with people using this hadith.
What's always been interesting to me is
that the one quoting the hadith is the
one who thinks they're safe.
This
is the interesting part, right, before we engage.
And Imam Ashaltabi,
he says something amazing about this Hadith, even
though he considered it a good Hadith going
against the majority of her father.
And he said that even if you believe
this hadith is right, it is not allowed
to label people like 68, 43,
32.
I remember once in San Diego, California,
I was in a masjid, and there was
an old gentleman. I was sitting next to
him, and people would walk by, and he
would go like this,
46.
And, you know, the new Muslim, you're kinda
scared. You don't wanna say nothing. I don't
know what's going on, it's something I haven't
learned yet, I'm just gonna shut up.
Then someone else would walk by,
53.
Did someone else walk by,
19.
So I say, hey.
I'm sorry
to to ask you, but,
like,
did I miss something? Is there some kind
of right to Jum'ah
that I missed as the convert guy?
He said, yeah, you know the hadith?
About 736?
I labeled
I labeled everyone in the Masjid
according to their sect. And I'm I'm practicing,
remembering who's who.
So then, of course, I couldn't resist. I
was a little bold when I was young.
I said,
what number are you?
What do you think he said?
What do you think he said?
What do you guys think he said? I
said
to him,
What number are you, man?
He said,
I'm number 1.
So then I said,
what number am I?
He said, you don't wanna know. I said,
good thing. Thank you.
Have a nice day bro.
This hadith
actually is extremely weak
for a number of reasons that you should
know. So you can at least
try to work to bring some
unity to the Muslim community when people try
to use this hadith.
First of all, this hadith is not mentioned
by Imam Al Bukhari or Imam Muslim in
their Sahih.
And when
and Muslim agree on not mentioning something,
it is understood
that it did not reach that level of
authenticity. Doesn't mean it's weak,
but it did not pass their
criteria for being
the most authentic.
It is related by Imam Ahmed. It's related
by Imam Abu Dawood,
great whole father of Hadith, Imam
and others. And Sayidina Imam Materidi actually said
Hassan al Sahih. We're gonna talk about it
in a second.
In his chapter on
and with and Hakim. And Hakim, of course,
although he was trying to write a book
of hadith that did not reach the that
that Bukhari and Muslim did not collect that
met their criteria,
he wasn't able to finish,
his book.
The second thing is that we find a
lot of different wordings of this hadith. And
this is important for you to know that
when a hadith has too many wordings that
make it impossible
to make them
con
it's the word I'm thinking in English.
Like, you can't get them to conform.
So this is called you may wanna write
this down.
Meaning the wording
sometimes is completely contradictory.
So for example, that's why the Malekis, the
Hadith that the prophet said
before he opened his his prayer, then you
find the same person or another narration saying,
he never said before he opened his prayer.
Like, what are you gonna do with that?
Did he or did he not?
So if we look at the different narrations
of this hadith, we find very rarely do
any of them agree on one wording.
Specifically,
the last part. They agree on the first
part about division. They don't
agree on the last part.
So, for example,
like what I am upon
and my companions.
You find that in one of the narrations.
Another narration you find
All of them are in the * except
1 and this is the jamaah. You find
another narration,
all of them are in the hellfire except
1. What I'm teaching you now is not
something, unfortunately, should be taught at MSAs, man,
but we have to be careful. There is
certainly a place for entertainment and fun in
college life that should make up the bulk
of college life. Right? Because you got no
bills.
But at the same time, unless you are
me, at the same time, you gotta learn,
man.
Right? You you you you my teacher used
to say he used to say, I had
a teacher who was tough. He's like, what
are you doing? He's like, I'm chilling. He's
like, you're gonna chill till you thaw in
*.
Woah. Okay. I'm not chilling.
Right? I'm not chilling. So, the first is
that the wordings
are
impossible to bring into conformity.
This is called Iltirab
and it's a source of weakness in a
hadith, a serious problem.
The second thing is that
we find that as I mentioned earlier,
this hadith actually even in its chain of
narrations, we find sometimes there's a break in
the chain. Sometimes the narrator is unknown.
Things that cause the chain also to experience
problems.
The third problem is from a perspective of
because
doesn't Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in the Quran
call us
that we are the best
but if you take this hadith, it means
that we are worse than those who came
before us.
And there's a great statement of I wrote
it here somewhere. 1 of the early scholars
about this that I will try to find
that talks about like,
you know, the the the the of the
prophet
The 4th, and I didn't get into this.
It's a little complicated, but we find that
a large majority of scholars from the past
and now even in the present
wrote critical
analysis
of the chain
of the wording
and the meaning
of this hadith.
For example, Imam Ibn Wazir al Yemeni,
he actually wrote a a poem about it.
He said,
be careful of the hadith that everyone is
in the fire except 1.
So Arusha is saying, I have a question.
Oh, no, it's not Arusha.
No, no.
Sorry. I have a question from someone that
says, like, do you think that since a
lot of Islamic knowledge has been passed down
through a man that some Hadith interpretations are
flawed by patriarchal viewpoints.
So I do think that that's a possibility.
You know, Imam ibn Hazem, one of the
interesting points about him is that when he
wrote a chapter on menstruation, he said, I
went and asked women. I don't know what
it's like to menstruate.
So I don't think that those individuals were
necessarily patriarchal in their time. Patriarchy wasn't under.
We're looking at now, hindsight's 2020.
But I do think we can be critical
of interpretations,
which are seen now
as going against the generality and beauty of
Islam
and oftentimes are invoking. And this is something
else the person I can't see.
My glasses are not good. That
that the,
sometimes in the books of Tafsir, stories are
taken from Jews and Christians
and their sources
which has doctor Ingrid Madison has brilliantly talked
about, actually take women farther back than what
Islam intended
for them. So there is the interpretational
challenge of not having
women looking at those texts and sharing a
woman's reflection.
And then also there's a sourcing challenge.
And and
I, you know,
I understand
the climate that we're in.
I don't necessarily think people meant like they
had ill intent. I just think that's the
problem of their age.
Right? That's a problem of their age. And
it's on us to rectify those things.
And and and we talked a little bit,
I think, about that, last evening.
So,
he writes a poem. He says, right?
The other thing that's interesting about this hadith
is doesn't the prophet call him
like my will divide.
So, if someone is from the of the
prophet
the prophet is saying, this is my
Are they gonna go to *? Just think
about the wording,
umati, my ummah,
umma,
my community.
The
umma are those here,
the specific meaning who follow
him.
And finally, because I'm sure people wanna attend
the Sheikh Aisha Prime's amazing program tonight.
There are some scholars
who state that the meaning and and here's
the statement of
about this. He said
That actually that's the word
implies that these people have not left Islam.
Because the prophet said his so they're not
And finally, and this is a very profound
interpretation. I heard from one of my teachers
and also I've I've read in some of
the classical books
that Ummah here actually means the Ummah of
Christians and Jews
who will live during the time of the
prophet
until the end of time.
The Christians and Jews of my
my, period.
But using this hadith
to attack
fellow Muslims
and to label fellow Muslims
is agreed upon up until around 200 years
ago
amongst a minority of people, a minority of
of individuals,
the majority of Ahlus Sunnah
have not used this hadith
in a way to label, destroy and dismantle
the community.