9 Islamic articles on: hadith criticism

Does God really laugh? A study of the hadiths on God’s laughter

A review of Livnat Holtzman’s article “Does God Really Laugh? Appropriate and Inappropriate Descriptions of God in Islamic Traditionalist Theology.”1

There are a few hadith narrations that mention the laughter of God, which is something not mentioned in the Quran. One of the best-known hadiths mentioning God’s laughter is the following from Abū Hurayra:

So Allah will bring him near to the gate of Paradise, and when he sees what is in it, he will remain silent as long as Allah will, and then he will say, 'O Lord! Let me enter Paradise.' Allah will say, 'Didn't you promise that you would not ask Me for anything other than that? Woe to you, O son of Adam ! How treacherous you are!' On that, the man will say, 'O Lord! Do not make me the most wretched of Your creation,' and will keep on invoking Allah till Allah will laugh and when Allah will laugh because of him, then He will allow him to enter Paradise, and when he will enter Paradise, he will be addressed, 'Wish from so-and-so.' He will wish till all his wishes will be fulfilled, then Allah will say, All this (i.e. what you have wished for) and as much again therewith are for you.' " Abu Huraira added: That man will be the last of the people of Paradise to enter (Paradise).

Sahih al-Bukhari 6573

As part of my review of Livnat Holtzman’s article, I decided to do a quick survey of the major hadith collections (including the Musnad) for hadiths that mention the word yaḍḥaku (“he laughs”), I then gathered all of the hadiths that use this word in reference to God. Below is the result:

According to my probabilistic hadith verification methodology, here are the reliability indicators of the hadiths:

  • Abū Hurayra 22.7%
  • Abū Hurayra 26.5%
  • Jābir b. ʿAbdallāh 10.88%
  • Abū Razīn 5.85%
  • Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī 1.94%
  • Nuʿaym b. Hammār 4.66%

The strongest hadith is the second one at 26.5% which falls between ḥasan and ṣaḥīḥ in my methodology (ṣaḥīḥ starts at 30%).

We can then do a final step to combine all of these probabilities. Since we are combining different hadiths, each probability is first halved.

1−((1−0.227)(1−0.265)(1−0.1088)(1−0.585)(1−0.0194)(1−0.0466)) = 0.803547688

(0.227+0.265+0.1088+0.585+0.0194+0.0466)÷6 = 0.208633333

(0.803547688+0.208633333)÷2 = 0.5061

The result is that all of these hadiths together have a probability of 50.6% that the crux of their meaning is authentic, which is much higher than the 30% necessary for ṣaḥīḥ. So the conclusion is that the support for God’s laughter is quite strong in the hadith literature. Note that this is only a partial survey, a complete survey will likely enhance this probability upwards of 60%.

Interpreting God’s laughter

The Ashʿarite theologians considered it problematic to attribute laughter to God, so they reinterpreted God’s laughter as a reference to His mercy. The traditionalists (the major group of them being the Ḥanbalites), however, considered reinterpretation unacceptable, so they taught that God’s laughter should be interpreted literally even if we do not exactly understand its nature.

Below is a statement of creed (ʿaqīda) attributed to Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (d. 855 CE, after whom the Ḥanbalī school is named) and mentioned by Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya in his Hādī al-arwāḥ (The guide of souls):

We believe that God sits on His throne. However, He is not confined to limitations of space. We believe that God sees and hears and talks and laughs and is joyful.

The hadith scholar Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wāḥid (d. 1149 CE), when asked about God’s laughter, said that it is hypocrisy and apostasy to attempt to interpret it.

The Ḥanbalī scholar Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 1201 CE) criticized members of his own school for believing that God laughs until His molar “teeth” can be seen (as is narrated in a weak narration). He says that the anthropomorphic descriptions of God found in the Quran and Hadith (such as God having “hands” or laughing) were only intended to help new converts to Islam connect with God. Had God been described to them theologically as not being a body, not being in any place, having no dimension, and not moving, the new converts would have become perplexed and unable to relate to Him.

So Ibn al-Jawzī takes a path similar to the Ashʿarites in interpreting God’s laughter metaphorically, as referring to His mercy and grace.

Ibn Taymiyya’s interpretation of God’s laughter

The most interesting contribution of Holtzmann’s article is her discussion of Ibn Taymiyya’s views on the issue. Whenever we see Ibn Taymiyya apply his vast intellect to a question, we can be sure to hear something original and interesting.

According to Ibn Taymiyya, it is wrong to consider laughter an imperfection in God as the theologians do. A person who laughs is more perfect than a person who cries. And a person who is capable of both love and hatred is more perfect than a person who is only capable of love. Part of perfection is to have the ability to respond to each situation in the most appropriate way possible.

Here he uses the same technique that he used to overturn Islamic theological orthodoxy and show that a God who acts in time is superior to a God who does not (see my essay Reconciling Free Will and Predestination in Islam with al-Māturīdī and Ibn Taymiyya). As Jon Hoover shows in his Ibn Taymiyya’s Theodicy of Perpetual Optimism, Ibn Taymiyya is dedicated to a juristic agenda whose first principle is to always seek to find ways to think of and describe God in the most perfect way possible.

So according to Ibn Taymiyya, while we should not attempt to exactly understand God’s laughter, we should also avoid the theological mistake of thinking that something that is imperfect in humans is imperfect when applied to God. Laughter can be a perfection for God. It is just one of the numerous ways in which His perfection becomes manifest to humans.

IslamQA: Who decides if a hadith is authentic or not?

Salamalaikum, could you please give a layperson like me an understanding of how the hadiths are classed. I see terms like sahih for Bukhari and Muslim, but then there are others that are also considered sahih but are not listed in Bukhari and Muslim. What is hasan? what is daeef(sp?)? and who determines the lesser known hadiths are sahih or hasan? Is that a majority opinion? Jazakallah khairun

Alaikumassalam wa rahmatullah,

Sahih al-Bukhari and Muslim are simply two handbooks written for legal scholars. They bring together authentic hadiths that are useful for a legal scholar to know. They are not meant to be complete encyclopedias of hadith. All hadith scholars are qualified to determine the authenticity of hadiths. Al-Bukhari and Muslim are just better known than the others. Each hadith scholar can make their own sahih collection, for example there is Sahih Ibn Hibban.

The word ṣaḥīḥ refers to a hadith that has a good enough quality (text and chain of narrators) to be considered very likely to be truly from the Prophet PBUH. 

The word ḥasan refers to a hadith that is not good enough to be considered ṣaḥīḥ (it may have some half-trustworthy transmitters), but it is considered good enough to be considered possibly authentic.

ḍaʿīf (”weak”) hadith is one that comes from untrustworthy transmitters so it is considered likely to be false/fabricated.

IslamQA: Islam and magic

Salamalaikum, I really appreciate you taking the time to answer the questions posed to you with so much in depth research (my earlier ones included). May Allah reward you. To my questions, what are the signs/indications of magic done on a person or household. And if black magic is something we Muslims believe can happen? If so, is a general dua and asking for Allah's help the prescribed remedy or are there specific surahs? Jazakallah khair

Alaikumassalam wa rahmatullah,

The most important hadith we have on magic is the following:

Narrated Aisha:
that Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) was affected by magic, so much that he used to think that he had done something which in fact, he did not do, and he invoked his Lord (for a remedy). Then (one day) he said, "O Aisha!) Do you know that Allah has advised me as to the problem I consulted Him about?" Aisha said, "O Allah's Messenger (ﷺ)! What's that?" He said, "Two men came to me and one of them sat at my head and the other at my feet, and one of them asked his companion, 'What is wrong with this man?' The latter replied, 'He is under the effect of magic.' The former asked, 'Who has worked magic on him?' The latter replied, 'Labid bin Al-A'sam.' The former asked, 'With what did he work the magic?' The latter replied, 'With a comb and the hair, which are stuck to the comb, and the skin of pollen of a date-palm tree.' The former asked, 'Where is that?' The latter replied, 'It is in Dharwan.' Dharwan was a well in the dwelling place of the (tribe of) Bani Zuraiq. Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) went to that well and returned to Aisha, saying, 'By Allah, the water (of the well) was as red as the infusion of Hinna, (1) and the date-palm trees look like the heads of devils.' Aisha added, Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) came to me and informed me about the well. I asked the Prophet, 'O Allah's Messenger (ﷺ), why didn't you take out the skin of pollen?' He said, 'As for me, Allah has cured me and I hated to draw the attention of the people to such evil (which they might learn and harm others with).' " Narrated Hisham's father: Aisha said, "Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) was bewitched, so he invoked Allah repeatedly requesting Him to cure him from that magic)." Hisham then narrated the above narration. (See Hadith No. 658, Vol. 7)

Sahih al-Bukhari 6391

I conducted a study of all existing versions of this hadith. Below is a diagram of the result:

The result is that this hadith has a 28.3% chance of authenticity which makes it fall between ḥasan and ṣaḥīḥ (ṣaḥīḥ starts at 30%) according to my methodology (which I discuss here). So this hadith has a high chance of being true and authentic, although it is far below 85% which is necessary to establish a hadith beyond doubt (making it mutawātir or widely-transmitted).

So my personal opinion is that this hadith is not strong enough to worry about (too much). But it is strong enough to convince us not to completely discard the possibility that magic may befall a person in this way.

The Quran also alludes to the possibility of being harmed by magic in chapter 113:

1. Say, “I take refuge with the Lord of Daybreak.

2. From the evil of what He created.

3. And from the evil of the darkness as it gathers.

4. And from the evil of those who practice sorcery (literally "those who blow on knots.")

5. And from the evil of an envious one when he envies."

As for signs that show that someone has been harmed by magic–I have not been able to find any hadiths that mention it. Muslims should always seek medical help for their illnesses since we can never be sure that an illness has a mystical or natural basis, and since we have no guidance on how to distinguish between the two, and since we do not have many hadiths or Quranic verses about it, this tells us that magic is not something we should worry about as an everyday thing.

As for protection, the best thing would be to recite the Quran daily and strive to be a good Muslim in order to enjoy God’s protection from all harms.

Probablistic Hadith Verification: Combining the Science of Hadith with Legal Theory

A Quick Preview

Let us say we are faced with two hypothetical authentic (i.e. ṣaḥīḥ) hadiths from a respected collection such as Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, with the following chain diagrams, and we are trying to decide which hadith is stronger and better attested. The first hadith below has four transmitters (the four on the right), all of whom narrate from a single transmitter, who narrates from a Companion:

The second hadith has six transmitters, who transmit their hadiths from different chains going back to two Companions:

(For the sake of the example, we are assuming all of the transmitters are of the same quality, though the method can account for transmitters of varying qualities too).

When faced with comparing two such hadiths, it can be very difficult to decide which hadith is higher in quality when it comes to its isnād. The first hadith has “only” four chains, but the transmitters are only one generation removed from the Companions. Meanwhile, the second hadith has six chains, but the hadith’s transmitters are either two generations or three generations removed.

The second hadith goes back to two Companions, which seems to make it more trustworthy than the first hadith, which goes back to only one Companion. Yet the first hadith’s transmitters are only one generation removed from a Companion, compared to the second hadith’s two or three generation remove. How do we make sense of this situation so that we can decide which hadith is actually stronger?

The method described in this essay provides a mathematical method to precisely combine the strength of all of the chains of a particular hadith in order to assign it a single number that tells what strength all those differing chains amount to. The method does not introduce any new information to the science of hadith, it is merely a convenient “calculator” that hadith scholars (and other researchers) can use that can be replicated by others, making the act of judging hadiths a matter of measurement and replication, rather than a matter for hunches and appeals to the fame and authority of this or that person.

As it happens, in the above example the first hadith is somewhat stronger, having a score of 35%, compared with the second hadith’s score of 30%. As will be shown, relatively few hadiths, including ṣaḥīḥ ones, reach above 30% in their scores, so both of the hadiths are reasonably strong and well worth using in legal judgments.

Introduction

The study of hadith has been by and large restricted to hadith scholars. In this essay I present a fundamentally new approach to the study of hadith that combines the disciplines of traditional hadith criticism with uṣul al-fiqh (legal theory). For over a millennium, scholars of legal theory have discussed what makes certain hadiths mutawātir, or true beyond doubt, but these discussions have unfortunately been almost entirely ignored by hadith scholars. By combining legal theory with hadith criticism, we gain a powerful new empirical tool for judging the authenticity of hadiths that enables fiqh scholars to tap the vast resources of the science of hadith while implementing the long-neglected field of legal theory in the way hadiths are handled.

Counting the number of chains that a hadith possesses has been a traditional method of determining the strength of one hadith compared to another. Another method has been to determine the length of a chain. Hadiths with shorter chains were highly prized due to their higher authenticity. This method integrates both of these concepts: Hadiths with more chains and shorter chains receive higher percentage rankings than hadiths with fewer chains or shorter chains.

From binary to analog

It is rarely mentioned in scholarly circles and among the rest of the Muslim community that the categories that hadiths are placed into by hadith scholars, such as ṣaḥīḥ, are artificial, made-up categories. Some ṣaḥīḥ hadiths are vastly superior in their authenticity compared to other ṣaḥīḥ hadiths, and hadith scholars are well aware of this.

It was natural and convenient for hadith scholars of the early and classical periods to view hadiths as being either ṣaḥīḥ or not-ṣaḥīḥ (ḥasan, ḍaʿīf, etc.). This is what I call binary thinking. It divides the world of hadith into two parts, one of which, ṣaḥīḥ, is assumed to be practically perfectly reliable despite the awareness that no two ṣaḥīḥ hadiths are ever equally reliable. It’s similar to dividing one’s friends and acquaintances into two categories, “trustworthy” and “untrustworthy”, despite the fact that we know the real world is much more complicated than that and that people, in reality, are on a spectrum of trustworthiness from most trustworthy to least trustworthy.

The essential innovation that my verification method introduces is that it supersedes the artificial, binary thinking of traditional hadith science by introducing an analog method of categorizing hadiths, suggested to me not by hadith scholars but by scholars of legal theory in their discussions of the reliability of hadiths, that better represents reality. In the traditional method a hadith can either be ṣaḥīḥ or not-ṣaḥīḥ, while in my method a hadith can be 20% likely to be authentic, or 30%, or 90%. The method has room for representing all the various shades of authenticity that are hidden to ordinary Muslims when they read that a particular hadith is authentic.

This method helps free the great treasures of the science of hadith criticism that have so far been locked away in hadith collections and the works of hadith transmitter criticism (ʿilm al-rijāl) so that every Muslim can benefit from them by having that knowledge translated into an easy-to-understand mathematical ranking system.

Hadith and probability theory

Islam’s hadith literature (reports about the actions and sayings of the Prophet PBUH) is one of the most problematic aspects of the religion due to the issues concerning the reliability of transmitters. How do we know if a report going back six or seven generations to the Prophet PBUH truly and accurately reports what the Prophet PBUH said or did?

So far the science of hadith has largely limited itself to verifying the authenticity of hadiths by verifying the trustworthiness of each person in a hadith’s chain of narrators. If all the transmitters are trustworthy, the assumption is that the hadith is ṣaḥīḥ (“authentic” or “sound”) unless the hadith reports things that are clearly false or contradictory to other hadith narrations. The problem is that a hadith scholar’s own beliefs and biases can strongly affect whether they consider a strange and rare hadith to be authentic or not. A good example is the following hadith in Imām al-Bukhārīʾs collection:

Narrated Abu 'Amir or Abu Malik Al-Ash'ari that he heard the Prophet (ﷺ) saying, "From among my followers there will be some people who will consider illegal sexual intercourse, khazz (a type of clothing), the wearing of silk, the drinking of alcoholic drinks and the use of musical instruments, as lawful. And there will be some people who will stay near the side of a mountain and in the evening their shepherd will come to them with their sheep and ask them for something, but they will say to him, 'Return to us tomorrow.' Allah will destroy them during the night and will let the mountain fall on them, and He will transform the rest of them into monkeys and pigs and they will remain so till the Day of Resurrection."

(Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 5590)

A non-scholar who reads this hadith will be greatly troubled by the implication that the use of musical instruments is a characteristic of misguided and impious Muslims. And since the hadith is authentic and present in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, they will face the difficult choice of either believing musical instruments (and hence all music) to be forbidden in Islam, or ignoring the hadith and going with the commonsense and widespread Muslim belief that music is permissible in Islam.

By introducing probability theory into the science of hadith, we gain an extremely powerful tool that enables us to judge just how seriously we should take any particular hadith. This is especially useful in the case of hadiths that seem to be contradicted by other hadiths. For example on the issue of musical instruments we have the following hadith:

Narrated Aisha:

Abu Bakr came to my house while two small Ansari girls were singing beside me the stories of the Ansar concerning the Day of Buath. And they were not singers. Abu Bakr said protestingly, "Musical instruments of Satan in the house of Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) !" It happened on the `Id day and Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "O Abu Bakr! There is an `Id for every nation and this is our `Id."

Sahih al-Bukhari 952

An authentic version of this hadith (Sahih Muslim 892 b) tells us that the girls were using the instrument daff (“tambourine”). So here we have the Prophet PBUH approving of the use of musical instruments in his own home, yet the other hadith implies that musical instruments are wicked and unlawful.

Probabilistic hadith criticism helps solve the dilemma of having to choose between two hadiths that are both judged authentic by hadith scholars by telling us which one is stronger.

As it happens, the hadith mentioning the Prophet’s approval of musical instruments is far more “authentic” and believable than the hadith in which he disapproves of them.

In this essay I will use these hadiths on music as an illustration of the probabilistic hadith verification method.

Gathering the hadiths approving of music

The first step in hadith verification is to gather all existing versions of a hadith and their chains and to draw a diagram representing all of its transmitters. Below is a diagram of the version of the “two singing girls” hadiths found in Sahih al-Bukhari:

The blue box is the hadith, and the gray boxes are its transmitters. The first transmitter is Aisha, may God be pleased with her, wife of the Prophet PBUH. The second transmitter is Urwa b. al-Zubayr, her nephew. The third transmitter is Urwa’s son Hisham. The the fourth transmitter is the highly respected hadith scholar Hammad b. Usama b. Zayd. The fifth transmitter is Ubayd b. Ismail, a respected hadith transmitter. This transmitter gave the hadith to Imam al-Bukhari who recorded it.

The second version of the hadith is also in Sahih al-Bukhari:

Narrated Aisha:

That once Abu Bakr came to her on the day of `Id-ul-Fitr or `Id ul Adha while the Prophet (ﷺ) was with her and there were two girl singers with her, singing songs of the Ansar about the day of Buath. Abu Bakr said twice. "Musical instrument of Satan!" But the Prophet (ﷺ) said, "Leave them Abu Bakr, for every nation has an `Id (i.e. festival) and this day is our `Id."

Sahih al-Bukhari 3931

Below is a diagram of this hadith’s chain:

You may note that the first three transmitters are the same as those of the previous hadith. So we can join their diagrams into one as follows:

Next is the chain found in Sahih Muslim 892 a:

This chain is exactly the same as the al-Bukhari’s first chain except for the last transmitter. We can therefore join it with the rest as follows:

We now therefore have three chains going back to the same hadith. Imam Muslim mentions two additional chains which we add to the diagram as follows:

We now move on to other collections that mention the same hadith. The first one is a version mentioned in Abu Uwaana’s Mustakhraj, which we add to the diagram as follows:

I have indicated the new chain in green. After further research, I was able to discover a further chain in Sahih al-Bukhari as indicated below:

Al-Bukhari mentions an alternative version of this new chain as indicated below:

The scholar Abu Uwana adds two of his own supporting chains to this version as follows:

We now have a fairly complete picture of all of the different chains of this hadith.

Adding the probabilities

To understand this section, some previous knowledge of probability theory will likely be required.

In order to start, we have to agree on an important assumption. How trustworthy is a single transmitter? This is a matter of intuition. After trying out various probabilities, I have settled on the value of 60%. This means that each trustworthy transmitter in a chain has a 60% chance of truthfully and correctly transmitting the hadith they transmit. This may seem low, but it actually works very well to represent the issues inherent in hadith transmitter verification.

This 60% is not a judgment on the transmitter’s character. It is a judgment on this specific piece of information in this specific place in the chain. It does not mean that a transmitter is 60% likely to be trustworthy. Rather, it is based on the uṣūl al-fiqh (Islamic legal theory) discussions on the number of witnesses needed for a certain piece of information to be considered mutawātir or true beyond doubt (see Wael B. Hallaq in Islamic Law and Jurisprudence: Studies in Honor of Farhat J. Ziadeh). It is general knowledge among scholars of legal theory that a single witness, no matter how trustworthy, can never impart certain knowledge. This is why Islamic law requires multiple witnesses in various legal cases. This requirement for multiple witnesses is not a judgment on the character of individual witnesses. It is a guarantee against various forms of error and uncertainty. According to the 60% assumption, four trustworthy witnesses mentioning the same piece of information side-by-side have a 97.44% chance of imparting it truthfully and correctly, while eight witnesses have a 99.93% chance, making a piece of information practically mutawātir, or widely-transmitted.

The 60% assumption takes into account the concept of signal decay. While a trustworthy witness who heard a piece of information today may have a 100% chance of imparting it correctly today, hadiths are transmitted between witnesses who may have held onto the information for decades. A hadith with four transmitters in its chain may in fact represent information passed down over four generations. There is an inherent signal decay in this multi-generational process, and the 60% assumption helps simulate this decay by requiring multiple transmitters at each point of the chain to maintain signal integrity.

According to probability theory, if you have a witness with 60% probability of truthfulness saying something, and then a second witness also with 60% probability of truthfulness comes along and says the same thing, the probability of both of them saying the truth increases, since we have two witnesses saying the same thing. We calculate this increase by multiplying the falsehood probabilities of the two persons as follows:

Person 1: 60% chance of truth = 40% chance of falsehood

Person 2: 60% chance of truth = 40% chance of falsehood

The chance of falsehood for both = 40% * 40% = 16%

The chance of truth of both = 100% - the chance of falsehood = 100% - 16% = 84%

Below is a diagram of an imaginary chain that represents these facts:

We have two people each of whom say that the Prophet PBUH said something. Each of them has a 60% probability of truthfulness and accuracy, but the two of them together have a 84% probability of truthfulness and accuracy, so the above imaginary hadith has an 84% chance of truthfulness and accuracy.

As we add more transmitters, the probability continually goes up:

Now we have four supporting witnesses, so their probability of truthfulness can be calculated as follows:

Falsehood probabilities: 40% * 40% * 40% * 40% = 2.56%

Truth probability: 100% - 2.56% = 97.44%

What this means is that if you have four Companions transmit the same hadith from the Prophet PBUH, the chance of the hadith being truly and correctly transmitted is 97.44%, which is a very high chance.

In probability theory 1 represents 100% and 0 represents 0. So another way of doing the above calculation is as follows:

0.4 * 0.4 * 0.4 * 0.4 = 0.0256

1 - 0.0256 = 0.9744

The benefits of the 60% assumption will become clear as we go through the verification process of the chains we gathered earlier. We will first deal with the top part of the diagram, which is as follows:

First, we will fill in the original 60% assumption by writing 0.6 in each bubble:

We do not add the 0.6 to the bubbles on the far right because those are written books, so they virtually have a 100% chance of reliability. What concerns us are unwritten, oral transmissions. The first step is to combine the three middle transmitters’ probabilities vertically, as follows:

Falsehood chances: (1-0.6) * (1-0.6) * (1-0.6) = 0.064

Truth chance: 1 - 0.064 = 0.936

Above, each of the three transmitters has a 100% – 60%, or 40% likelihood of falsely transmitting the hadith. But in order to get the probability of all of them falsely transmitting the hadith at the same time, we have to multiply these chances together: 40% * 40% * 40% = 6.4%. So the chance of all of them having falsely transmitted the hadith is only 6.4%, meaning that there is a 93.6% chance of them having truly and accurately transmitted this hadith.

We will call this “vertical combination”. We vertically combine all of the probabilities of the truthfulness and accuracy of the transmitters to get a single number, in this case 93.6%, which represents the authenticity of all them combined together.

We next have to do a horizontal combination. All three transmitters transmit the hadith from Hammad b. Usama, who also has a 0.6 (60%) chance of authenticity.

In the case of horizontal combination, rather than multiplying falsehood probabilities, we multiply truth probabilities. The reason is that as information passes down through a chain of transmitters each of whom have a 60% chance of authenticity, the chance of the information being correctly passed down decreases. There is more chance for error and fabrication. If you hear a Companion say that the Prophet PBUH said something, that is far more trustworthy than another person saying they heard their father say that their grandfather said that a Companion said that the Prophet PBUH said that.

So we multiply 0.93 by 0.6 to get 0.558, which means 55.8%. We now update the bubble for Hammad b. Usama to represent this new probability:

Hammad b. Usama’s probability went down from 0.6 to 0.558 because we did not hear the hadith directly from him, but from three people who claim to have heard him. Since those three people have a combined probability of 93% truthfulness and accuracy (rather than 100%), this slightly decreases the probability of the truthfulness and accuracy of the information we get from Hammad b. Usama.

We now move on to al-Bukhari’s second chain, which is as follows:

Using horizontal combination:

0.6 * 0.6 * 0.6 = 0.216

So this second chain has only a 21.6% probability of truthfulness and accuracy. The reason is that we do not have any supporting transmitters. We only have Muhammad b. al-Muthanna’s word for it that Muhammad b. Jaafar said that, and we only have Muhammad b. Jaafar’s word for it that Shu`ba said that. The deeper a chain goes back in time, the lower its probability of authenticity and accuracy becomes.

We next deal with two chains from Sahih Muslim:

Using vertical combination for the middle transmitters, we get a probability of 0.84 or 84%. Multiplying that by 0.6, we get 0.504, meaning that Abu Mu`awiyah has a 50.4% probability of authenticity.

Next we have the more interesting task of combining all the chains we examined above. We have to vertically combine the probabilities of Hammad (0.558), Shu`ba (0.216) and Abu Mu`awiyah (0.504):

Falsehood probabilities: (1-0.558) * (1-0.216) * (1-0.504) = 0.171877888

Truth probability: 1 - 0.171877888 = 0.828122112

So the probability of the truth of the information coming from these three transmitters is 82.8%.

Now we horizontally combine this with Hisham b. Urwa’s 0.6 probability, resulting in 0.496873267

We repeat these same steps for the remaining chains, as follows:

And by vertically combining the left-most probabilities (Hisham b. Urwa’s 49.68% and Muhammad b. Abd al-Rahman’s 21.04%), we get 0.602766552, so the information has a 60.27% probability of authenticity at this stage.

We next multiply this 0.602766552 by Urwa b. al-Zubayr’s 0.6 (horizontal combination), resulting in 0.361659931.

In the final step, we multiply this result by Aisha’s 0.6:

The result is 0.216995959. This means that the hadith with all of its chains has a 21.69% chance of authenticity and accuracy. This seems very low, but it is natural for a hadith that comes from a single Companion, through a single transmitter.

In my methodology, a hadith that reaches 20% or higher is ḥasan, a hadith that reaches 30% or higher is ṣaḥīḥ, a hadith that reaches 60% or higher is ṣaḥīḥ al-ṣaḥīḥ (a degree above ṣaḥīḥ), and a hadith that reaches 85% or higher is mutawātir (“widely transmitted”, a degree above ṣaḥīḥ al-ṣaḥīḥ).

Note that the method can easily be tweaked so that ṣaḥīḥ would start at 50% instead of 30%.. Instead of giving a transmitter in a chain a probability of 60%, we can give them a probability of 80%, which would increase the results arrived it. Note that it makes no difference what assumption we choose, as I have chosen 60%, for an individual transmitter, because the end result is always relative to other hadiths. Regardless of what assumption we choose, it is the case that a hadith with a stronger chain will receive a higher rank than a hadith with a weaker chain.

Different scholars may prefer different probabilities for what they consider ḥasan or higher. Personally these are the numbers I have settled on that my heart is comfortable with and accepts.

The hadith disapproving of music

We now move on to Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 5590, the hadith that says misguided Muslims will approve of musical instruments. Below is a diagram of the hadith’s chain:

The hadith comes from a single chain that does not branch out, meaning it is an extremely questionable chain, which I call a “precarious” chain. To calculate its probability of authenticity, we horizontally combine all the 0.6 probabilities as follows:

Probability of truth = 0.6 * 0.6 * 0.6 *0.6 *0.6 *0.6 = 0.046656

This hadith therefore has a 4.66% chance of authenticity, which is extremely low. In my thinking a hadith between 10% and 20% is munkar (strange and likely to be false), while a hadith below 10% is ḍaʿīf (“weak”, i.e. almost certainly false). As discussed in another article, there is another reason to consider this hadith questionable: it says misguided Muslims will consider khazz (a type of clothing) lawful. But we know 20 Companions of the Prophet PBUH wore this type of clothing, so this makes the hadith even more dubious.

The verdict

The hadith in which the Prophet PBUH says misguided Muslims will consider musical instruments lawful has only a 4.66% chance of authenticity, while the hadith in which the Prophet PBUH approves of musical instruments has a 21.69% chance of authenticity. Thus the hadith in which the Prophet PBUH approves of musical instruments is 4.6 times stronger than the hadith in which he disapproves of them (21.69 ÷ 4.66 = 4.65).

Based on this, we can confidently say that the evidence in support of the lawfulness of musical instruments is far stronger. Therefore approval of musical instruments is a vastly better representation of the Prophet’s sunna (tradition) than disapproval of them.

Defending the assumptions

The assumption that each transmitter has a 60% chance of accurately and truthfully transmitting the information needs to be defended. This assumption makes most ṣaḥīḥ narrations get an authenticity around 30%. If we treat these numbers empirically, it would mean that most authentic narrations are more likely to be false than true. For this reason I have chosen to treat all hadiths that reach 30% or higher as ṣaḥīḥ / authentic despite the fact that empirically they fall beneath the truth threshold of 50%.

My reasoning is that by choosing these assumptions, we create an interface between the empirical research world and the classical hadith studies world. A non-Muslim scholar may choose the 30% verdict on an authentic narration as a cause for skepticism, while a Muslim scholar can continue to make use of probability theory while adopting the traditional view of considering individual, low-truth-probability hadiths as authentic.

Another reason for the 60% assumption is that it gives us a very wide range of results. Some hadiths will reach close to 100%, many others will hover between 50% and 20%. This allows for representing a scholar’s empirical intuitions about these transmitted pieces of information, while also allowing them to remain in the classical hadith criticism world if they wish by choosing lower numbers, such as 30%, to represent full authenticity.

The study of Islam works on the basis of the autonomous consensus of the researchers, a concept I have defended elsewhere.1 Therefore introducing probability theory into hadith criticism will require the involvement of many researchers until a consensus emerges on the best assumptions to be chosen. Therefore my assumptions in this article are merely preliminary suggestions intended to illustrate what a probabilistic study of hadith would look like.

Conclusion

Combining probability theory and hadith criticism can greatly help in resolving issues surrounding contradictory hadith narrations by making it clear which hadiths are superior to which ones. It would be extremely helpful if we could build a new hadith collection that shows the probability of authenticity of each hadith rather than merely saying whether it is authentic or not. But such a work would require many years of work.

There is also the issue of sub-par transmitters. While I have chosen a probability 60% for reliable transmitters, for transmitters who are mudallis, non-qawī, non-ḥujja, or considered weak by some scholars and not others, lower probabilities will have to be used where necessary.

There are also different levels of weak transmitters. Some are considered weak for ideological reasons (because they held beliefs that hadith scholars considered unacceptable), while others are considered weak because they were caught lying or fabricating hadiths. Different probabilities will have to be used for different levels of weakness.

Further applications of the probabilistic method

See the articles on the Probabilistic Hadith Verification page for many studies by me in which I use the methodology developed in this article to verify hadiths on various important issues.

A study of “the majority of people in Hell are women” hadith

A famous hadith of the Prophet PBUH states:

I looked into Paradise and I saw that the most of its people were the poor; and I looked into the Fire and I saw that most of its people were women.

Sahih al-Bukhari 3241

Note that this hadith does not actually say that the majority of women in Hell are women. It may just mean that the part of Hell that the Prophet PBUH was shown contained many women. None of the versions of the hadith say “the majority of people in Hell are women”. They all mention that when the Prophet saw Hell, he saw that the majority of the people (of the part he saw) were women. It is clear that the Prophet PBUH interpreted this vision as meaning that the majority are women. But since nothing in the Quran or hadith tells us that explicitly, we may consider it to be the Prophet’s own personal conclusion from what he saw.

Various versions of this statement are to be found in all of major hadith collections. I decided to conduct a study of all existing authentic versions of this hadith to find out just how reliable they are.

Below is the version from the Companion ʿImrān b. Ḥuṣayn [ra]:

All of the versions come through the single transmitter Abū Rajāʾ.

Next are the versions coming from the Companion Ibn Abbas [ra]:

The strongest chain comes again through the aforementioned transmitter Abū Rajāʾ. There is however an additional chain (the top one) coming through ʿAṭāʾ b. Yasār, through Zayd b. Aslam.

Next are the other chains coming from four other Companions:

None of these latter four chains are very strong because each comes through a single transmitter, through another single transmitter, before other witnesses come along.

In order to prove a point with reasonable certainty, a hadith should come from a binary tree chain, as follows:

The current hadith falls short of this standard as follows, with the red boxes indicating missing transmitters:

Besides the missing transmitters, the hadith also has the issue of having a duplicate witness (the yellow boxes). So in reality we only have two transmitters’ words for it that the two Companions said that.

However, the four additional chains are supporting evidence in favor of the hadith and cannot be ignored. Using a hadith verification methodology I have developed that uses probability theory to combine the reliability of each transmitter and chain to reach a single number that represents the chance of the hadith being true (see my essay about it), we perform the following calculation to combine all of the probabilities:

(1-(1−0.34)×(1−0.39015)×(1−0.0207)×(1−0.1076)×(1−0.0776)×(1−0.1716)) = 0.7312

So the verdict is that this hadith has a 73.12% probability of being truly from the Prophet PBUH, which is a very high probability for a hadith. In my highly stringent verification methodology, a hadith that reaches 60% or higher is ṣaḥīḥ al-ṣaḥīḥ (a degree above ṣaḥīḥ)

In conclusion, the Prophet PBUH almost certainly said that the majority of the people he saw in Hell were women. Whether this really means the majority are women, or whether only the part that he saw had a lot of women, we cannot say. So the hadith should not be used to imply that women are less pious or more evil than men.

Is ruqya part of Islam? A study of the hadiths on ruqya using probability theory

There are numerous narrations that mention ruqya (the use of certain words, prayers or Quran recitations as charms or spells to heal or protect a person). I decided to to conduct a search of all major hadith collections and some minor ones to find all the hadiths that mention ruqya in order to find out just how authentic they are. I then used my own mathematical method of calculating hadith authenticity which combines probability theory with the science of hadith transmitter criticism (al-jarḥ wa-l-taʿdīl). The method (see my essay about it) is useful in judging between contradictory hadith narrations because it produces a single percentage for each hadith that reflects its chance of authenticity. We can then compare the chance of the authenticity of different hadiths to find out which one is most likely to be truly from the Prophet PBUH.

Summary

The hadith against ruqya has a 64.1% chance of authenticity, which makes it ṣaḥīḥ. The hadiths that support ruqya, however, are much lower in quality, the strongest having only a 20.78% chance of authenticity. But by combining the chance of the authenticity of all the ruqya-supporting hadiths, we reach a probability of 49.69%, which means that the crux of the meaning of the hadiths is likely to be true. It is strange, however, that the most authentic hadith in support of ruqya says that it is only to be used against the evil eye and scorpion stings.

In conclusion and considering all of the hadiths together, it appears that the Prophet PBUH forbade the use of ruqya in the pre-Islamic sense of casting a spell. But he permitted the use of the recitation of the Quran as a means of hopefully bringing about healing and protection. While some Muslims think that ruqya has an almost magical power that is guaranteed to bring about results, it is probably more correct to think of it as the same as prayer. It is merely the use of God’s words in the hope of attaining His blessings.

The traditional understanding of ruqya as casting spells is therefore highly doubtful and appears to be an importation of pre-Islamic Arab beliefs into Islam. The Prophet PBUH himself appears to have strongly disliked the spell-casting aspect of ruqya, which is why the most authentic narration speaks against it and mentions it along with other pre-Islamic practices. However, he appears to have tolerated the use of Quran recitation as a substitute for pre-Islamic forms of ruqya while allowing it to be called ruqya.

I am therefore fairly confident that we should reject the understanding of ruqya as spell-casting and instead think of it as similar to prayer and no more likely than prayer to be effective.

Technical details

The hadith against ruqya

It is interesting to note that the most authentic narration on ruqya actually says good Muslims will not use it:

Verily the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: Seventy thousand men of my Ummah would enter Paradise without rendering account. They (the companions of the Holy Prophet) said: Who would be those, Messenger of Allah? He (the Holy Prophet) said: They would be those who neither practise charm (ruqya), not take omens, nor do they cauterise, but they repose their trust in their Lord.

Sahih Muslim 218 b

This hadith comes to us through three Companions (ignoring unauthentic chains). I decided to gather all of its versions from the major hadith collections to find out just how strong its chains are.

Below is a diagram of the chains coming through Ibn Abbas:

The numbers indicate probability of authenticity. Thus this chain has a 24% probability of being truly from Ibn Abbas (according to my methodology).

Below are the chains from Imran b. Husayn:

This chain is stronger and has a 45.7% probability of authenticity.

The last chain is from Ibn Masud and has a 12.85% chance of authenticity.

We use the following equation to combine all of these probabilities into one probability:

probability of authenticity = 1 - (1 - probability of authenticity of first chain) × (1 - probability of authenticity of second chain) × (1 - probability of authenticity of third chain chain) and so on.

Thus:

1-((1−0.241)×(1−0.4579)×(1−0.12855)) = 0.641438499

The result is that this hadith has a 64.1% probability of authenticity. Any hadith that has a 60% probability of authenticity or higher is ṣaḥīḥ al-ṣaḥīḥ (a degree above ṣaḥīḥ) in my methodology, so this hadith is extremely authentic.

The hadiths in favor of ruqya

Narrated Al-Aswad:

I asked `Aisha about treating poisonous stings (a snake-bite or a scorpion sting) with a Ruqya. She said, "The Prophet (ﷺ) allowed the treatment of poisonous sting with Ruqya."

Sahih al-Bukhari 5741

It was narrated that Jabir said:
“There was a family among the Ansar, called Al ‘Amr bin Hazm, who used to recite Ruqyah for the scorpion sting, but the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) forbade Ruqyah. They came to him and said: ‘O Messenger of Allah! You have forbidden Ruqyah, but we recite Ruqyah against the scorpion’s sting.’ He said to them: ‘Recite it to me.’ So they recited it to him, and he said: ‘There is nothing wrong with this, this is confirmed.’”

Ibn Maja (authentic) Vol. 4, Book 31, Hadith 3515

The below diagram is the result of my search of all hadiths mentioning ruqya (click to enlarge it):

Below is a summary of the authenticity probabilities of the hadiths:

  • Aisha 10.88%
  • Aisha 7.77%
  • Aisha 15.67%
  • Aisha 7.278%
  • Anas 14.29%
  • Jabir’s uncle 1.2%
  • Abu Saeed al-Khudri 11.27%
  • Anas + Buryada + Imran 20.78%
  • Jabir + Asmaa’ b. Umays 14.89%
  • Awf b. Malik 5.8%
  • Shifaa’ b. Abdullah 3.88%

The strongest hadith is the one coming from the Companions Anas, Burayda and Imran, and it is as follows:

The Prophet (ﷺ) said: No spell (ruqya) is to be used except for the evil eye or a scorpion sting.

Sunan Abi Dawud 3884, Ibn Maja Vol. 4, Book 31, Hadith 3513, al-Tirmidhi Vol. 4, Book 2, Hadith 2057, etc.

The hadith, however, has only a 20.78% chance of authenticity, which is far below the 64.1% authenticity of the anti-ruqya hadith mentioned at the beginning.

There is one final step we can take by combining the authenticity probabilities of all the separate pro-ruqya hadiths, as follows:

1−(1−0.1088)×(1−0.077)×(1−0.1567)×(1−0.07278)×(1−0.1429)×(1−0.012)×(1−0.1127)×(1−0.2078)×(1−0.1489)×(1−0.058)×(1−0.0388) = 0.704960078

(0.1088+0.077+0.1567+0.07278+0.1429+0.012+0.1127+0.2078+0.1489+0.058+0.0388)÷11 = 0.1033

(0.704960078+0.1033)÷2 = 0.4041

Before merging the probabilities we divide each of them by two. This reflects the fact that we are combining entirely different hadiths together. It is easier to fabricate entirely new hadiths and chains than to fabricate supporting chains for the same hadith. So the probability of all the separate hadiths being true is lower than the probability of all the chains of the same hadith being true.

So the result is that there is a 40.41% chance that the crux of the meaning of the hadiths is true. In my methodology a hadith that reaches 30% or higher is ṣaḥīḥ. So the combined meaning of the hadiths together can be considered authentic.

A Study of the Hadiths on Qadar (Predestination): Judging Between Fatalism and Free Will

This is a supplement to my essay Reconciling Free Will and Predestination in Islam with al-Māturīdī and Ibn Taymiyya

Qadar (divine predestination) is one of the most controversial issues in Islam. Muslim thinkers are generally divided into two groups on this issue. There are the rationalists and semi-rationalists like the Matūrīdīs, Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya and most mainstream intellectuals who try to make room for human choice and free will and do their best to avoid asserting fatalism. Fatalism is the belief that all of humanity is divided into believers and disbelievers from birth–we have absolutely no choice but to live out the lives that are predestined for us even before we were conceived. According to fatalism, whether your destination is Paradise or Hell is something decided by God before your birth and you have absolutely no choice in the matter.

While most mainstream thinkers try to avoid fatalism, its most ardent defenders are the scholars of hadith, who believe that fatalism is proven through numerous narrations and that doubting it is disbelief. While we can believe in qadar (predestination) with or without fatalism, hadith scholars say we must only believe in the fatalistic interpretation of qadar.

The issue is very important because if humanity was really created in a fatalistic manner, it would make the creation of humanity sound rather useless and pointless. Humans would already be divided into the dwellers of Paradise and Hell from before birth and they would have no choice but to end up there. How could any just, wise and sensible God create such a system? Believing that you might end up in Hell because it is “decreed” for you even if you are a believer now (as some hadiths say) leads to a rather depressing and hopeless worldview and has nothing to do with the worldview of the Quran.

Qadar can be interpreted in two ways: the first way is that God decides everything that befalls you without forcing you to choose between good and evil, so that you can choose between a good or evil destiny even if you have no control over what befalls you in life. This is what orthodox rationalists like the Maturīdīs say. The second way to interpret qadar is to say that it means, besides controlling what befalls you, God also controls your choices. You have no choice in whether you end up in Paradise or Hell–it was decreed for you even before birth. This is what the fatalist hadith scholars believe. Which view of qadar is to be preferred?

So far the argument between the rationalists and the fatalists has failed to progress because neither side engages with the other on the other’s terms. The rationalists use rational and Quranic evidence to argue that fatalism is unjustified and senseless–God must give us some choice in the matter of our destiny. The hadith scholars wholly reject rational arguments and say that since hadith “proves” fatalism, there is no room for rational argumentation. The rationalists have often had little interest in or knowledge of hadith and have merely resorted to stating that the Quran and rational arguments should be given preference.

In this essay I will perform the unique task of engaging with the issue of fatalism and free will using the hadith scholars’ own terms and methods. I decided that this study was necessary because I am working on synthesizing Matūrīdī theology with Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s theology in order to reconcile free will and predestination in an orthodox and coherent manner. But the biggest hurdle I have faced in this task are the fatalistic hadith narrations that seem to contradict divine justice and wisdom and that make it impossible to build a satisfactory and complete Islamic theological theory.

As I will show in this essay, despite what hadith scholars believe, the evidence for fatalism is not really that strong. In fact, one major characteristic that becomes clear throughout this study is the unusual level of weakness and doubtfulness associated with most fatalistic narrations, which in itself is a strong argument against fatalism. If fatalism was such a crucial aspect of Islam, why did the Prophet PBUH fail to clearly state it enough times for us to get just one single hadith that is corroborated by four or more Companions? In fact, even if lower our standard to requiring only two Companions’ witnessing to a fatalistic hadith coming through two transmitters and so on, we have no hadiths that reach even this level.

Ideally we should have four or more Companions narrate the same hadith (each through four transmitters and so on) in order to prove a point beyond doubt in theology. Singular (aḥād) narrations that come only from one or two Companions do not prove anything beyond doubt when it comes to matters of uṣūl (fundamentals). It is perfectly fine to accept a narration from a single Companion on secondary (furūʿ) matters, such as the Prophetic way to use the miswāk (a type of toothbrush made from an Arabian tree). But when it comes to crucial matters that completely change the nature of our religion, we should require a much higher standard of evidence. Islam requires four witnesses to prove a case of fornication. Shouldn’t we at least require the same standard of evidence on crucial issues of our faith? This is especially necessary when hadiths conflict with the Quran, reason and with other narrations that support the opposing case.

Al-Bayhaqi’s Kitāb al-Qaḍāʾ wa-l-Qadar

I have based this study mainly on Kitāb al-Qaḍāʾ wa-l-Qadar (The Book of Predestination) by the hadith scholar Imam al-Bayhaqī (d. 1066 CE), may God have mercy on him. This book tries to bring together all existing hadith narrations on the issue of qadar and tries to prove fatalism in the strongest terms. I only dealt with hadiths that are authentic or may be considered to have a chance of authenticity, or may be of doubtful authenticity. I have skipped the ones that are judged by most hadith scholars to be fabricated and unauthentic since there is no point in dealing with them.

To find additional evidence for and against fatalism, I have surveyed the entirety of the two volumes of Ṣaḥīḥ Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr wa-Ziyādatuh by Imam Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī (d. 1999, may God have mercy on him). This book attempts to bring together almost all existing authentic Prophetic statements from the hadith literature from dozens of sources. It is a good resource for finding Prophetic information on any chosen topic.

Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī’s Ṣaḥīḥ Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr wa-Ziyādatuh

I did not merely do a keyword search for words having to do with qadar since many Prophetic statements on qadar do not actually mention the word or anything close to it. It was therefore necessary to read the entire book.

Summary

As will be shown below, there is only one wholly authentic narration that comes from multiple Companions that affirms fatalism (that humans are divided into believers and disbelievers before birth and their fate never changes). There are also three other narrations, each coming from a single Companion, that affirm fatalism.

As mentioned, we must require four Companions’ hadiths to prove theological points. However, since the three-Companion hadith is the most significant fatalistic hadith in existence, I will deal it with specifically.

I will mention Anas’s version since all three Companions’ hadiths agree on its meaning:

Narrated Anas bin Malik:

The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "At every womb Allah appoints an angel who says, 'O Lord! A drop of semen, O Lord! A clot. O Lord! A little lump of flesh." Then if Allah wishes (to complete) its creation, the angel asks, (O Lord!) Will it be a male or female, a wretched or a blessed, and how much will his provision be? And what will his age be?' So all that is written while the child is still in the mother's womb."

Ṣaḥīh al-Bukhārī 318

This hadith is fatalistic because it implies that wretchedness and blessedness in the afterlife is decided for the person from their mother’s womb. This hadith is actually not very well-attested. Here is a diagram of the narrations coming from Anas:

The hadith only comes through Ḥammād b. Zayd, through ʿUbaydallāh, so we have to trust that these individuals correctly understood and transmitted the hadith. Thus we have no second opinion on Anas having said this. And here is a diagram of the narrations from Ibn Masʿūd:

This hadith too comes only through single individuals; al-Aʿmash, through Zayd b. Wahb. The other attesting chains of Salama b. Kuhayl and Abū Ṭufayl are not fully reliable and can be ignored. The version from the third Companion Ḥudhayfa b. Usayd is as follows (right to left):

It comes only through Abū al-Ṭufayl through various badly-attested chains.

This is the most important fatalistic hadith. In order to accept it, we have to trust that Ibn Masʿūd correctly understood the Prophet PBUH, that Zayd b. Wahb correctly understood Ibn Masʿūd, and that al-Aʿmash correctly understood Zayd. The same applies to the other Companions’ hadiths. This is an extremely precarious structure to rely on for something so important, especially something that is not found in the Quran and that appears to contradict its wisdom and plain meaning.

Another reason to doubt it is that we have a non-fatalistic version of the hadith coming from Ḥudhayfa b. Usayd, from an authentic chain except for one individual who is trusted by some and not others (Abū al-Zubayr al-Makkī):

حَدَّثَنِي أَبُو الطَّاهِرِ، أَحْمَدُ بْنُ عَمْرِو بْنِ سَرْحٍ أَخْبَرَنَا ابْنُ وَهْبٍ، أَخْبَرَنِي عَمْرُو، بْنُ الْحَارِثِ عَنْ أَبِي الزُّبَيْرِ الْمَكِّيِّ، أَنَّ عَامِرَ بْنَ وَاثِلَةَ، حَدَّثَهُ أَنَّهُ، سَمِعَ عَبْدَ اللَّهِ بْنَ مَسْعُودٍ، يَقُولُ الشَّقِيُّ مَنْ شَقِيَ فِي بَطْنِ أُمِّهِ وَالسَّعِيدُ مَنْ وُعِظَ بِغَيْرِهِ ‏.‏ فَأَتَى رَجُلاً مِنْ أَصْحَابِ رَسُولِ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم يُقَالُ لَهُ حُذَيْفَةُ بْنُ أَسِيدٍ الْغِفَارِيُّ فَحَدَّثَهُ بِذَلِكَ مِنْ قَوْلِ ابْنِ مَسْعُودٍ فَقَالَ وَكَيْفَ يَشْقَى رَجُلٌ بِغَيْرِ عَمَلٍ فَقَالَ لَهُ الرَّجُلُ أَتَعْجَبُ مِنْ ذَلِكَ فَإِنِّي سَمِعْتُ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم يَقُولُ ‏ "‏ إِذَا مَرَّ بِالنُّطْفَةِ ثِنْتَانِ وَأَرْبَعُونَ لَيْلَةً بَعَثَ اللَّهُ إِلَيْهَا مَلَكًا فَصَوَّرَهَا وَخَلَقَ سَمْعَهَا وَبَصَرَهَا وَجِلْدَهَا وَلَحْمَهَا وَعِظَامَهَا ثُمَّ ‏.‏ قَالَ يَا رَبِّ أَذَكَرٌ أَمْ أُنْثَى فَيَقْضِي رَبُّكَ مَا شَاءَ وَيَكْتُبُ الْمَلَكُ ثُمَّ يَقُولُ يَا رَبِّ أَجَلُهُ ‏.‏ فَيَقُولُ رَبُّكَ مَا شَاءَ وَيَكْتُبُ الْمَلَكُ ثُمَّ يَقُولُ يَا رَبِّ رِزْقُهُ ‏.‏ فَيَقْضِي رَبُّكَ مَا شَاءَ وَيَكْتُبُ الْمَلَكُ ثُمَّ يَخْرُجُ الْمَلَكُ بِالصَّحِيفَةِ فِي يَدِهِ فَلاَ يَزِيدُ عَلَى مَا أُمِرَ وَلاَ يَنْقُصُ ‏"‏ ‏.‏

ʿĀmir b. Wāthila said that he heard 'Abdullah b. Mas'ud say that wretched one is the one who is wretched in the womb of his mother and the happy one is he who takes a lesson from the (fate of) others. The narrator came to a person from amongst the Companions of Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) who was called Ḥudhayfa b. Usayd al-Ghifārī and said: How can a person be an evil one without (committing an evil) deed? Thereupon the person said to him: You are surprised at this, whereas I have heard Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) as saying: When forty-two nights pass after the semen gets into the womb, Allah sends the angel and gives him shape. Then he creates his sense of hearing, sense of sight, his skin, his flesh, his bones, and then says: My Lord, would he be male or female? And your Lord decides as He desires and the angel then puts down that also and then says: My Lord, what about his age? And your Lord decides as He likes it and the angel puts it down. Then he says: My Lord, what about his livelihood? And then the Lord decides as He likes and the angel writes it down, and then the angel gets out with his scroll of destiny in his hand and nothing is added to it and nothing is subtracted from it.

Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2645 a

Notice that above, it is Ibn Masʿūd himself who makes the fatalistic statement. The actual Prophetic hadith narrated by Ḥudhayfa b. Usayd completely lacks all fatalism. It merely says that a person’s death-timing, livelihood and sex is determined in the womb. There is no mention of a person’s deeds or fate in the afterlife being written there.

Ibn Masʿūd himself appears to have been a fatalist. His statement that people are differentiated into Hell-dwellers and Paradise-dwellers from the womb is attested from authentic chains. It seems quite possible that Ibn Masʿūd’s opinion became mixed up with the content of the Prophetic statement so that Ibn Masʿūd’s fatalistic interpretation of it became a part of it in people’s minds. Later people may have “corrected” the hadith by adding the fatalism to it that seemed obvious to them. We can therefore conclude that the hadith in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2645 a is likely to be the original and authentic version.

The fatalistic narrations are countered by an authentic narration that affirms the changeability of qadar, thus wholly contradicting fatalism. There are also a number of other authentic narrations that only make sense if the world is not fatalistic but dynamic and changeable.

What we have, therefore, are a number of authentic narrations and the entirety of the Quran, all of which go against fatalism, and a few other narrations that assert fatalism, the most important of which is not worth relying on in this matter since it is refuted by another version of itself that lacks fatalism. If the fatalistic version had come through four Companions, each of whom said it to four trustworthy people, and so on until it reached us, we would have had no choice but to consider it true. But as it is, it seems justified to prefer the Quran and the non-fatalistic version to it.

The correct and just attitude, therefore, is to acknowledge the inconclusive and contradictory nature of the hadith evidence and to acknowledge that many different interpretations are possible. The hadith scholars’ insistence on fatalism seems unjustified.

Since our sense of justice and wisdom is repulsed by fatalism, and since it demolishes much of the beauty and sense of the Quran’s statements, I think we are justified in taking the below hadith’s advice regarding this issue by doubting fatalism and considering the non-fatalistic interpretation of qadar of scholars like Ibn Taymiyya to be the likely correct one.

Narrated by the Companions Abū Ḥumayd and Abū Usayd:

إِذَا سَمِعْتُمُ الْحَدِيثَ عَنِّي تَعْرِفُهُ قُلُوبُكُمْ ، وَتَلِينُ لَهُ أَشْعَارُكُمْ وَأَبْشَارُكُمْ ، وَتَرَوْنَ أَنَّهُ مِنْكُمْ قَرِيبٌ فَأَنَا أَوْلَاكُمْ بِهِ ، وَإِذَا سَمِعْتُمُ الْحَدِيثَ عَنِّي تُنْكِرُهُ قُلُوبُكُمْ ، وَتَنْفِرُ مِنْهُ أَشْعَارُكُمْ وَأَبْشَارُكُمْ ، وَتَرَوْنَ أَنَّهُ مِنْكُمْ بَعِيدٌ ، فَأَنَا أَبْعَدُكُمْ مِنْه

If you hear hadith from me and your heart knows it, and your feelings and good cheer lean toward it, and you consider it close to you, then I am closer to it than you. And if you hear hadith from me hadith that your hearts do not know, and your feelings and good cheer are repulsed by it, and you consider it distant from you, then I am more distant from it than you.

Musnad Aḥmad 15808, a very similar version is considered hasan by al-Albānī

The above hadith comes from wholly trusted and reliable transmitters.

We are in charge of whether we will be happy or wretched in the afterlife through choosing to accept God’s guidance or rejecting His guidance. As the Quran states, all humans attested to God’s oneness before they were born:

And when Your Lord summoned the descendants of Adam, and made them testify about themselves. “Am I not your Lord?” They said, “Yes, we testify.” Thus you cannot say on the Day of Resurrection, “We were unaware of this.”

The Quran, verse 7:172

This is the fiṭra (pristine original state of humanity) that all humans are born with, as the following hadith affirms:

Every child is born on the fiṭra but his parents convert him to Judaism, Christianity or Magainism...

Ṣaḥīh al-Bukhārī 1359, a similar version in Ṣaḥīh Muslim 2658 d

All human souls attested to God’s oneness before they were born, and they are born in that state, ready to either become believers or disbelievers as they age. God guides them to Himself through various means throughout life until they become convinced of the truth of His prophets:

We will show them Our signs on the horizons, and in their very souls, until it becomes clear to them that it is the truth. Is it not sufficient that your Lord is witness over everything?

The Quran, verse 41:53

Once they reach that conviction, they either choose guidance and God increases them in guidance and rewards them with Paradise, or they constantly choose disbelief and God causes them to be misguided and rewards them with Hell. This is the picture that the Quran and numerous hadiths draw for us and it is preferable to the fatalistic understanding of Islam that implies that people are needlessly thrown into Paradise or Hell without having any say in the matter.

Technical Details

Verification Methodology

I have used most existing books on the criticism of hadith transmitters in judging the trustworthiness of a transmitter. However, I have been more strict in my judgments than is typical of hadith scholars. If 10 scholars consider someone trustworthy but two respected ones consider them weak, then I have gone with the weak judgment. I have also seriously taken into account the statements of scholars that a person is trustworthy but cannot be relied on in legal judgments.

My strictness seems justified because when it comes to such a crucial and fundamental matter, it seems only right to only trust the transmitters with impeccable or nearly-impeccable reputations.

Fatalistic Hadith Narrations

There are so many fatalistic hadiths in this section that, from the face of it, it appears that they prove fatalism. But the section against fatalism later will also be supported by numerous hadiths.

Narrated Abū Hurayra:

The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "Moses argued with Adam and said to him (Adam), 'You are the one who got the people out of Paradise by your sin, and thus made them miserable." Adam replied, 'O Moses! You are the one whom Allah selected for His Message and for His direct talk. Yet you blame me for a thing which Allah had ordained for me before He created me?" Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) further said, "So Adam overcame Moses by this Argument."

Sahih al-Bukhari Vol. 6, Book 60, Hadith 262

This hadith comes from a single Companion. It does not have to be interpreted fatalistically; perhaps Adam was specially destined to make his error. That does not prove the same applies to all human choices. There is a weaker version of this hadith from ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb.

The following narration is from ʿAlī b. Abū Ṭālib:

We were accompanying a funeral procession in Baqi Al-Gharqad (graveyard in Al-Madinah) when the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) proceeded towards us and sat down. We sat around him. He had a small stick in his hand. He was bending down his head and scraping the ground with the stick. He said, "There is none among you but has a place assigned for him either in Paradise or in Hell." The Companions said: "O Messenger of Allah, should we not depend upon what has been written for us (and give up doing good deeds)?'' The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said, "Carry on doing good deeds. Every one will find it easy to do such deeds (as will lead him to his destined place) for which he has been created."

Al-Bukhari and Muslim, mentioned in Riyad as-Salihin Book 7, Hadith 945

This hadith only comes from ʿAlī. As other narrations will show later, even if someone is destined for Paradise or Hell, that does not mean this destiny cannot change. Therefore even if our place in Paradise or Hell is decided right now, if we choose to be good or evil later on, that place may change. This hadith therefore does not necessarily imply fatalism.

The next hadith is from ʿImrān b. Ḥuṣayn:

Has there been drawn a distinction between the people of Paradise and the denizens of hell? [The Prophet PBUH] said: Yes. It was again said: (If it is so), then what is the use of doing good deeds? Thereupon he said: Everyone is facilitated in what has been created for him.

Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2649 a

This hadith, despite being in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim (a shorter version is also in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 7551) has Yazīd b. Shurayk al-Ẓubbaʿī in all of its chains of transmitters, who was considered weak by Yaḥyā b. Muʿīn according to Ibn ʿUlayya and as being below the degree of authenticity by Abū Aḥmad al-Ḥākim. Below is a diagram of all existing chains of this hadith:

This hadith only comes from one Companion through a precarious chain. We have to take Muʿtarrif b. ʿAbdallah’s word for it that ʿImrān b. Ḥuṣayn really said that, and we have to take Yazīd b. Shurayk al-Ẓubbaʿī’s word for it that Muʿtarrif b. ʿAbdallah said that.

The next one is from Saʿd b. Mālik:

عَنْ رَسُولِ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ قَالَ : مَا مِنْ نَفْسٍ إِلَّا وَقَدْ كَتَبَ اللَّهُ مَدْخَلَهَا وَمَخْرَجَهَا وَمَا هِيَ لَاقِيَةٌ ، فَقَالَ رَجُلٌ مِنَ الْأَنْصَارِ : فَفِيمَ الْعَمَلُ يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ ؟ قَالَ : اعْمَلُوا فَكُلٌّ مُيَسَّرٌ ، مَنْ كَانَ مِنْ أَهْلِ الْجَنَّةِ يُيَسِّرُهُ لِعَمَلِ أَهْلِهَا ، وَمَنْ كَانَ مِنْ أَهْلِ النَّارِ يُيَسِّرُهُ لِعَمَلِ أَهْلِهَا ، قَالَ : فَقَالَ الْأَنْصَارِيُّ : الْآنَ حَقَّ الْعَمَلُ

The Prophet PBUH said: "There is not a soul except that God has written for it its entrance and exit and what he will face." So a man from al-Ansar said: "So what is the purpose of deeds O Messenger of God?" He said, "Do [good] deeds for each person is eased [toward their destiny]. Whoever is of the people of Paradise is eased toward the deeds of its people, and whoever is of the people of Hell is eased toward the deeds of its people." So the man from al-Ansar said, "Now deeds have become obligatory [i.e. now the truth of the need to do good deeds has been shown]."

Al-Bayhaqī, al-Qadar 39

This hadith has Aḥmad b. Rusta in its chain, who is unknown.

This hadith is narrated by Surāqa b. Mālik:

قَالَ : فَحُدِّثْنَا عَنْ دِينِنَا هَذَا كَأَنَّا خُلِقْنَا لَهُ السَّاعَةَ نَعْمَلُ لِشَيْءٍ قَدْ جَرَتْ بِهِ الْمَقَادِيرُ وَجَفَّتْ بِهِ الْأَقْلَامُ أَمْ لِشَيْءٍ يُسْتَقْبَلُ ؟ قَالَ : بَلْ لِشَيْءٍ قَدْ جَرَتْ بِهِ الْمَقَادِيرُ ، وَجَفَّتْ بِهِ الْأَقْلَامُ ، قَالَ : فَفِيمَ الْعَمَلُ يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ ؟ قَالَ : اعْمَلُوا فَكُلٌّ مُيَسَّرٌ لِمَا خُلِقَ ، قَالَ : ثُمَّ قَرَأَ الْآيَةَ { فَأَمَّا مَنْ أَعْطَى وَاتَّقَى وَصَدَّقَ بِالْحُسْنَى } إِلَى آخِرِ الْآيَةِ

We were told about this religion of ours as if had been created for it this hour. "Do we work for something whose measures/predestination has come to be and from which the pens have dried, or do we [work for] something to be looked forward to [in the future]?" [the Prophet PBUH] said, "No, rather for something that whose measure/predestination has come to be and from which the pens have dried." He said, "So what are deeds for?" He said, "Do good deeds, because everyone is eased toward that which he has been created for." Then he recited the verse, "As for him who gives, fears God and affirms the truth of the good..." to the end of the verse.

Al-Bayhaqī, al-Qadar 40

This hadith has Abū al-Zubayr Muḥammad b. Muslim in its chain, who is considered a non-hujja by Abū Ḥatim al-Rāzī, meaning his hadiths are not reliable enough to be used as proof-texts in legal debates. Sufyān b. ʿUyayna also appears to consider him weak.

Al-Bayhaqī in al-Qadar 390 mentions a similar narration that has ʿAṭṭāf b. Khālid in its chain who is considered weak by al-Dāraquṭnī. It also has an unknown person in its chain called Ṭalḥa b. ʿAbdallah b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān. It also has Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Saʿīd al-Rāzī who is unknown and considered weak by al-Dāraquṭnī.

Next is the following strange hadith from ʿAbdallah b. ʿAmr:

The Messenger of Allah (s.a.w) came out to us with two books in hand. And he said: "Do you know what these two books are?" We said: "No, O Messenger of Allah! Unless you inform us." He said about the one that was in his right hand: "This is a book from the Lord of the worlds, in it are the names of the people of Paradise, and the name of their fathers and their tribes. Then there is a summary at the end of them, there being no addition to them nor deduction from them forever." Then he said about the one that was in his left: "This is a book from the Lord of the worlds, in it are the names of the people of Fire, and the name of their fathers and their tribes. Then there is a summary at the end of them, there being no addition to them nor deduction from them forever.' The companions said: 'So why work O Messenger of Allah! Since the matter is already decided (and over)?' He said: 'Seek to do what is right and draw nearer, for indeed the inhabitant of Paradise, shall have his work sealed off with the deeds of the people of Paradise, whichever deeds he did. And indeed the inhabitant of Fire, shall have his work sealed off with the deeds of the people of Fire, whichever deeds he did.' Then the Messenger of Allah motioned with his hands, casting them down and said: 'Your Lord finished with the slaves, a group in Paradise, and a group in the Blazing Fire."

Al-Bayhaqī, al-Qadar 41, Al-Tirmidhī Vol. 4, Book 6, Hadith 2141

This hadith has Abū Qābil Ḥuyay b. Hāniʾ in its chain who is considered weak by multiple scholars. Another version comes from Saʿīd b. Sinān who is also weak.

Below is a second hadith from ʿAbdallah b. ʿAmr:

 قَالَ : دَخَلْتُ عَلَى عَبْدِ اللَّهِ بْنِ عَمْرِو بْنِ الْعَاصِ وَهُوَ فِي حَائِطٍ لَهُ بِالطَّائِفِ فَذَكَرَ حَدِيثًا طَوِيلًا . قَالَ : وَسَمِعْتُ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ قَالَ : إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ خَلَقَ خَلْقَهُ فِي ظُلْمَةٍ ، ثُمَّ أَلْقَى عَلَيْهِمْ مِنْ نُورِهِ ، فَمَنْ أَصَابَهُ مِنْ ذَلِكَ النُّورِ يَوْمَئِذٍ شَيْءٌ اهْتَدَى ، وَمَنْ أَخْطَأَهُ ضَلَّ ، فَلِذَلِكَ أَقُولُ : جَفَّ الْقَلَمُ عَلَى عِلْمِ اللَّهِ

I entered upon ʿAbdallah b. ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ while he was in a garden of his in al-Ṭāʾif, so he mentioned a long hadith. He said, "And I heard the Prophet PBUH say, 'God, Mighty and High is He, created His creation in darkness. Then He threw on them from His light. So whoever was struck by any of that light then he is guided. And whoever it missed became misguided. So that is why I said, 'The pen has dried upon God's knowledge.'"

Al-Bayhaqī, al-Qadar 43

This hadith comes entirely from trustworthy transmitters, but it comes only from one Companion, through a single transmitter ʿAbdullah b. Fayrūz al-Daylamī. In another hadith from the same transmitter as above, this same Companion denies that he has said a person is either wretched or blessed from his mother’s womb:

قُلْتُ لِعَبْدِ اللَّهِ بْنِ عَمْرٍو إِنَّهُ بَلَغَنِي أَنَّكَ تُحَدِّثُ أَنَّ الشَّقِيَّ مَنْ شَقِيَ فِي بَطْنِ أُمِّهِ ، فَقَالَ : أَمَا إِنِّي لَا أُحِلُّ لِأَحَدٍ أَنْ يَكْذِبَ عَلَيَّ ، إِنِّي سَمِعْتُ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ يَقُولُ : إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ خَلَقَ خَلْقَهُ فِي ظُلْمَةٍ ثُمَّ أَلْقَى عَلَيْهِمْ نُورًا مِنْ نُورِهِ ، فَمَنْ أَصَابَهُ شَيْءٌ مِنْ ذَلِكَ النُّورِ اهْتَدَى ، وَمَنْ أَخْطَأَهُ ضَلَّ

I said to ʿAbdallah b. ʿAmr that I have heard you say that a person is wretched who is wretched from his mothers womb. He said, "I do not allow anyone to make up lies in my name. I heard the Prophet PBUH said, 'God, Mighty and High is He, created His creation in darkness. Then He threw on them from His light. So whoever was struck by any of that light then he is guided. And whoever it missed became misguided.'"

Musnad al-Ṭayālisī 2394

It appears that ʿAbdallah b. ʿAmr is only denying having said that without denying its meaning, since what he says above is still fatalistic. Since both fatalistic hadiths come only from one Companion, only through ʿAbdullah b. Fayrūz al-Daylamī, they are not strong enough to be used as conclusive proofs.

Next is a hadith that comes from many Companions:

On the day He created Adam, God grabbed his offspring in two handfuls. All good ones fell into His right hand and all evil ones into His other hand. He then said, "Those who are the companions of the right and I do not care. They will enter Paradise. And those are the companions of the Hellfire."

However, none of the versions are actually very authentic:

  • The version from the Companion Abū Mūsa al-Ashʿarī has Yazīd al-Raqāshī in its chain of transmitter who is a weak transmitter. (Al-Ṭabarāni, al-Muʿjam al-Awṣat 11431)
  • The version from the Companion Abū al-Dardāʾ has Abū al-Rabīʿ Sulaymān b. ʿUtba who was considered weak by Yaḥya b. Muʿīn. (Musnad Aḥmad 26870)
  • The version from the Companion Muʿādh b. Jabal has the weak transmitter Barāʾ al-Ghanawī. (Musnad Aḥmad 21597)
  • The version from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Qatāda al-Sulamī has Rāshid b. Saʿd who was considered weak by Ibn Ḥazm. (Ṣaḥīh Ibn Ḥibbān 339)
  • The versions from Anas has al-Ḥakam b. Sinān who is a weak narrator. (Musnad Abī Yaʿlā 3359, 3328)
  • The version from Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq has Fiṭr b. Khalīfa who was considered weak by Abū Dawūd and al-Juzjāni. (Al-Jāmiʿ li-Muʿammar b. Rāshid 701; al-Bayhaqi, al-Qadar 391)
  • The version from ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb has Muslim b. Yasār in it, who is unknown.
  • The version from Hishām b. al-Ḥakīm was transmitted by Rāshid b. Saʿd, who was considered weak by Ibn Ḥazm. It also has ʿAbdallāh b. Ṣāliḥ who was severely criticized and considered untrustworthy by many scholars (Al-Bayhaqī, al-Qadar 226). Another version of it comes through Baqīya b. al-Walīd who was considered a performer of tadl$is from weak narrators (he heard something from a weak narrator then said he heard it from a trustworthy person). Al-Bayhaqī himself says he is not a ḥujja (his hadiths are not strong enough to be used as proof-texts in legal debates). (Al-Bayhaqī, al-Qadar 227) Another version of it comes through Isḥāq b. Ibrāhīm b. al-ʿUlāʾ who was considered unreliable by al-Nasāʾī and Abū Dawūd.

The next hadith is from ʿĀʾisha:

ʿĀʾisha, the mother of the believers, said that Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) was called to lead the funeral prayer of a child of the Ansar. I said:
Allah's Messenger, there is happiness for this child who is a bird from the birds of Paradise for it committed no sin nor has he reached the age when one can commit sin. He said: ʿĀʾisha, per perhaps it may be otherwise, because God created for Paradise those who are fit for it while they were yet in their father's loins and created for Hell those who are to go to Hell. He created them for Hell while they were yet in their father's loins.

Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2662 c

This hadith only comes to us through Ṭalḥa b. Yaḥyā, who is described by al-Bukhārī as munkar al-ḥadīth, meaning he narrates unique narrations that contain information not corroborated by any other hadiths, which is a cause for doubting his authenticity. Al-Qaṭṭān and al-Sājī described him as laysa bi-l-qawī (“not strong”), meaning that his hadiths are not of the highest quality (i.e. not saḥīḥ).

Next is a hadith that seems to completely contradict divine wisdom and justice:

قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ : هَؤُلَاءِ لِلْجَنَّةِ وَلَا أُبَالِي ، وَهَؤُلَاءِ لِلنَّارِ وَلَاأُبَالِي

The Prophet said, "[God said], 'Those are for Paradise and I do not care. And those are for the Fire and I do not care.'"

Al-Bayhaqi, al-Qadar, 54

This hadith has various versions and mentions that right after the creation of Adam, all of his offspring were brought forth and God divided them into the dwellers of Paradise and Hell before they were even born. The one above is transmitted by Naṣr b. Aḥmad b. Abī Ṣura al-Marwazī who is unknown and therefore cannot be relied on.

  • There is another version from Abū al-Dardāʾ’ (Musnad Aḥmad 26870) which has Abū al-Rabīʿ Sulaymān b. ʿUtba in its chain who was unknown and considered unreliable by Yaḥyā b. Muʿīn.
  • Another version mentioned a Companion named Abū ʿAbdallāh (Musnad Aḥmad 17250) which contains Abū Naḍra Mundhir b. Mālik who is known to have become unreliable in his memory in his old age. The hadith is strange in that it does not mention who heard the Prophet PBUH say his statement to Abū ʿAbdallāh, as if there is an anonymous hearer involved, which suggests that Abū Naḍra heard it from some anonymous source.
  • Another version from Muʿādh b. Jabal has the weak transmitter Barāʾ b. ʿAbdallāh al-Ghanawī (Musnad Aḥmad 21597).
  • The version from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Qatāda al-Sulāmī has Muʿawiya b. Ṣaliḥ, who was considered not reliable enough for his narrations to be used as proof-texts by Abū Ḥatim al-Rāzī while Qaṭṭān and Yaḥyā b. Muʿīn considered his narrations unacceptable. It also has Rashīd b. Saʿd who was considered unreliable by Ibn Ḥazm.
  • The version from Abū Musā al-Ashʿarī has Yazīd b. Abān al-Raqāshī, who was considered matrūk (so unreliable that his hadiths should be abandoned) by al-Nasāʾī and Abū Aḥmad al-Ḥākim al-Kabīr (al-Ṭabarānī, al-Muʿjam al-Awsaṭ 11431)
  • The version from Anas has al-Ḥakam b. Sinān who is a weak transmitter. (Musnad Abū Yaʿlā al-Mawṣlī, 3359)
  • The version from Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq has Fiṭr b. Khalīfa who was considered weak by Abū Dawūd and Abū Saʿīd b. Yūnus al-Miṣrī. (Muʿammar b. al-Rāshid, al-Jāmiʿ 701)

Another version simply says:

Those are for that and those are for that. Then the people divided into groups, but they do not differ in predestination (qadar).

Al-Bayhaqi, al-Qadar, 53

This version has Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh b. al-Zubayr who is known to make errors in his transmissions from Sufyān al-Thawrī, and this hadith happens to be a transmission from Sufyān al-Thawrī.

We also have this extremely fatalistic hadith from Ibn Masʿūd, dealt with in the summary above:

ʿAbdallāh b. Masʿūd said :
The Messenger of Allah (May peace be upon him) who spoke the truth and whose word was belief told us the following : The constituents of one of you are collected for forty days in his mother’s womb, then they become a piece of congealed blood for a similar period, then they become a lump of flesh for a similar period. Then Allah sends to him an angel with four words who records his provision the period of his life, his deeds, and whether he will be miserable or blessed ; thereafter he breathes the spirit into him. One of you will do the deeds of those who go to Paradise so that there will be only a cubit between him and it or will be within a cubit, then what is decreed will overcome him so that he will do the deeds of those who go to Hell and will enter it; and one of you will do the deeds of those who go to hell, so that there will be only a cubit between him and it or will be within a cubit, then what is decreed will overcome him, so that he will do the deeds of those who go to Paradise and will enter it.

Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2645 a, a version is also in al-Bukhārī 7056

Its chain is fully authentic. A shorter version version of it comes from Anas:

Narrated Anas bin Malik:

The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "At every womb Allah appoints an angel who says, 'O Lord! A drop of semen, O Lord! A clot. O Lord! A little lump of flesh." Then if Allah wishes (to complete) its creation, the angel asks, (O Lord!) Will it be a male or female, a wretched or a blessed, and how much will his provision be? And what will his age be?' So all that is written while the child is still in the mother's womb."

Ṣaḥīh al-Bukhārī 318

The chain of this one is also fully authentic.

There is another version from Hudhayfa b. Usayd (al-Albāni, Ṣaḥīh al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr wa-Ziyādatuhu 797) that lacks any mention of wretchedness or blessedness, and lacks mention of God determining his actions beforehand. Another version from Hudhayfa b. Usayd (al-Albāni, Ṣaḥīh al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr wa-Ziyādatuhu 1984) says at the end “Then God makes him (yajʿaluhu) wretched or blessed”, which leaves room for interpreting it as a reference to divine guidance throughout a person’s life. Another version of his is as fatalistic as Ibn Mas’ud’s:

Hudhayfa b. Usayd reported directly from Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) that he said:

When the drop of (semen) remains in the womb for forty or fifty (days) or forty nights, the angel comes and says: My Lord, will he be good or evil? And both these things would be written. Then the angel says: My Lord, would he be male or female? And both these things are written. And his deeds and actions, his death, his livelihood; these are also recorded. Then his document of destiny is rolled and there is no addition to nor subtraction from it.

Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2644

Hudhayfa b. Usayd’s non-fatalistic version could have been the original statement of the Prophet PBUH that was later enlarged by adding the fatalistic meanings. But I admit that this is one of the strongest pieces of evidence for the fatalistic argument.

Another fatalistic hadith from Abū al-Dardāʾ says:

فَرَغَ اللَّهُ إِلَى كُلِّ عَبْدٍ مِنْ خَمْسٍ ، مِنْ أَجَلِهِ وَمِنْ عَمَلِهِ وَرِزْقِهِ وَأَثَرِهِ وَمَضْجَعِهِ ، لَا يَتَعَدَّاهُنَّ عَبْدٌ

God has finished [dealing with five things in regards to His servant]: the timing of his death, his work, his provision, his footprint and his place of death. He will never be able to transgress these.

Al-Bayhaqi, al-Qadar, 64

This hadith is authentic but only comes from one Companion, through one transmitter.

Another hadith from Ubayy b. Kaʿb says:

إِنَّ الْغُلَامَ الَّذِي قَتَلَهُ الْخَضِرُ طُبِعَ كَافِرًا ، وَلَوْ عَاشَ لَأَرْهَقَ أَبَوَيْهِ طُغْيَانًا وَكُفْرًا

The boy who was killed by Khidr had been sealed with disbelief. If he had lived he would have overwhelmed his parents to with oppression and disbelief.

Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2662 a

This hadith comes only from one Companion. It can be given a non-fatalistic interpretation: the boy may have been a few years past puberty (when a person becomes responsible for their deeds) and may have already committed so many evil deeds that his heart had been sealed by God. The Quranic verse, however, suggests that his death was based on a probabilistic judgment of his future evil nature, because it says “we feared”, rather than “we knew”, that he would overwhelm them with oppression and disbelief.

As for the boy, his parents were believers, and we feared he would overwhelm them with oppression and disbelief.

The Quran, verse 18:80

Another version from the same Companion takes away all fatalism:

وَكَانَ يَوْمَ طُبِعَ كَافِرًا

That day he was sealed with disbelief.

Sunan Abi Dawud 4706

Rather than saying he was sealed with disbelief from birth, it says he was sealed with disbelief on that day. This hadith comes from an authentic chain (authenticated by al-Albānī), but it has Isrāʾīl b. Yūnus who was widely considered authentic but considered unauthentic by Ibn Ḥazm and ʿAlī b. al-Madīnī.

Another fatalistic hadith from Ibn ʿAbbās says:

خَلَقَ اللَّهُ فِرْعَوْنَ فِي بَطْنِ أُمِّهِ كَافِرًا ، وَخَلَقَ يَحْيَى بْنَ زَكَرِيَّا فِي بَطْنِ أُمِّهِ مُؤْمِنًا

God created Pharaoh in his mother's womb as a disbeliever, and He created John son of Zechariah in his mother's womb as a believer.

Al-Bayhaqi, al-Qadar 69

This hadith has Yāhya b. Baṣtam in its chain who was considered unreliable by al-Bukhārī and Ibn Ḥibbān. Another version of it comes through Ayyūb b. Khawṭ in it who is also weak (al-Bayhaqī, al-Qadar 69). Another version of it comes from Ibn Masʿūd but comes through Naṣr b. Ṭarīf who is weak (al-Bayhaqī,, al-Qadar 70). Another version from Ibn Masʿūd has the weak narrator Abū Umayya b. al-Hābaṭī (al-Bayhaqī, al-Qadar 71). Another version has ʿUmar b. Ibrāhīm who is not perfectly authentic, it also has Shādh b. Fayyāḍ who is known to transmit munkar (unusual and doubtful) narrations through this type of chain. Another version also has ʿUmar b. Ibrāhīm and his son al-Khalīl b. ʿUmar b. Ibrāhīm whose hadiths from his father are also considered munkar. Another version of this hadith (al-Bayhaqī, al-Qadar 72) from Ibn Masʿūd comes through Abū Hilāl Muḥammad b. Sulaym al-Rāsī who is considered weak by Daraquṭnī and al-Qaṭṭān.

Another fatalistic hadith from Ibn Masʿūd starts with:

 الْعَبْدُ يُولَدُ مُؤْمِنًا وَيَعِيشُ مُؤْمِنًا وَيَمُوتُ مُؤْمِنًا ، وَالْعَبْدُ يُولَدُ كَافِرًا وَيَعِيشُ كَافِرًا وَيَمُوتُ كَافِرًا...

The servant is born a believer, lives as a believer and dies a believer, and the servant is born a disbeliever, lives as a disbeliever, and dies a disbeliever.

Al-Bayhaqī, al-Qadar 71

This hadith also comes from Shādh b. Fayyāḍ through ʿUmar b. Ibrāhīm, both of whom are of doubtful reliability.

Another fatalistic hadith from Abū Hurayra says:

The happy [in the afterlife] is the one who is happy from his mother's womb.

Al-Bayhaqī, al-Qadar 74

This hadith is authentic. But this statement only comes only from the two Companions Ibn Masʿūd and Abū Hurayra through questionable chains. Most hadiths attribute the saying to Ibn Masʿūd himself rather than the Prophet PBUH. The version from Abū Hurayra comes from a rather precarious chain:

This hadith only comes through the fourth transmitter above, making it rather doubtful. The version from Ibn Masʿūd is even worse (Ibn Māja 45). Its chain has Abū al-Aḥwaṣ ʿAwf b. Mālik who was a mudallis. The chain also has Abū Isḥāq ʿAmr b. ʿAbdallāh, another mudallis whose memory weakened in old age. It also has a third mudallis Musā b. ʿUqba. It also has the unknown transmitter ʿUbayd b. Maymūn. Both versions are therefore quite unworthy of relying on.

Another hadith from ʿĀʾisha says:

إِنَّ الرَّجُلَ لَيَعْمَلُ بِعَمَلِ أَهْلِ الْجَنَّةِ وَإِنَّهُ لَمَكْتُوبٌ فِي الْكِتَابِ إِنَّهُ مِنْ أَهْلِ النَّارِ ، فَإِذَا كَانَ قَبْلَ مَوْتِهِ تَحَوَّلَ فَيَعْمَلُ بِعَمَلِ أَهْلِ النَّارِ فَمَاتَ ، فَدَخَلَ النَّارَ ، وَإِنَّ الرَّجُلَ لَيَعْمَلُ بِعَمَلِ أَهْلِ النَّارِ وَإِنَّهُ لَمَكْتُوبٌ فِي الْكِتَابِ إِنَّهُ مِنْ أَهْلِ الْجَنَّةِ ، فَإِذَا كَانَ قَبْلَ مَوْتِهِ تَحَوَّلَ فَيَعْمَلُ بِعَمَلِ أَهْلِ الْجَنَّةِ ، فَدَخَلَ الْجَنَّةَ

A person performs the deeds of a person of Paradise while he is written in the Book as a person of Hell. Before his death he reverts and performs the deeds of the people of Hell, so when he dies he enters Hell. [And vice versa]Al-Bayhaqi, al-Qadar 80

This hadith only comes through the little-known narrator Ashʿath b. Hilāl al-Jurjānī and for this reason it is doubtful. Another version of it comes from the weak narrator ʿUbaydallāh b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Mawhib (al-Bayhaqī, al-Qadar 79).

The next hadith is from the Companion al-ʿUrs b. ʿUmayra:

سَمِعْتُ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ يَقُولُ : إِنَّ الْعَبْدَ مِنْ عِبَادِ اللَّهِ لَيَعْمَلُ بِعَمَلِ أَهْلِ الْجَنَّةِ الْبُرْهَةَ مِنْ دَهْرِهِ ، فَتُعْرَضُ لَهُ الْجَادَّةُ مِنْ جَوَادِّ النَّارِ ، فَيَعْمَلُ بِهَا حَتَّى يَمُوتَ عَلَيْهَا وَذَلِكَ مَا كُتِبَ لَهُ . وَإِنَّ الْعَبْدَ مِنْ عِبَادِ اللَّهِ لَيَعْمَلُ بِعَمَلِ أَهْلِ النَّارِ الْبُرْهَةَ مِنْ دَهْرِهِ ، فَتُعْرَضُ لَهُ الْجَادَّةُ مِنْ جَوَادِّ الْجَنَّةِ ، فَيَعْمَلُ بِهَا حَتَّى يَمُوتَ عَلَيْهَا وَذَلِكَ لِمَا كُتِبَ لَهُ

I heard the Messenger of God PBUH say, "The servant among the servants of God performs the deeds of the people of Paradise for a period of his lifetime. Then a road of the roads of Hell are presented to him so that he performs acts according to it and dies in that state, and that is because of what has been decreed for him [by God]. [And vice versa]Al-Bayhaqi, al-Qadar 82

This hadith’s chain has Yūsuf b. Yazīd who is considered to have had a weak memory, to make numerous errors and to have little knowledge of hadith. It also has Saʿīd b. Kathīr b. ʿUfayr who confused and mixed up narrations according to ʿAlī b. al-Madīnī. It also has the little-known transmitter Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Ḥakam b. Yazīd al-Ramlī.

The next hadith is from ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb:

جَاءَ أَهْلُ نَجْرَانَ إِلَى النَّبِيِّ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ فَقَالُوا : الْآجَالُ وَالْأَرْزَاقُ تُقَدَّرُ ، وَالْأَعْمَالُ إِلَيْنَا . فَأَنْزَلَ اللَّهُ تَبَارَكَ وَتَعَالَى : { إِنَّ الْمُجْرِمِينَ فِي ضَلَالٍ وَسُعُرٍ } إِلَى قَوْلِهِ : { كُلَّ شَيْءٍ خَلَقْنَاهُ بِقَدَرٍ }إِلَى قَوْلِهِ : { وَكُلُّ صَغِيرٍ وَكَبِيرٍ مُسْتَطَرٌ }

The people of Najran came to the Prophet PBUH and said, "The death-timings and the provisions are decreed, but deeds are ours." So God sent down: "The wicked are in confusion and madness." to His saying, "Everything we created with a qadar." to His saying, "And everything, small or great, is written."

Al-Bayhaqi, al-Qadar 113

This hadith comes through al-Hudhayl b. Bilāl al-Madāʾinī, who was considered weak by Yaḥyā b. Muʿīn, Abū Dawūd, al-Nasāʾī and al-Daraquṭnī.

لَمَّا أَنْزَلَ اللَّهُ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ عَلَى رَسُولِهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ : { لِمَنْ شَاءَ مِنْكُمْ أَنْ يَسْتَقِيمَ } قَالُوا : الْأَمْرُ إِلَيْنَا إِنْ شِئْنَا اسْتَقَمْنَا ، وَإِنْ شِئْنَا لَمْ نَسْتَقِمْ . فَأَنْزَلَ اللَّهُ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ : { وَمَا تَشَاءُونَ إِلَّا أَنْ يَشَاءَ اللَّهُ رَبُّ الْعَالَمِينَ }

When God, Mighty and He is He, sent down upon His messenger PBUH: "For whoever among you who wishes to be upright", they said, "The matter is [in our hands]. If we wish we will be upright, and if we wish we will not be upright." So God sent down, "You do not will [a thing] except that God, the Lord of the Worlds, wills it."

Al-Bayhaqi, al-Qadar 116

This hadith comes from the transmitter Mālik b. Sulaymān who is considered weak by Abū Dawūd, al-Nasāʾī and al-Daraquṭnī. It also has an incomplete (mursal) chain of narrators since the first transmitter does not mention which Companion he heard it from. The chain also has Baqqiya b. al-Walīd, who is known to perform tadlīs from untrustworthy transmitters (he says he heard something from a trusted person but actually heard an untrustworthy person say that he heard it from a trustworthy person). The chain also has Muhammad b. Muṣaffā who is another performer of tadlīs and who is known to err often.

Narration 128 in al-Bayhaqī’s al-Qadar mentions the angels Gabriel, Michael and Isrāfīl arguing on the issue of qadar leading to a fatalistic conclusion. The hadith is unreliable: it has the transmitter Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad who was considered unreliable by Sufyan b. ʿUyayna and al-Wāqidī. The chain also has Abū Muslim Muḥammad b. al-Zubayr who was mentioned by Sufyan b. ʿUyayna and al-Sakhtiyānī as if they considered him unreliable.

Al-Bayhaqī in hadiths 134, 135 and 139 in his al-Qadar presents authentic narrations all of which say that belief in qadar, “its good and its bad”, is obligatory on a Muslim. The hadiths do not have a fatalistic meaning.

In hadith 149, al-Bayhaqī mentions a long fatalistic hadith that mentions the respected Successor Saʿīd b. al-Musayyab getting angry when someone says humans have free will to do good or evil. He narrates a Prophetic statement that says humans are created either for Paradise or Hell [from birth]. This hadith comes through the unknown transmitter ʿAṭīya b. ʿAṭīya and al-Dhahabī says it is a fabricated hadith.

In al-Qadar 306, al-Bayhaqī mentions a shorter version of this hadith from a different chain. The chain has ʿAmr b. Shuʿayb who is considered to be below the degree of authenticity by Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī. The hadith also has ʿAbdallah b. Lahīʿa who is widely considered weak.

In al-Qadar 309, al-Bayhaqī mentions a narration from ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb in which he implies that God creates people for Paradise or Hell from birth. Its chain has Khālid b. al-Ḥadhdhāʾ who is considered not reliable enough for his hadiths to be used as proof-texts by Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī. The chain also has Abū Bakr b. Isḥāq al-Faqīh who is unknown and whose hadiths are munkar (unique and doubtful) according to al-Bukhārī.

The hadith below appears to be fatalistic, but it actually can be used to argue against fatalism:

Narrated Abū Hurayra:

I said, "O Allah's Messenger (ﷺ)! I am a young man and I am afraid that I may commit illegal sexual intercourse and I cannot afford to marry." He kept silent, and then repeated my question once again, but he kept silent. I said the same (for the third time) and he remained silent. Then repeated my question (for the fourth time), and only then the Prophet said, "O Abu Hurayra! The pen has dried after writing what you are going to confront. So (it does not matter whether you) get yourself castrated or not."

Ṣaḥīh al-Bukhārī 5076

The Prophet PBUH says that what Abū Hurayra is going to face in life is already written. Yet he admits that Abū Hurayra has a choice in whether he castrates himself or not. This could actually be an affirmation of his free will. This hadith comes through Yūnus b. Yazīd who erred often in his narrations from al-Zuhrī (this one is such a narration) according to Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal. Another in the chain, ʿAbdallāh b. Wahb, was known to be a performer of tadlīs. This evidence is not sufficient to consider the hadith weak, but its chain is low-quality.

Next is a hadith from Ibn ʿAbbās:

I did not see anything so resembling minor sins as what Abū Hurayra said from the Prophet, who said, "Allah has written for the son of Adam his inevitable share of adultery whether he is aware of it or not: The adultery of the eye is the looking (at something which is sinful to look at), and the adultery of the tongue is to utter (what it is unlawful to utter), and the innerself wishes and longs for (adultery) and the private parts turn that into reality or refrain from submitting to the temptation."

Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6612

This hadith is authentic, but it only comes from Abū Hurayra through a precarious chain:

A version comes directly from Abū Hurayra (Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2658 a) but through Suhayl b. Abū Ṣāliḥ who was considered weak by al-Dāraquṭnī.

Narrated Ibn ʿUmar:

The Prophet (ﷺ) forbade vowing and said, "In fact, vowing does not prevent anything, but it makes a miser spend his property."

Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6608

Another version of it comes from Abū Hurayra and explicitly mentions qadar:

Do not take vows, for a vow has no effect against qadar; it is only from the miserly that something is extracted.

Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1640 a

Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī also has a hadith with the same meaning from Abū Hurayra (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6609) with a stronger chain. The authenticity of both hadiths seems established. But since no other Companions mention it, it falls short of the gold-standard of four Companions. And since vowing was very common in Arabia, it is strange that there are not any more hadiths where the Prophet forbids vowing.

However, assuming it is authentic, we can still give it a non-fatalistic interpretation. If we assume the possibility of change in qadar (as the Prophet PBUH affirms in other narrations), the Prophet PBUH is saying we cannot counter God’s qadar with vows. This does not mean that it does not have an influence on what God decrees. It is also likely that the Prophet PBUH was not laying down a theological idea but trying to discourage people from a practice he disliked. The Prophet is saying we cannot force God to do anything through vows (perhaps people assumed vows were binding on God). The Prophet is not necessarily stating that vows cannot have an influence on qadar if and when God chooses.

The next hadith (al-Bayhaqī, al-Qadar, 230) is authentic and from Ibn ʿAbbās. He says the Prophet PBUH said nothing will befall him except that which God has written for him, and that “the scrolls have dried and the pens have been lifted.” This hadith sounds fatalistic, but since it only mentions what befalls a person (rather than what they will do in life), it cannot be used to support fatalism with certainty. The Prophet PBUH may also be saying that, at this moment, the scrolls have dried and the pens have been lifted rather than saying there can never be any change in qadar in the future.

Next is a hadith that mentions multiple Companions:

Ibn al-Daylamī said :
I went to Ubayy b. Kaʿb and said him : I am confused about qadar, so tell me something by means of which Allah may remove the confusion from my mind. He replied : were Allah to punish everyone in the heavens and in the earth. He would do so without being unjust to them, and were he to show mercy to them his mercy would be much better than their actions merited. Were you to spend in support of Allah’s cause an amount of gold equivalent to Uḥud, Allah would not accept it from you till you believed in divine decree and knew that what has come to you could not miss you and that what has missed you could not come to you. Were you to die believing anything else you would enter Hell. He said : I then went to ʿAbdallāh b. Masʿūd and he said something to the same effect. I next went to Hudhayfa b. al-Yamān and he said something to the same effect. I next went to Zayd b. Thābit who told me something from the Prophet (May peace be upon him) to the same effect.

Sunan Abī Dawūd 4699

This hadith has Muhammad b. Kathīr in its chain, who is considered weak by Yaḥyā b. Muʿīn, al-Jīlī and al-Baghdādī. A different version of it is narrated by al-Bayhaqī in al-Qadar 305. This hadith has Muʿāwiya b. Ṣāliḥ in its chain, whose hadiths cannot be used as proof-texts according to Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī. It also has his son ʿAbdallāh b. Ṣāliḥ who has a worse reputation than his father. Al-Nasāʾī says he is not trustworthy and Ibn al-Madīnī said he avoids all narrations from him.

This hadith is therefore not high-quality. It also does not actually support fatalism since the Companions only affirm the meaning of qadar that is accepted by both sides. However, their saying that it would be just if God was to punish everyone in the heavens and the earth is strange and questionable. In al-Qadar 414 al-Bayhaqī mentions another version of this hadith with a weaker chain. The chain has Hishām b. Saʿd who was widely considered to be weak. It also has Saʿīd b. Hilāl who was considered below authentic by Ibn Ḥazm.

ʿUbāda b. al-Ṣāmit said to his son :
Son! You will not get the taste of the reality of faith until you know that what has come to you could not miss you, and that what has missed you could not come to you. I heard the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) say: The first thing Allah created was the pen. He said to it: Write. It asked: What should I write, my Lord? He said: Write what was decreed about everything till the Last Hour comes. Son! I heard the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) say : He who dies on something other than this does not belong to me.

Sunan Abi Dawud 4700 (sahih according to al-Albani)

The last transmitter of the above hadith is considered to have erred sometimes. Otherwise the hadith has an authentic chain. It does not have a fatalistic meaning since it does not say that the goodness or wickedness of humans was decreed then. It could be referring only to the decreeing of things that would befall humans.

Anti-Fatalistic Narrations

 لَا يَزِيدُ فِي الْعُمْرِ إِلَّا الْبِرُّ ، وَلَا يَرُدُّ الْقَدَرَ إِلَّا الدُّعَاءُ ، وَإِنَّ الرَّجُلَ لَيُحْرَمُ الرِّزْقَ بِخَطِيئَةٍ يَعْمَلُهَا

Nothing increases lifetime except righteousness, and nothing counters qadar except prayer, and a man may be forbidden provision because of a sin he commits.

Sunan Ibn Māja 90, authenticated by al-Albānī, Ibn Ḥibbān and al-Ḥākim al-Nisābūrī

This hadith has entirely reliable transmitters except for ʿAbdalah b. Abī al-Jaʿd, who is little-known but considered trustworthy by Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī. This hadith contradicts all fatalistic narrations that say nothing will ever change in a person’s qadar (“the scroll has dried”, etc.). A different version of the hadith adds the following (said by the Prophet PBUH):

إِنَّ فِي التَّوْرَاةِ لَمَكْتُوبٌ : يَا ابْنَ آدَمَ ، اتَّقَ رَبَّكَ ، وَبِرَّ وَالِدَكَ ، وَصِلْ رَحِمَكَ ، أَمْدُدْ لَكَ فِي عُمُرِكَ ، وَأُيَسِّرْ لَكَ يُسْرَكَ ، وَأَصْرِفْ عَنْكَ عُسْرَكَ

It is written in the Torah: O child of Adam, fear your Lord, be dutiful toward your parents, be dutiful toward your relatives, and I will extend your lifetime, ease for you your ease, and take away from you your difficulty.

Musnad al-Rūyānī, 608

This version also comes from entirely trusted transmitters except for Sālim b. Rāfiʿ who is considered unknown by some and trusted by others. Since the saying is in the context of qadar, the concept of dynamic, changeable qadar is strongly suggested by it. What we choose to do, whether we do good or evil, changes what God causes to befall us. This is the opposite of fatalism.

Faʿḍāla b. ʿUbayd:

أَنَّ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ ، قَالَ : اللَّهُمَّ مَنْ آمَنَ بِكَ ، وَشَهِدَ أَنِّي رَسُولُكَ ، فَحَبِّبْ إِلَيْهِ لِقَاءَكَ ، وَسَهِّلْ عَلَيْهِ قَضَاءَكَ ، وَأَقْلِلْ لَهُ مِنَ الدُّنْيَا ، وَمَنْ لَمْ يُؤْمِنْ بِكَ وَلَمْ يَشْهَدْ أَنِّي رَسُولُكَ ، فَلَا تُحَبِّبْ إِلَيْهِ لِقَاءَكَ ، وَلَا تُسَهِّلْ عَلَيْهِ قَضَاءَكَ ، وَأَكْثِرْ لَهُ مِنَ الدُّنْيَا

The Prophet PBUH said, "O Allah, whoever believes in you, and bears witness that I am your messenger, then cause him to love meeting you, and ease your decrees on him, and decrease from him the worldly life. And whoever does not believe in you, and does not bear witness that I am your Messenger, then do not cause him to love meeting you, and do not ease your decree on him, and increase for him of the worldly life."

Ṣaḥīḥ Ibn Ḥibbān 208

This hadith has a wholly authentic chain. In it the Prophet speaks as if God’s decree is changeable, for he prays that it should be eased or not eased. There would be no point in this prayer if qadar was unchangeable.

ʿĀʾisha:

وَأَسْأَلُكَ أَنْ تَجْعَلَ كُلَّ قَضَاءٍ قَضَيْتَهُ لِي خَيْرًا

... and I ask you to make every decree You decree for me to be a good.

Ṣaḥīḥ Ibn Ḥibbān 870; Muṣannaf Abī Shayba 28767

The above hadith comes from two chains from wholly trusted transmitters. The first chain contains one individual whose memory weakened in old age. The second chain does not contain that individual. The Prophet PBUH again speaks as if God’s decrees are changeable. If God’s decrees never changed, the meaning of the prayer would be, “O God do what you would have done anyway.”

ʿAmmār b. Yāsir

أَحْيِنِي مَا عَلِمْتَ الْحَيَاةَ خَيْرًا لِي ، وَتَوَفَّنِي إِذَا كَانَتِ الْوَفَاةُ خَيْرًا لِي

... cause me to live while You know life to be better for me, and cause me to die if death is better for me ...

Sahih Ibn Hibban 2005, al-Mustadrak 1878

The above is a quotation from a long hadith in which the Prophet PBUH prays for a number of things. The hadith comes from two chains both of which are wholly authentic except that both contain a trusted individual who occasionally errs. If a person’s death-timing could never change, there would be no point in this prayer. It therefore appears that the Prophet PBUH believed that prayer could change qadar.

Narrated Abū Hurayra:

Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "Every child is born on the fiṭra but his parents convert him to Judaism, Christianity or Magainism, as an animal delivers a perfect baby animal. Do you find it mutilated?" Then Abu Huraira recited the holy verses: "The pure Allah's Islamic nature (true faith of Islam) (i.e. worshipping none but Allah) with which He has created human beings. No change let there be in the religion of Allah (i.e. joining none in worship with Allah). That is the straight religion (Islam) but most of men know, not." (30.30)

Ṣaḥīh al-Bukhārī 1359, a similar version in Ṣaḥīh Muslim 2658 d

The above entirely authentic hadith seems to contradict those hadiths that say humans are divided into the dwellers of Paradise and Hell from before birth. All humans are born on the pure fiṭra (which according to Ibn Taymiyya means belief in a basic form of Islam), but later they become corrupted.

Narrated Abū Huraira:

Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "Allah says, 'If My slave intends to do a bad deed then (O Angels) do not write it unless he does it; if he does it, then write it as it is, but if he refrains from doing it for My Sake, then write it as a good deed (in his account). (On the other hand) if he intends to do a good deed, but does not do it, then write a good deed (in his account), and if he does it, then write it for him (in his account) as ten good deeds up to seven-hundred times.' "

Ṣaḥīh al-Bukhārī 7501

If all human deeds had already been written and the “scrolls” had dried, what is meant by things being recorded and not recorded above? The above hadith suggests a dynamic timeline of life rather a frozen one as fatalism suggests.

Al-Barāʾ b. ʿĀzib reported Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) as saying that Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said:What is your opinion about the delight of a person whose camel loaded with the provisions of food and drink is lost and that moves about with its nosestring trailing upon the waterless desert in which there is neither food nor drink, and lie wanders about in search of that until he is completely exhausted and then accidentally it happens to pass by the trunk of a tree and its nosestring gets entangled in that and he finds it entangled therein? He (in response to the question of the Holy Prophet) said: Allah's Messenger, he would feel highly delighted. Thereupon Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said. By Allah, Allah is more delighted at the repentance of His servant than that person (as he finds his lost) camel.

Ṣaḥīh Muslim 2746, the most authentic chain at Musnad Aḥmad 18206

The above narration comes from entirely trusted transmitters in Aḥmad’s Musnad. It is strange that God would be so happy with a human’s repentance if He had pre-decreed that the person would repent anyway. But it would make perfect sense if the person had a choice between repenting and not repenting.

In the authentic narration below, the Prophet PBUH affirms that he has choice over his actions:

ʿĀʾisha said: "The Messenger of Allah used to divide his time equally among his wives then he would say: 'O Allah, this is what I have done with regard to that over which I have control, so do not blame me for that over which You have control and I do not.'"

Sunan al-Nasāʾī 3943 (authentic)

If the Prophet PBUH had been a fatalist, he would have said that he has no control over how he divides his time, since his choices are in God’s hands anyway.

Narrated Anas:

The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "Allah will say to that person of the (Hell) Fire who will receive the least punishment, 'If you had everything on the earth, would you give it as a ransom to free yourself (i.e. save yourself from this Fire)?' He will say, 'Yes.' Then Allah will say, 'While you were in the backbone of Adam, I asked you much less than this, i.e. not to worship others besides Me, but you insisted on worshiping others besides me.' "

Ṣaḥīh al-Bukhārī 3334, Ṣaḥīh Muslim 2805 a

The above only makes sense if God had not already separated the children of Adam into believers and disbelievers before birth. It is nonsensical that God would decree that some people should enter the Hellfire only to go on to blame them for not worshiping Him.

Below is a narration not from the Prophet but from Ibn ʿAbbās:

{ وَإِذْ أَخَذَ رَبُّكَ مِنْ بَنِي آدَمَ } الْآيَةَ قَالَ : خَلَقَ اللَّهُ آدَمَ فَأَخَذَ مِيثَاقَهُ أَنَّهُ رَبُّهُ ، وَكَتَبَ أَجَلَهُ وَرِزْقَهُ وَمَصَائِبَهُ ثُمَّ أَخْرَجَ مِنْ ظَهْرِهِ كَالذَّرِّ فَأَخَذَ مِيثَاقَهُمْ أَنَّهُ رَبُّهُمْ ، وَكَتَبَ أَجَلَهُمْ وَأَرْزَاقَهُمْ وَمَصَائِبَهُمْ

"And when your Lord took from the children of Adam"...the rest of the verse. [Ibn ʿAbbās said], "God created Adam and took his oath that He is his Lord. Then He wrote the timing of his death, his provision, and the catastrophes that would be fall him. Then He brought out [his offspring] from his back like dust specks and took their oath that He is their Lord. Then He wrote the timing of their death, their provisions and their catastrophes.

Al-Bayhaqī, al-Qadar 49

In this entirely authentic narration, there is no fatalism in Ibn ʿAbbās’s interpretation. What befalls humans has been written in their predestiny, but what they will choose in the future is not forced upon them there.

Narrated Anas:

Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said," None of you should long for death because of a calamity that had befallen him, and if he cannot, but long for death, then he should say, 'O Allah! Let me live as long as life is better for me, and take my life if death is better for me.' "

Ṣaḥīh al-Bukhārī 6351

The above prayer would only make sense if qadar was changeable through prayer. Otherwise, if a person’s death-timing could never change, the prayer would mean “O God do what You would do anyway.”

Abū Hurayra:

سَمِعْتُ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ يَقُولُ : لَا يَدْخُلُ أَحَدٌ النَّارَ إِلَّا أُرِيَ مَقْعَدَهُ مِنَ الْجَنَّةِ ، لَوْ أَحْسَنَ لِيَكُونَ عَلَيْهِ حَسْرَةً ، وَلَا يَدْخُلُ الْجَنَّةَ أَحَدٌ إِلَّا أُرِيَ مَقْعَدَهُ مِنَ النَّارِ لَوْ أَسَاءَ لِيَزْدَادَ شُكْرًا

I heard the Messenger of God PBUH saying, "No one enters the Fire except that his seat he would be shown his seat in Paradise had he been a doer of good so that it becomes a cause of regret for him. And no one enters Paradise except that he is shown his station in the Fire had he been wicked so that he would increase in gratitude.

Musnad Aḥmad 10795, considered Ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī

This hadith’s chain has Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad b. Bahrām who is unknown. It also has ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Dhakwān who is considered weak by some scholars. I am putting it here to balance out all the low-quality narrations I mentioned in the pro-fatalism section. This hadith suggests that a person has a choice between Paradise and Hell since he has two places prepared for him. If it was decided for him that he would go to Paradise or Hell from before birth, then this hadith wouldn’t make sense.

Narrated Abū Hurayra:

Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "The prayer of anyone of you is granted (by Allah) if he does not show impatience (by saying, "I invoked Allah but my request has not been granted.")

Ṣaḥīh al-Bukhārī 6340

The above hadith has an entirely authentic chain. The plain meaning of the hadith suggests that a person has two choices; either he waits patiently and God changes qadar in his favor, or waits impatiently and God allows qadar to stay unchanged.

Narrated ʿAbdallāh b. Masʿūd:

The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "Truthfulness leads to righteousness, and righteousness leads to Paradise. And a man keeps on telling the truth until he becomes a truthful person. Falsehood leads to Al-Fajur (i.e. wickedness, evil-doing), and Al-Fajur (wickedness) leads to the (Hell) Fire, and a man may keep on telling lies till he is written before Allah, a liar."

Ṣaḥīh al-Bukhārī 6094

This hadith comes from a wholly authentic chain. The hadith suggests that a person is not written as a liar to begin with unless they choose to constantly lie.

Narrated ʿAʾisha the mother of the faithful believers:

One night Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) offered the prayer in the Mosque and the people followed him. The next night he also offered the prayer and too many people gathered. On the third and the fourth nights more people gathered, but Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) did not come out to them. In the morning he said, "I saw what you were doing and nothing but the fear that it (i.e. the prayer) might be enjoined on you, stopped me from coming to you." And that happened in the month of Ramadan.

Ṣaḥīh al-Bukhārī 1129

This is another hadith with a wholly authentic chain. If the Prophet PBUH had been a fatalist, he should have believed that God had already decreed what would be obligatory on the Muslims. Here he acts as if he thinks his choices would affect God’s decrees.

IslamQA: On the unreliability of the hadith on Muslims being fated to establish a Prophetic caliphate

Salam. A post in your website titled "The Muslim Plan for Western Civilization" talks about how Muslims should not seek power, and I do found that there is no explicit verse in The Quran that says for Muslim to establish an Islamic State. Back in my times being in a halaqa, there is a hadith that narrates about The 5 Periods of Era (The Prophetic Era of Muhammad, Caliphate, Mulkan Jabriyan, Mulkan 'Adhan, and Caliphate based on Prophethood). I hope you would explain it to me. Jazakallah.

Alaikumassalam wa rahmatullah,

There is no verse in the Quran that clearly and unequivocally asks Muslims to establish an Islamic state. It also never asks Muslims to seek power. Everything the Quran says about governance is vague and can be interpreted in many ways. Mainstream Muslim thinkers believe that this means that the Quran leaves it to each Muslim community to decide its own governance matters according to whatever works best in their particular time and place. I will be happy to discuss any particular verse you have in mind.

As for the hadith you mentioned, the final part that says “then a caliphate will be established according to the methodology of Prophethood” is narrated by only one person (Ibrāhīm al-Wāsiṭī) whose narrations are matrūk (”abandoned”) meaning they are so unreliable as to be unworthy of being cited. Please see the study (Arabic PDF) on this by the hadith scholar Dr. Salah al-Din al-Idlibi.

So there is no authentic narration (as far as I have heard) that talks about the establishment of a utopian caliphate in the future.

There is a serious problem with hadith narrations where there is a short authentic version and a longer version that someone modified according to their own imagination. For example there is a famous hadith that says Muslims will be divided into 73 sects. This is authentic. But then someone added this to its end: “And all of them will enter the Hellfire except one.” And that completely changed its meaning and turned it into a tool for intolerant groups to claim to possess the truth and claim everyone who disagrees with them will go to Hell (see my article on this hadith).

A Hadith Scholar Presents New Evidence that Aisha was Near 18 the Day of Her Marriage to the Prophet Muhammad

The age of Aisha bint Abu Bakr, may God be pleased with her and her father, at the time of her marriage to the Prophet Muhammad PBUH is one of the thorny issues in modern Islam, used as one of the main talking points against Islam by Islam’s detractors. How could God’s Prophet, a widower over the age of 50, accept to engage a 6-year-old and go on to wed her when she was 9?

Even Western-educated Islamic scholars like Yasir Qadhi and Jonathan Brown find themselves unable to critique the official narrative because they follow the traditional methodologies of the field of hadith, in which the authenticity of a hadith’s chain of narrators is the most important fact about it. Since Aisha’s age is explicitly stated by Aisha herself in Sahih al-Bukhari and Muslim, most scholars consider themselves unable to critique it. While many Muslims are satisfied by the commonly accepted narrative, it remains a fact that for many non-Muslims the Prophet’s marriage to a 9-year-old remains an insurmountable barrier to them accepting Islam as a respectable doctrine. And what a waste if the historical evidence shows us that the Prophet did not actually marry a 9-year-old, but a young woman who was almost 18!

Dr. Salah al-Din al-Idlibi

A new challenge to the traditional narrative of Aisha’s marriage comes from the Syrian hadith scholar Dr. Salah al-Din al-Idlibi, an expert in the new field of matn criticism. He has taught as a professor at the prestigious al-Qarawiyyin University in Morocco, Imam Muhammad bin Saud University in Riyadh, College of Islamic and Arabic Studies in Dubai and al-Makkah al-Maftuha University in Jeddah. Unlike traditional hadith criticism, which focuses almost solely on verifying the trustworthiness of the people who transmit a certain hadith, matn criticism compares the contents of hadith narrations to the contents of other hadith narrations and any other available historical evidence in order to try to reconstruct the objective historical reality of the event that the hadith describes. We know that even Imam al-Bukhari used this method to reject authentic narrations that clearly conflicted with observed reality (see Dr. Jonathan Brown’s 2008 article “How We Know Early Ḥadīth Critics Did Matn Criticism and Why It’s So Hard to Find” Islamic Law and Society vol. 15, no. 2). The field of matn criticism (matn means the text of the hadith, as opposed to its chain of narrators) expands and standardizes this method of analysis that previous scholars only rarely engaged in.

According to Dr. al-Idlibi’s study of the issue of Aisha’s age, while the hadith in which she mentions her age as 9 at the time of her wedding is clearly authentic, there is a great detail of evidence that contradict her statement, and in his judgment, the evidence is sufficient for us to conclude that Aisha was simply mistaken due to the fact that she made that statement in her old age. For one reason or another, Aisha, in her old age, had the mistaken belief that she was 9 at the time of her wedding. Since we only have her word for it (there is no other evidence that backs up her statement), and since all the other evidence from many different sources point to her actually having been closer to 18, it is concluded by Dr. al-Idlibi that while the hadith is an authentic narration, since it is contradicted by historical reality, it must be rejected in favor of alternative theories.

The cover of Dr. al-Idlibi’s 1983 book Manhaj Naqt al-Matn (The Methodology of Matn Criticism)

Below is a translation of Dr. al-Idlibi’s 2018 paper (published on his website at idlbi.net) in which publishes his research on this matter and responds to the objections of other scholars. [link to the original Arabic PDF]

This translation is only a rough draft. I am making it public since I believe this will be more beneficial than waiting many months before I can get to rewriting it (since I am busy with other projects). Translator’s notes are in double square brackets [[like this]] due to the fact that the author uses square brackets in some places. I have also added some notes as footnotes (there are no footnotes from the author). I will need to review the translation to make sure all of my notes are separated in double square brackets, because there might a few places where I added notes in other ways.

 

Start of Translated Paper

The Age of the Lady Aisha On the Day of Her Marriage Contract and the Day of Her Wedding

The Hadiths on Calculating the Age of the Lady Aisha the Day of Her Marriage and the Day of Her Wedding

by Dr. Ṣalāh al-Dīn bin Aḥmad al-Idlibī

In the Name of Most, Most Compassionate, Most Merciful

Praise be to God in blessedness and abundance, as He desires and pleases, and praise be to God by whose bounty all good deeds are completed, O God, help this matter come to a good conclusion, and help us finish in goodness, by Your bounty and grace O Most Gracious among the gracious.

Hadith has come to us from the Prophet PBUH that he concluded a marriage contract involving Aisha, may God be pleased with her, when she was six years old, and that he married her when she was nine. Is this hadith sound when it comes to its isnād [chain of narrators] and matn [content]? A study is indispensable.

I had read an article on this topic written by a researcher in which he made efforts to prove this hadith to be unsound both in terms of its isnād and its matn. I decided that it was possible to benefit from his article for what it contained of useful research ideas while pardoning its weak points, in order to work towards reaching a correct conclusion based on sound evidence, by God’s leave, because of the importance of elucidating the correct perspective on this matter of Prophetic biography and hadith. This is a study supported by evidence on Aisha’s birth and the calculation of her age at the time of her marriage contract with the Prophet and at the time of her wedding. There are two opinions on this matter:

The first and most famous opinion: It is the opinion that he concluded the marriage contract when she was six and wed her when she was nine, relying on what is mentioned in Sahih al-Bukhari and other collections. This implies that she was born six years after the start of the Revelation.1

Abū Nuʿaym [al-Iṣfahānī, d. 1038 CE, Persian hadith scholar and historian, student of al-Ṭabarānī and teacher of al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdadī] in his Maʿrifat al-Ṣaḥāba that Aisha was six then [at the conclusion of the marriage contract].

Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr [d. 1071, an Andalusian Mālikī scholar] says in al-Istīʿāb:

The Prophet PBUH married her [concluded the marriage contract] in Mecca before the hijra when she was six years old, and some say seven, and consummated the marriage with her in Medina when she was nine. I do not know of any disagreement on this matter. The Prophet died when she was eighteen years old.

Ibn Ḥajar [d. 1449 CE, an Egyptian hadith scholar] says in Fatḥ al-Bārī [his commentary on Sahih al-Bukhari]:

She was born in the age of Islam, eight years or so before the hijra. The Prophet PBUH died when she was about eighteen years old.

The second opinion: This opinion is that the Prophet PBUH concluded the marriage contract when she was fourteen years old and wed her when she was seventeen, approaching eighteen. This would mean that she was born four years before the Revelation. The writings of Ibn Isḥāq [d. 770 CE, a biographer of the Prophet] and al-Ṭabarī [d. 923 CE, a Persian historian and Islamic scholar] point toward this, as will be mentioned in the fourth and fifth section below on the evidence behind the second opinion.

Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr says in his book al-Durar fī Ikhtiṣār al-Maghāzī wa-l-Siyar when recounting the names of the earliest Muslims: “And Asmāʾ bint Abū Bakr, and ʿĀʾisha bint Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq while she was a little girl.” This goes against what he mentioned in al-Istīʿāb.

Evidence for the first opinion

Al-Bukhārī, Muslim and others narrate through various transmitters from Hishām bin ʿUrwa, from his father, from Aisha, that the Prophet PBUH married her when she was six years old and wed her when she was nine. Muslim narrates it through Maʿmar, from al-Zuhrī, from ʿUrwa, from Aisha. Ibn Ḥanbal and Muslim also narrated through al-Aswad bin Yazīd al-Nakhaʿī from Aisha. There are also other chains that go back to her for this hadith.

The word tazawwajahā can be used to mean the concluding of a marriage contract, and this is what is meant in this hadith.

This hadith’s chain of narrators is authentic, so they are mistaken who think that this hadith only comes to us through Hishām bin ʿUrwa and that it might be his mistake or delusion.

Ibn Abī Shayba [d. 849 CE, an early Persian scholar of hadith and hadith collector] narrate through al-Aswad from Aisha that the Prophet PBUH wed her when she was nine and that he died when she was eighteen.

Abū ʿUwāna [d. 928 CE, a Persian hadith transmitter] narrates in al-Mustakhraj  from Urwa, from Aisha, that Prophet PBUH concluded the marriage contract with her when she was six or seven and that he wed her when she was nine while she still had her toys, and that he died when she was eighteen.

This narration has a supporting piece of evidence in a hadith of [the Companion] Ibn Masʿūd which might be thought to affirm Aisha’s hadith above, but it is actually unauthentic. Al-Tirmidhī narrates in al-ʿIlal al-Kabīr from Yaḥyā bin Aktham from Yaḥyā bin Ādam from Isrāʾīl bin Yūnus from his grand father Abū Isḥāq from Abū ʿUbayda from his father ʿAbdullāh bin Masʿūd that he said: “The Prophet PBUH concluded the marriage contract with Aisha when she was six years old and consummated the marriage with her when she was nine, and he passed away when she was eighteen.” Al-ʿUqaylī [d. 934, a hadith scholar] mentions this narration in al-Ḍuʿafāʾ [his collection of unauthentic narrations] from Muḥammad bin Mūsā al-Balkhī from Mālik bin Sulaymān al-Harawī from Isrāʾīl. And al-Ṭabarānī narrates it in al-Kabīr from Muḥammad bin Mūsā bin Ḥammād al-Barbarī from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān bin Ṣāliḥ al-Azdī from Yaḥyā bin Ādam from Shurayk from Abū Isḥāq from Abū ʿUbayda from Ibn Masʿūd.

In the first chain [al-Tirmidhī’s] there is Yaḥyā bin Aktham, who has been declared a weak [untrustworthy and unsound] transmitter [ḍaʿīf], for he steals hadiths [he takes a hadith and claims to have heard it directly from a reliable transmitter when he has not]. In the second chain [Al-ʿUqaylī’s] is Muḥammad bin Mūsā al-Balkhī, who I could not find in the biographical dictionaries. In it there is also Mālik bin Sulaymān al-Harawī, who is weak. In the third chain [that of al-Ṭabarānī] there is Muḥammad bin Mūsā bin Ḥammād al-Barbarī (d. 294 AH), whom al-Daraquṭnī declared non-authentic (laysa bi-l-qawī). In it there is also ʿAbd al-Raḥmān bin Ṣāliḥ al-Azdī, who was from Kūfa but resided in Baghdad. He was considered trustworthy and died in 235 AH. In the chain there is also Yaḥyā bin Ādam (d. 203 AH), who is another Kūfan. In the chain there is also Shurayk bin ʿAbdullāh, a transmitter who has a trustworthy character but who erred often and engaged in tadlīs.2 He died in 177 AH. And in both chains there is Abū Isḥāq al-Sabīʿī, who is a trustworthy Kūfan who also engages in tadlīs. In the chain there is also Abū ʿUbayda who is trusted but who never heard anything from his father. Therefore this chain is weak.

Additionally, Imam al-Bukharī considered narrations from Isrāʾīl bin Yūnus from his grand father Abū Isḥāq maʿlūl [problematic and questionable]. It is also mentioned to be this way in al-ʿIlal al-Kabīr of al-Tirmidhi. It is also mentioned thus in al-ʿUqaylīs al-Ḍuʿafāʾ al-Kabīr but without giving a citation for his source.

Therefore since this hadith of Ibn Masʿūd is weak, it is incorrect to use it as support for Aisha’s hadith.

The above is what I had written about the authenticity of the chains leading to Ibn Masʿūd’s hadith. Then I ran into commentary by the honorable brother Sheikh Ḥātim al-ʿAwnī, may God preserve him in goodness and good health, in which he mentions two other chains leading to Ibn Masʿūd’s hadith in the Sunan of Ibn Māja and al-Sunan al-Kubrā of al-Nasāʾī. According to this new information, I will update my judgment of the hadith as follows:

Al-Tirmidhī reports in al-ʿIlal al-Kabīr and al-Nasāʾī in al-Sunan al-Kubrā from two narrators, from Yaḥyā bin Ādam from Isrāʾīl bin Yūnus from his grandfather (Abu Ishaq) from Abu Abaydah from his father (Abdullah ibn Masud) that he said: The Messenger of God, peace and blessings of God be upon him, married Aisha when she was a girl of six years, and consummated the marriage with her when she was a girl of nine years, and he passed away when she was a girl of eighteen. Ibn Maja and al-Uqayli narrated in the al-Du`afaa’ (their collections of unauthentic narrations) from two other chains from Israil. Al-Uqayli also reports it in al-Du`afaa’ from Abdullah bin Rajaa’ from Israel in a broken chain (mursal) that does not mention “from Abdullah ibn Masud”.

Al-Tabarani narrates it in al-Kabir from Muhammad bin Musa bin Hammad al-Barbari from Abdul Rahman bin Salih al-Azdi from Yahya bin Adam from Shurayk from Abu Ishaq from Abu Ubaydah from Ibn Masud. (Al-Tabarani mistook Muhammad bin Musa bin Hammad al-Barbari when he said “from Yahya from Adam from Shurayk” since he is not reliable (qawi), as al-Daraqutni has said, and he went against two other hadith collectors who narrated the hadith using the chain “from Yahya from Adam from Israil”.

And al-Nasāʾī narrates it in al-Sunan al-Kubrā from Qutayba bin Said from Ubthur from Mutrif bin Turayf al-Kufi from Abu Ishaq from Abu Ubayda from Aisha along the same lines. [Qutayba bin Said is from Balkh and reliable (thiqa). He died in 240 AH. Ubthur bin al-Qasim al-Kufi is reliable (thiqa) and died in 178 AH. Mutrif bin Turayf al-Kufi is reliable and died in 142 AH].

[Abu Ishaq al-Sabi`i Amr bin Abdullah bin Ubayd is a Kufan and reliable but would engage in tadlis and his memory changed near the end of his life. He was born in 32 AH and died around 127 AH. Abu Ubayda Aamir bin Abdullah bin Masud is a Kufan and mostly reliable (fihi lin) died in 81 AH, and did not hear any narrations from his father due to his young age at the time of his father’s death]. Therefore this is a weak chain.

In summary, regarding the chains going back to Abu Ubaydah bin Abdullah bin Masud:

The chain of Shurayk bin Abdullah from Abu Ishaq is a mistake of the hadith collector.

As for the chain of Israil from Abu Ishaq, regarding it al-Bukhari said, as is mentioned in al-Ilal al-Kabir of al-Tirmidhi:

"This is an error. The chain is instead Abu Ishaq from Abu Ubaydah that the Prophet PBUH married Aisha..." This is how they mention Israil's narration(s?) from Abu Ishaq, and they say: "From Abu Ubaydah from Aisha" also.

The chain of Mutrif bin Turayf from Abu Ishaq from Abu Ubaydah from Aisha is the one that correctly mentions the Companion names, and if it is so then the chains of Abu Ubayda go back to Aisha.

Since the narrator that narrates from Ibn Masud is unreliable and problematic, it is incorrect to strengthen Aisha’s hadith by it.

Evidence for the second opinion

1. Aisha is younger than her sister Asmaa’ by ten years. Asmaa’ was born 27 years before the hijra, or 14 years before the start of the Revelation. This means that Aisha was born four years before the start of the Revelation.

Ibn Abd al-Barr in his al-Isti`aab and Ibn Asaakir in Tarikh Dimashq narrate from two chains from al-Asma`i from Ibn Abi al-Zinad that he had said: “Asma bint Abu Bakr is about ten years older than Aisha.” And this is a good (jayyid) isnad.

And Abu Nu`aym says in his Ma`rifat al-Sahaba in his article on Asmaa’: She was born before the start of the Islamic calendar by 27 years, and she died in 73 AH in Mecca days after her son Abdullah bin al-Zubayr was killed when she was 100 years old.

What corroborates this narration with regards to knowing Asmaa’s year of birth is what Abu Nu`aym narrates from her, that she had said: “I saw Zayd bin Amr bin Nufayl with his back to the Ka`ba saying: “O gathering of Quraysh, none among you follows Ibrahim’s religion except I.” Zayd had died when Quraysh was rebuilding the Ka`ba before the Revelation came to the Messenger by five years, as Ibn Sa`d mentions in al-Tabaqat from Saeed bin al-Musayyab, meaning 18 years before the hijra. That makes her age 9 at the time she heard him (i.e. Zayd bin Amr). This makes sense, since one who remembers such details cannot be much younger than nine.

Ibn al-Athir says in Usud al-Ghaaba:

Abu Nuaym says: "She was born before the calendar by 27 years." Ibn Abd al-Barr says in al-Isti`ab: "Asmaa' died in Mecca in the month of Jamadi al-Ula in the year 73 AH. She died when she had reached 100."

2. Al-Bukhari narrates from Aisha, may God be pleased with her, that she had said:

The verse "But the Hour is their appointment [for due punishment], and the Hour is more disastrous and more bitter."3 was sent down upon Muhammad, peace and blessings of God be upon him, while I was a little girl4, playing. The suras al-Baqara and al-Nisaa' had not been sent down until I was with him.

Al-Qurtubi says in his tafsir: Ibn Abbas said: “Between the revelation of this verse and the Battle of Badr passed seven years.” If that is so, this means that it was sent down before the hijra by five years, and eight years after the start of the Revelation.

Ibn Sida says in al-Muhkam and Ibn Manzur in Lisan al-Arab: al-Jariyah: A young women (fatiyyah). A fatiyya is another word for al-shabba (a pubescent woman). It appears that they use this word to refer to a girl at the very beginning of her puberty.

So how old was Aisha when 54:46 was revealed, which was revealed eight years after the Revelation?

According to the first opinion above she would have been four years old. A four-year-old is never referred to as a jariyah. Therefore the conclusion from this is that the first opinion is wrong, while according to the second opinion she would have been 12 at the time of this revelation, and this is what fits the meaning of jariyah as used in the language.

3. Al-Bukhari narrates from Aisha that she has said:

I never knew my parents except as Muslims (i.e. she had no memory of their being pagans due to being born so close to their conversion to Islam). Not a day would pass except that the Messenger of God, peace and blessings of God be upon him, would come to us at the two extremities of the day, early and late. Once the Muslims started to face trials, Abu Bakr left toward Abyssinia, until he reached Barak al-Ghimad and met Ibn al-Dughna..."

These two narrations are clues toward two things:

The first is that a child cannot comprehend her parents having a religion different from the religion of the people around them before the age of four. If Aisha had been born four years after the Revelation, and her first comprehension of her religious environment was at the age of eight, then her saying “I never knew my parents except as Muslims” is a useless statement since it is well known that Abu Bakr converted early and that Umm Ruman (Aisha’s mother) had also converted early in Mecca as Ibn Sa`d mentions.

But if she had been born four years before the Revelation, and she only started to be aware of her religious environment at the first year of the Revelation, then this statement is a useful statement: Once she became aware of her surroundings, both her parents were Muslim (rather than just Abu Bakr).

This is a clue that suggests she was born around four years before the Revelation, which is what the other clues suggest.

And the second clue is that when she says “Once the Muslims started to face trials, Abu Bakr left toward Abyssinia”, the passage expresses that this happened after she became aware of her parents being Muslim. There is in this a suggestion that she was able to comprehend her surroundings when this event took place, and we know that the migration of the Companions to Abyssinia took place near the middle of the fifth year of the Revelation, and their second migration took place at the end of the fifth year and the beginning of the sixth year.

Had Aisha been born in the fourth year of the Revelation, she would not have able to understand what was going on at the beginning of the sixth year. But if she had been born four years before the Revelation, she would have clearly comprehended this events.

4. Ibn Ishaq says in his biography of the Prophet (sira) when mentioning the names of those who converted to Islam the earliest:

Some people of the Bedouin tribes converted, among them Said bin Zayd bin Amr bin Nufayl, and his wife Fatima bint al-Khattab, and Asmaa' bint Abu Bakr, and Aisha bint Abu Bakr while she was a little girl... then God Almighty ordered His Messenger, peace and blessings of God be upon him, to proclaim his message publicly and to call people and invite them to God Almighty. Perhaps he had been secretive until he was ordered to make his message public, so that he spent some years after the Revelation until the command came: "Then declare what you are commanded and turn away from the polytheists"5

Ibn Kathir transmitted some of this text, paraphrasing it, saying:

Ibn Ishaq said: God ordered His Messenger PBUH three years after the Revelation to proclaim what He had order him, and to be patient toward the hurtful things the polytheists did.

Ibn Ishaq’s words mean that Aisha was among those who converted to Islam during the period of the Secret Call after the Revelation (i.e. the first three years), and that she was a little girl at this time. If that period lasted three years, then perhaps she attended some of the secret gatherings during that latter days of that period. According to the saying that she was born four years after the Revelation then this does not fit at all. But according to the second opinion (her being born four years before the Revelation), then her age at that time would have been six or seven. Perhaps Ibn Ishaq mentioned her among the earliest Muslims due to the stature of her father Abu Bakr, may God be pleased with him, and because of Ibn Ishaq’s desire to mention her alongside her sister Asmaa’ who was ten years her senior.

5. Al-Tabari says in his Tarikh:

Abu Bakr married during the pre-Islamic period Qutayla bint Abd al-Uzza and from this marriage Abdullah and Asmaa' were born to him. He also married Umm Ruman bint Amir during the pre-Islamic period and from this marriage Abd al-Rahman and Aisha were born to him. All of these four children were born to his two wives that we mentioned in the pre-Islamic period.

Al-Tabari explicitly states that Abu Bakr married his two wives during the pre-Islamic period. But there is no use in him mentioning “in the pre-Islamic period” at the end of the passage (because he had already mentioned that at the beginning) unless the last “in the pre-Islamic period” refers to his children having been born before the Revelation.

This is then an explicit and clear historical text that Aisha was born before the Revelation.

6. Ibn Abi Aasim mentions in al-Aahaad wa-l-Mathani and al-Tabarani in al-Mu`jam al-Kabir and al-Haakim in al-Mustadrak from Aisha, may God be pleased with her, that Khawla bint Hakim, wife of Uthman bin Mazdh`un, may God be pleased with them, said in Mecca to the Messenger of God PBUH: “O Messenger of God, will you not marry?” He said: “Who then?” She said: “A virgin if you want, or a non-virgin.” He said: “And what virgin is there?” She said: “Daughter of the most beloved of God’s creation to you, Aisha bint Abu Bakr.” He said: “And what non-virgin is there?” She said: “Sawda bint Zum`a.” He said: “Go and mention to them my interest.” And this was after the death of Khadija, may God be pleased with her, as the other narrations show.

The passage shows that Khawla, may God be pleased with her, wanted to find a wife for the Messenger PBUH because he had become wifeless after Khadija’s death. It is extremely far-fetched for a six-year-old’s hand in marriage to be sought for him in such a situation. But if she had been fourteen at the time, then that is sensible.

There is no doubt that the concurrence of all of these clues supporting the theory that the Prophet PBUH had engaged Aisha when she was 14 and married her when she was close to 18 is strong evidence that this indeed is what really happened.

As for what has been reliably narrated from Aisha that the Prophet PBUH married her when she was nine, this must be a delusion (wahm). According to the preferable opinions on the dating of this hadith, she had lived for 75 years at the time, so perhaps some forgetfulness had afflicted her so that she reported according to her delusion.

It appears that there is no escape from concluding the Aisha’s hadith is a delusion because of the concurrence of all of those pieces of evidence that contradict it.

Conclusion

The preferable opinion, from the concurrence of all those clues, is that Aisha, may God be pleased with her, was born four years before the Revelation, and that the Messenger of God PBUH engaged her in the 10th year of the Revelation when she was 14, three years before the hijra, and that he married her at the end of the first year of the hijra when she was close to 18 years.

The hadith that mentions that Aisha was six at her engagement and nine at her marriage has a sound chain of narrators, but it contradicts these reliable historical pieces of evidence, therefore it is aberrant (shadh) and likely to be a delusion.

Along with those, the great scholars of hadith, may God have mercy on them, have stated that when a hadith’s content (matn) is contradicted by that which is more reliable historically, then it is rejected, because that shows that an error had crept into the hadith due to the delusion of one of the hadith’s narrators. And God knows best.

Below is a new piece of evidence that I ran into today:

7. Al-Tahawi narrates in Ahkam al-Qur’an from Ali bin Abd al-Rahman from al-Munjab bin al-Harith al-Taymi, and from Fahd bin Sulayman from Muhammad bin Saeed al-Asbahani, both from Ali bin Mus-hir from Hisham bin Urwa from his father from Aisha, may God be pleased with her, that she said:

And what knowledge do Abu Said al-Khudri and Anas bin Malik have of the hadith of the Messenger of God PBUH? They were two little boys.

[Ali bin Abd al-Rahman bin Muhammad bin Mughira is a Kufan who lived in Egypt. Reliable. Died 272 AH. Al-Munjab bin al-Harith is a Kufan. Mentioned in Ibn Hibban’s al-Thiqqaat (his collection of reliable narrators), Muslim also narrated many narrations from him in his Sahih. Al-Dhahabi and Ibn Hajar considered him reliable. Died 231 AH. Fahd bin Sulayman is a Kufan who went to Egypt. Reliable. Died 189 AH. Hisham bin Urwa bin al-Zubayr is a Medinan who went to Iraq. Reliable but perhaps engaged in tadlis of his father’s narrations (saying he had heard something directly when he had actually heard it from his father). Died 146 AH. Urwa bin al-Zubayr is reliable. Died around 94 AH.]

Al-Tabarni narrates it in his al-Mu`jam al-Kabir from Muhammad bin Abdullah al-Hadrami from Munjab bin al-Harith from Ali bin Mus-hir from Hisham bin Urwa that he had said that Aisha had said so. [Muhammad bin Abdullah al-Hadrami Matin (?) is a Kufan. Reliable and hafidh (a hadith master). Died 297 AH and lived 95 years.] This chain is broken between Hisham bin Urwa and Aisha.

Ibn Asakir narrates it from Abu al-Hasan Ali bin al-Hasan al-Mawazini from Abu al-Husayn bin Abi al-Nasr from Abu Bakr Yusuf bin al-Qasim from Ahmad bin Muhammad bin Saakin from Ali bin al-Haytham from al-Mu`alli bin Mansur from Ali bin Mus-hir from Hisham bin Urwa from his father from Aisha.

[Ali bin al-Hasan al-Mawazni is a Damascene. Reliable. Died 514 AH. Muhammad bin Abd al-Rahman bin Abi al-Nasr is a Damascene, highly trusted. Died 446 AH. Yusuf bin al-Qasim al-Miyanji is reliable, born before 290 AH and died 375 AH. Ahmad bin Muhammad bin Saakin al-Zanjani is trusted, died 300 AH. Ali bin al-Haytham is a Baghdadian. Al-Bukhari transmitted a narration from him. Ibn Hajar says he is acceptable. Al-Mu`alli bin Mansur is from Rayy, lived in Baghdad. Reliable with minor issues. Died 211 AH.] Ibn Abd al-Barr mentions it in Jami` Bayan al-Ilm from Ali bin Mus-hir in an unbroken chain. Therefore perhaps it can be said that this narration is reliably transmitted from Aisha.

If it is so then it is important to know the year of birth of Abu Said al-Khudri and Anas bin Malik, may God be pleased with them, because they were both born about ten years before the hijra, and Aisha, according to the common narrative, is younger than these two Companions by a year. It does not fit that she should say “they were two little boys” if she was a year younger than them.

But according to the second opinion (her being born four years before the Revelation), she was seven years older than them, so that on her wedding day, which was about a year after the hijra, both of them were 11 years old while she was about 18, so that she had a better understanding of the events of that time. It therefore makes sense that she should say they were two little boys.

Below is another piece of evidence I discovered after the above:

8. Ibn Abi Aasim mentions in al-Aahaad wa-l-Mathani and al-Dawlabi in al-Dhurriyya al-Taahira and al-Tahawi in Mushkil al-Aathar and al-Tabarani in al-Mu`jam al-Kabir and al-Bayhaqi in Dalaa’il al-Nubuwwa by the way of Muhammad bin Abdullah bin Amr bin Uthman from his mother Fatima bint al-Husayn that Aisha, wife of the Prophet PBUH, spoke to her saying:

"The Messenger of God PBUH in his illness in which he passed away said to Fatima, "Daughter come bend forward." So she did, so he spoke to her in whispers for an hour. Then she rose up, crying. Then he said to her: "Daughter come bend forward." So she did. So she did and they spoke in whispers for another hour. Then when she rose up she was smiling." Aisha said: "O daughter, tell me what your dad whispered to you about." Then when God had taken his soul, Fatima said: "As for now, very well. He whispered to me the first time, telling me that Gabriel used to review the Quran with him once a year and that he had reviewed the Quran with me twice this year. That made me cry. Then he whispered to the last time saying that I would be the first of his family to be reunited with him and he said: "You are the first lady of the women of Paradise except for (?) the Virgin Mary daughter of Imran." So I smiled at that.

[Muhammad bin Abdullah bin Amr bin Uthman bin Affan is a Medinan. Unreliable. Died 145 AH. His mother Fatima daughter of the Martyred al-Husayn, may God be pleased with him, narrated from many Companions and many reliable narrators narrated from her. Ibn Hibban mentioned her in his collection of reliable narrators. Ibn Hajar considers her reliable.] This chain is therefore unsound.

The clue is that Aisha called Fatima “O daughter”. According to the most common views Fatima was born five years before the Revelation, or close to the Revelation or soon after it. If Aisha had been born after the Revelation by four years, this would mean that Fatima would be eight to four years older than her. It is very strange and unlikely that the younger would refer to the older as “O daughter”, even if the younger was the older’s father’s wife.

But if Aisha had been born four years before the Revelation, then this would mean Fatima would be one year older than her, or perhaps three years younger than her or thereabouts. If one prefers the opinion that Fatima was younger by three years, then it would not be far-fetched for the older to say “O daughter” to the younger, while if one prefers the opinion that Fatima is one year older than Aisha or thereabouts, which is the more common view, then this small difference in age would not make it very unlikely that the younger would say “O daughter” to the slightly older one if the younger was the older’s stepmother.

In this narration there is a clear clue that Aisha was born before the Revelation by four years and not after it by four years. This narration, although it has an unsound chain, it has many corroborating narrations (shawahid).

Below is a new clue I discovered after the above one:

9. Ibn Abi Asim narrates in al-Aahaad, and Ibn Rahawayh and Ibn Hanbal and al-Tabari in al-Tarikh and al-Tabarani in al-Kabir and al-Hakim and al-Bayhaqi from many sub-chains (turuq) from Muhammad bin Amr bin Yahya bin Abd al-Rahman bin Haatib from Aisha that she had said:

When Khadija died, Khawla bint Hakim wife of Uthman bin Maz`un said: “O Messenger of God, will you not marry?” He said: “Who then?” She said: “A virgin if you want, or a non-virgin.” He said: “And what virgin is there?” She said: “Daughter of the most beloved of God’s creation to you, Aisha bint Abu Bakr.” He said: “And what non-virgin is there?” She said: “Sawda bint Zum`a.”

In this hadith it is mentioned that Khawla said to Abu Bakr: “The messenger of God sent me to ask for Aisha’s hand in marriage.” He said to her to her: “Wait,” then he went out. Umm Ruman mother of Aisha said to her: “Mut`im bin Adi had asked for her hand for his son. By God, Abu Bakr has never made a promise that he broke later.” Abu Bakr went to Mut`im bin Adi while his wife was there, mother of the young man. She said: “O Ibn Abi Quhafa (i.e. O Abu Bakr), perhaps you will require our companion [[referring to her son?]] to apostatize to your religion if he marries your daughter.” Abu Bakr said to Mut`m bin Adi: “Yes, what do you say?” He said: “She says such and such.” So he left them, his heart content that the promise he thought he had made was no longer in force.

Some researchers believe that Aisha was engaged to Jubayr bin Mut`im bin Adi before her engagement to the Prophet PBUH. This is a piece of evidence that she was much older than six at the time of her engagement to the Prophet.

I believe this is inaccurate, because Aisha was not engaged to Jubayr bin Mut`im. Rather, Mut`im bin Adi had merely mentioned his interest in having his son marry her and had secured a promise from Abu Bakr that he would approve of such a union. Such agreements take place often among people even if the two are small children, even infants and toddlers.

I heard a brother using this as evidence that Aisha had been engaged to Jubayr bin Mut`im, but I did not mention it among the pieces of evidence I mentioned above because I did not find it very convincing. But then I realized that it contained a clue toward Aisha having been born before the Revelation:

The story shows that Mut`im bin Adi and his wife were followers of polytheism at the time and disliked to become Muslims and disliked that their son should convert to this religion if he married Aisha. It is well-known how ardent Abu Bakr was toward calling people toward this religion, so it is highly unlikely that, had Aisha been born after the Revelation, for Mut`m bin Adi to mention his interest in her with his strong adherence to polytheism to Abu Bakr and for Abu Bakr to agree to the prospect of such a union. Therefore no explanation remains except that Mut`im bin Adi’s mention of his interest in marrying Aisha to his son and his securing a promise to that effect from Abu Bakr had happened before the Revelation. This means that Aisha had been born before, and not after, the Revelation.

10. Al-Bukhari narrates from Anas, may God be pleased with him, that he had said:

On the day [[of the battle]] of Uhad when [[some]] people retreated and left the Prophet, I saw `Aisha bint Abu Bakr and Um Sulaim, with their robes tucked up so that the bangles around their ankles were visible hurrying with their water skins [[in another narration it is said, "carrying the water skins on their backs"]]. Then they would pour the water in the mouths of the people, and return to fill the water skins again and came back again to pour water in the mouths of the people.

It is similarly narrated in Sahih Muslim. Ibn Hajar also mentions it as such in Mustakhraj al-Ismaili.

According to the common view, Aisha’s age at the time of the Battle of Uhud was 11, and according to the second view it was 19.

Al-Khattabi says in his book A`laam al-Hadith:

Regarding his saying tanquzaan, naqz means to skip or jump, but I consider it to have been tazifraan, and zafr means to carry heavy containers, and the container itself is called zifr.6

I say: Tanquzan al-qirab7 has no meaning here. Al-Khattabi did well to interpret zafr as carrying heavy containers. In Ibn Manzur’s Lisan al-Arab‘s there is that which indicates that the expression points toward that.

If it is so, then this does not make sense according to the common view, because a 11-year-old wouldn’t be able to carry heavy water containers to carry it to the wounded, empty the mouths of the wounded than go back to refill them and come back again, as opposed to a 19-year-old. This means that the second opinion is the preferable one.

Perhaps none of the above clues by themselves are sufficient to prove that there was a delusion in the narration in which Aisha is mentioned as having been six years old at the time of the engagement and nine on the day of her marriage, and to prove that the second opinion that she was 14 at the time of engagement and 17 at the day of her marriage is the preferable one. But the concurrence of all those clues together is a strong piece of evidence toward that.

Answer to a debate on this study

The Quran mentions the iddah (waiting period) of women who have not menstruated yet, saying: “And those who no longer expect menstruation among your women – if you doubt, then their period is three months, and [also for] those who have not menstruated.”8 The intent of the Quranic text is that the `aqd [[engagement contract]] has been completed before their puberty. This meaning is obvious and there is no debate about it, and there is doubt about its permissibility, but it is not meant for all people.

The question that my arise is whether there is a fault or shortcoming in the marriage of the Prophet PBUH to Aisha as a young girl, so that we desire to prefer the second opinion9 in order to absolve the Prophet’s station PBUH from that?

I say: There is no deficiency in the marriage of the Prophet PBUH to Aisha before her puberty, if that is proven. If it were to be proven, then it is obligatory to submit oneself and have complete faith that it took place for some wisdom, whether we understand it or not.

Whoever thinks that verifying this historical information is done with the intent of contradicting the intent of the Quranic text is far off the mark. The question of Aisha’s age at the time of her marriage is not in such a category. It is, rather, a historical question, something that may be correct or incorrect. There is a great difference between the permissibility of something taking place and its actual taking place.

The purpose of studying this historical subject should not be the fact that today’s culture has stopped accepting such differences in age between married couples. What comes to us from the Prophet PBUH, his words and his deeds, is the scale by which we weigh ideas and opinions, not the other way round:

But no, by your Lord, they will not [truly] believe until they make you, [[O Muhammad]], judge concerning that over which they dispute among themselves and then find within themselves no discomfort from what you have judged and submit in [[full, willing]] submission.10

Historical narrations regarding her age being greater than 9 by some years are many. We cannot call any of them independent proofs, but together they form a strong and clear pieces of evidence that cannot be ignored. We also cannot prefer what Aisha says over the sum of those pieces of evidence, because numerous clues, when they reach such a magnitude, are strong than the word of one Companion, who is not protected from confusion, error and forgetfulness.

It is unlikely that Aisha, may God be pleased with her, should be ignorant about such an important matter in her life that concerns her personally. But if she suffered forgetfulness due to old age, then that makes it possible.

The books of hadith are stronger in reliability than the books of history and revolve around the soundness of chains of narrators. And it is so when it comes to knowing narrations that come from only one narrator and those that come from multiple chains. The matter here is not a comparison between the books of hadith and the books of history. It is a comparison between a hadith that comes authentically from one Companion in the books of hadith and ten pieces of evidence from the books of hadith and the books of history. My opinion is that we must prefer the sum of those clues to that single narration that comes from one Companion in the books of hadith.

I finished writing the original study with the first six clues many years ago. I finished writing the additions on April 7, 2015.

A debate with a brother on Aisha’s age the day of her marriage

There is a respected brother who thinks that what I wrote on calculating Aisha’s age the day of her marriage is a help toward secularists and rationalists who wish to sow doubt about authentic  narrations and who wish to reduce the stature of the Sahihayn [[Sahih Bukhari and Muslim.], especially Sahih al-Bukhari, and who wish to doubt its contents using false arguments. He said he had expected me to be the first one to stand up to the vicious attack of those corrupters on Aisha’s age at the time of her marriage to the Prophet PBUH which is mentioned in two most authentic books of hadith, and refute them with strong pieces of evidence and arguments.

I say:

Secularists use various means to try to attack authentic narrations. There is a vicious attack from corrupters on the books of hadith and on our scholars and leaders who have spent their lives in the service of these books. These facts are obvious. Perhaps what will come will be worse than what has passed if we remain asleep. I consider it one of our primary duties to respond to those attacks with powerful proofs and arguments.

The person who engages in this [[who engages in responding to attacks on hadith]] is only one of two kinds as far as I can tell, and God knows best. Either they believe the narrations in the Sahihayn represent indubitable authentic texts except for minor issues pointed out by Ibn Salah [[a major hadith scholar, d. 1245 CE]], may God have mercy on him. Or they behave as searchers after truth, seeking guidance in the Radiant Book about which our Lord says: ‘Say: “Come bring your evidence.”‘[[Verse 2:111 and two others.]]

I am not, by God’s grace, of the first kind of person [[i.e. he is not one who treats Sahih al-Bukhari and Muslim as if they are beyond all doubt and criticism]]. So that the reader may know why I am not of that type, they should read my article “Ahadith al-Sahihayn hal Da“afa l-Ulamaa’ Ba`duha?”[[“The hadiths of the Sahihyan: Did the Scholars Consider Some of them Unauthentic?” Link to the article in Arabic]] In it there are the names of tens of scholars who considered some of the narrations in the Sahihayn unauthentic, starting with the generation of al-Bukhari and Muslim’s teachers, then their peers, then those who came after them through Ibn Abd al-Barr, al-Nawawi, Ibn Hajar and others.

I, respected brother, seek evidence and proof, because this is what is required of all of us if we were to make the Quran, the guidance, radiance and healing, our source of judgment.

Today it is as if we are besieged by the criticisms and suspicions that the launchers of that vicious attack subject us to, and many people become lost in it. Generations will be lost and will perish if they see weak responses to those attacks, thinking that this is what religion is [[i.e. thinking that Islam has no good and satisfactory responses to the criticisms of its critics]], so that they wholly distance themselves from it and abandon it. May God protect us.

The reasons for that are many. Both of us understand many of the reasons and the ways toward fixing them. But there is something that some of us may be heedless of, which is to come short when it comes to scientific research and to fixedly and blindly adhere to certain unproven views [[of the past scholars]], treating them as unquestionable truths when they are not.

I repeat that the reader of this debate may have difficulty understanding it unless they read my article “The hadiths of the Sahihyan: Did the Scholars Consider Some of them Unauthentic?”.

Example:

Al-Bukhari and Muslim narrate in their Sahih collections from Anas bin Malik that:

A Bedouin man came to the Prophet PBUH and said: "O Messenger of God, when will the Hour [[i.e. Judgment Day]] be held?" He said: "Woe to you! What have you prepared for it?" He said: "I have prepared nothing except that I love God and His Messenger." He said: "You are [[or will be]] with those you love." We asked: "Will we be the same?" He said; "Yes." We were overjoyed at that. A young manservant of Mughira passed by who was of my age. Thereupon he [[the Prophet]] said: "If he lives long he would not grow very old till the Hour would come."

Many of the latter-day scholars say regarding such narrations “It is mentioned in al-Bukhari and Muslim,” and they stop there. They also often say that everything in the Sahihayn is authentic. And today we repeating the fruits of our shortcomings in studying those narrations.

Every person of sense can see that this narration contradicts observed reality, since that boy lived and died and many generations died after it, yet the Judgment Day has not yet been held.

The attackers have become emboldened because of that, saying it is a lie made in the name of the Prophet PBUH, and that the two scholars [[al-Bukhari and Muslim]] were at fault to include the likes of such fabricated narrations in their Sahihayn.

To know the correct phrasing that is reliably attributable to the Prophet PBUH we must know the other narration of this hadith, which is also in the Sahihayn. Al-Bukhari and Muslim narrate from Aisha that she said:

Some rough Bedouins used to visit the Prophet PBUH and ask him, "When will the Hour be?" He would look at the youngest of all of them and say, "If this should live till he is very old, your Hour (the death of the people addressed) will take place."

The hadith, according to this narration, informs them that if this boy lives then he will not die until your Hour will come, meaning your death. By that he meant that none of them will be alive once that [[boy’s]] generation passes, and the death of a human is their Hour, which is what a sensible human should be concerned about. As for the coming of the Hour that refers to the end of the world then this is not something one should busy themselves with. This hadith as narrated from Aisha, may God be pleased with her, is sound both according to its chain of narrators and its content (matn).

As for the narration from Anas bin Malik, in it there is a flaw in the wording of saa`atukum [[“your Hour”]], so that it has become hatta taqum al-saa`a [[“till the Hour would come”]], which have very different meanings.

I have not found Anas’s hadith in al-Daraqutni’s Kitab al-Tatabbu` nor in other works of `ilal [[works that list the flaws in hadith narrations]]. Would Ibn Salah and those who agree with him that this hadith is sound beyond doubt?

Here there is an important matter that deserves consideration, which is that that the imams al-Bukhari and Muslim, may God have mercy on them, referred to the thubut [[provenness or extreme reliability]] of the narration from Aisha and the lack of thubut in the narration from Anas, each of them does this in his own way. [If you wish, check out our article “In Ya`ish Hadha al-Ghulam falan Yakun al-Haram Hata Taqum al-Saa`a”] [[“If this boy lives long he would not grow very old till the Hour would come.” link to Arabic article.]]

Since many scholars say that everything in the Sahihayn is sound, and since people find in them a narration that contradicts observed reality, what is the expected result? The result is that the trust that many generations have in the word of scholars is shaken. And even more dangerous than that is the shaking of people’s trust in all of the narrations in the Sahihayn, and this is the true catastrophe.

When a person insists on denying the deficiencies and shortcomings that exist, he gains the approval of those people whose feelings make it impossible for them to accept that some of the inherited traditions may contain errors, but he loses the trust of a great many people who no longer accept statements without evidence, and perhaps the trust of the current generation and those that will come after. I believe the loss here is much greater. But when a person admits the shortcomings that have existed, then while he loses the respect of the minority of people who cannot accept the possibility of error in the inherited traditions, he gains the trust of a great many people who do not accept statements without evidence, and perhaps the trust of the current generation and the generations that will come after, and I believe the gain here is great.

The important thing is not gain or loss. What matters is to seek the truth based on evidence and following where it leads regardless of what people may say.

The brother said:

The main goal of those distorters of the truth who doubt that the age of Aisha at the time of her marriage was nine is to slander a legal ruling that the Quran mentions, which is the marriage of little girls that God's refers to: "And those who no longer expect menstruation among your women - if you doubt, then their period is three months, and [also for] those who have not menstruated," which the scholars are on consensus about according to legal forms.

I say:

The matter of the Prophet’s marriage to Aisha when she was nine is a historical question. We want to know whether it took place in this way or not. What matters to us is the result of the research, not the question of the marriage of little girls and its concomitant proof-texts and legal forms, nor what the doubters desire.

The brother said:

We have not heard from a single scholar of the past that says such a thing.

Meaning one who says Aisha was born before the Revelation.

I say:

Past scholars had authentic and explicit narrations from Aisha that the Prophet engaged her when she was six and married her when she was nine. It is logical that they say that it was so. But the related evidence [[on her age]] requires collation and comparison, and since to them it was a fact of history [[that she was born after the Revelation]], they had no motivation to look further into it.

I have not found anyone who has compared Aisha’s hadith with contradicting historical evidence other than Imam al-Dhahabi, may God have mercy on him, as will be mentioned. But he did not look deeply into it.

The respected brother believes that al-Tabari mentioned the narration that mentions Aisha being born in the pre-Islamic period from Ali bin Muhammad from “one who spoke to him”, and this “one” is unknown, and al-Waqidi and al-Kalbi agree on this.

I say:

Ali bin Muhammad al-Madaa’ini is trustworthy (sadduq), died in 224 AH. Al-Tabari says regarding this narration: “Ali bin Muhammad narrated from one who spoke to him, and one whom I mentioned among his teachers, and al-Waqidi and al-Kalbi agreed with him [[they narrated the same narration]].” Then he places the text of the narration. So the narration is narrated by al-Madaa’ini from a number of his teachers, not from one unknown narrator, and the agreement of al-Waqidi and al-Kalbi strengthen it. This makes it a historical clue without doubt.

And if it is said whether this chain of narrators is sound, I say no, but this is a clue, not a piece of evidence. Evidence is the sum of clues, and in this case, by God’s grace, we have ten clues.

The respected brother mentioned the hadith of Abdullah bin Safwan from Aisha, in which there is her saying “The Messenger of God married me when I was seven and I was sent to be with him when I was nine.” He also mentioned the hadith about her wedding and her transfer to the Prophet’s home PBUH in which similar assertions are made. He mentioned a number of narrations from her that say that she said such things.

I say:

This does not add anything to what has been authentically transmitted from Aisha from her own words [[in al-Bukhari and Muslim]]. If two hadiths or three or more come from her and if we say that some delusion happened to her in her old age, then this is nothing new. What would add something would be a narration from another Companion with a sound chain that asserts the same regarding her being nine on the day of her wedding. And this is what I have not found until now.

I mentioned in the paper what has been narrated from Abdullah bin Masud that strengthens Aisha’s saying, and I demonstrated that it is an unsound and problematic narration.

The respected brother said:

Does it befit her stature that delusion should be attributed to her?

I say:

If this really happened to her, then why does it not befit her? In this there is not an accusation of deficiency in her character. She herself pointed to Abdullah bin Umar that he was deluded about some narrations and no one blamed her for that, nor did anyone say it did not befit [[Abdullah ibn Umar that he should be deluded.]]

The respected brother said:

If Aisha fell into a delusion regarding what she said, then what about her playing with toys that none other than little children play with and that adults do not play with. If her age was greater than 20, or that her age after the Tabuk Campaign was greater than 27.

Then he mentioned three narrations that he based his argument on. He mentioned the one narrated by al-Bukhari and Muslim from Urwa from Aisha that she said:

The Messenger of Allah married me when I was six years old. Then we came to Al-Madinah and settled among Banu Harith bin Khazraj. I became ill and my hair fell out, then it grew back and became abundant. My mother Umm Ruman came to me while I was on an Urjuhah with some of my friends, and called for me. I went to her, and I did not know what she wanted. She took me by the hand and made me stand at the door of the house, and I was panting. When I got my breath back, she took some water and wiped my face and head, and led me into the house. There were some woman of the Ansar inside the house, and they said: 'With blessings and good fortune [[from Allah]].' [[My mother]] handed me over to them and they tidied me up. And suddenly I saw the Messenger of Allah in the morning. And she handed me over to him and I was at that time, nine years old.

He said that this cannot be a delusion, because it narrates events that clearly demonstrate her young age, it is not mere statements from her.

He also mentioned what al-Bukhari and Muslim narrated from Urwa from Aisha that she said:

I used to play with dolls in the presence of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and my friends would play with me. When the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, entered, they would hide from him and he would call them to join me and they would play with me.

He also mentioned the hadith that Abu Dawud mentions in his Sunan from Aisha that she said:

When the Messenger of Allah PBUH arrived after the expedition to Tabuk or Khaybar (the narrator is doubtful), the draught raised an end of a curtain which was hung in front of her store-room, revealing some dolls which belonged to her.

He asked: What is this? She replied: My dolls. Among them he saw a horse with wings made of rags, and asked: What is this I see among them? She replied: A horse. He asked: What is this that it has on it? She replied: Two wings. He asked: A horse with two wings? She replied: Have you not heard that Solomon had horses with wings? She said: Thereupon the Messenger of Allah PBUH laughed so heartily that I could see his molar teeth.

I say:

It has been narrated from Aisha that she playing on a swing the day of her wedding with her friends. It has also been narrated from her that she toys that she continued to play with with her friends after her marriage. It is as if the respected brother is saying: “If she was nine the day of her wedding, then these facts that she narrates about herself are not strange regarding a girl of nine. But if she was eighteen, then these facts would be unlikely for a girl of eighteen.

I say;

Yes, there is something strange about them, but I do not consider them extremely strange and unlikely. Perhaps this was in the early part of her married life.

It is fair for the respected brother to ask: What do we say about the hadith that Abu Dawud narrated? Did she continue to play with girls and a winged horse until the time of the Campaigns of Tabuk or Khaybar?

I say:

The Tabuk Campaign was in the month of Rajab of the 9 AH. The Khaybar Campaign was before that by two years and a half in the Muharram of year 7 AH. The age of Aisha the day of the Campaign of Tabukr was close to 26. But there is unsoundness in the chain of this hadith and it also has flaws:

As for the chain, in it there is Yahya bin Ayyub al-Ghafiqi al-Misri. This man was considered reliable by al-Ijli, Yaqoub bin Sufyan, al-Bazar and Ibrahim al-Harbi, and Ibn Hibban mentioned him in his collection of reliable narrators. Al-Bukhari said he was a truth-telling man. But Ibn Hanbal said that he had a bad memory. Ibn Saad said: He narrates strange/questionable narrations [[munkar al-hadith]]. Abu Hatim said: He tells the truth, his narrations should be written but not used in legal opinions [[la yuhtaj bihi]]. Al-Ismaili said: His narrations are not to be used in legal opinions. Abu Ahmad la-Hakim said: If he speaks from his memory, he errs. But if he speaks that which has written down, then there is no issue with that. Al-Daraqutni says: There are questions of reliability in some of his narrations.

Such a narrator, when he mentions something singular [[something that no one else has said]], his saying should be used as the basis of any argument.

As for flaws and confusion, Abu Dawud and al-Bayhaqi narrated this hadith from Said bin al-Hakam bin Abi Maryam from Yahya bin Ayyub from Ammara bin Ghuzayya from Muhammad bin Ibrahim from Abi Salama bin Abd al-Rahman from Aisha, and Ibn Hibban narrated it from Abdullah bin Wahb from Yahya bin Ayyub from Amar bin Ghuzayya from Salim bin Abi al-Nadr from Urwa from Aisha that she said:

[[The Prophet]] PBUH came in while I was playing with toys and raised the end of the curtain and asked: What is this? She replied: My dolls. Among them he saw a horse with wings made of rags, and asked: What is this I see among them? She replied: A horse. He asked: What is this that it has on it? She replied: Two wings. He asked: A horse with two wings? She replied: Have you not heard that Solomon had horses with wings? She said: Thereupon the Messenger of Allah PBUH laughed so heartily that I could see his molar teeth.

It is clear that Yahya bin Ayyub fell into confusion [[idtaraba]] in narrating this hadith both in its chain and its content. He was deluded into changing the names of some of the men in the chain and added to the content the story of the return from a campaign. Since he is described as having a bad memory and as there being confusion in his narrations, then this is sufficient to reject his narration.

Since the origin of the hadith is reliably transmitted in the Sahihayn in the narration of Urwa from Aisha without the extra additions, then the parts of Yahya bin Ayyub’s narration that agree with the narration in the Sahihayn are sound. It appears that he had it memorized, and that his other narration that mentions [[the Prophet’s]] coming PBUH from a campaign with changes to the chain of narrators is unsound.

I mentioned in the paper the story of the coming of Khawla bint Hakeekm to the Messenger of God PBUH after the death of Khadija and her offer to ask for women’s hand in marriage for him while he had no other wife other than Khadija. I say: The passage indicates that Khawla wanted to ask for women’s hand in marriage after the death of Khadija because he had become wifeless. It is extremely unlikely in such circumstances for her to ask for a six-year-old’s hand in marriage for him. But if she were 14 at the time, then that becomes sensible.

The respected brother said regarding me:

He concludes that it is extremely unlikely for Khawla to ask for a six-year-old's hand in marriage for the Prophet PBUH, and he summarizes the narration and does not mention its ending where Aisha explicitly mentions her age. Indeed, his conclusion also contradicts a narration from Imam Ahmad and others from Khawla bint Hakim in which it is explicitly mentioned that Aisha was nine years old.

I say:

Considering the narration far-fetched comes from the fact that it does not make sense for a man whose wife has died and who has no other wife to have a six-year-old engaged to him. [[Perhaps Dr. al-Idlibi is saying that a respected man in society, even if he were to accept a very young girl as a second wife, he would not accept her as his only wife because he would require someone mature enough to befit him.]] So take not.

As for the issue of summarizing the narration and not mentioning that it states her age, this requires a clarification.

Imam Ahmad and Ishaq bin Rahawayh narrate in their musnad books from Muhammad bin Bishr al-Abdri from Muhammad bin Amr bin Alqama from Abi Salama bin Abd al-Rahman bin Awf and Yahya bin Abd al-Rahman bin Haatib that they both said: When Khadija died Khawla bint Hakim, wife of Uthman bin Maz`un, came and said: “O Messenger of God, will you not marry?” and so on to the rest of the hadith. At the end of hadith there is: “Aisha said: So we came to Medina, and the Messenger of God PBUH came and entered our house. The Messenger of God PBUH transferred me to my own house when I was a girl of nine.”

This was narrated by Ibn Abi Aasim in his al-Aahaad wa-l-Mathaani and al-Tabarani in al-Kabir and al-Hakim and al-Bayhaqi from two other chains from Muhammad bin Amr bin Alqama from Yahya bin Abd al-Rahman bin Haatib from Aisha the like of it.

The narration in the Musnad works of Ahmad and Ishaq appear in the form of a broken-chained narration [[mursal]], but the hadith is from Aisha because at the end it is said: “Aisha said: So we came to Medina, and the Messenger of God PBUH came and entered our house. The Messenger of God PBUH transferred me to my own house when I was a girl of nine.” So this hadith goes back to a narration of Aisha herself.

I emphasize that this narration does not add anything from what has reliably come from Aisha from her own words [[i.e. while it strengthens the narrative that Aisha really stated such things, it does not help disprove Dr. Idlibi’s conclusion that she suffered from a delusion at her old age.]] What would matter is a narration from a different Companion with a sound chain of narrators that corroborrates Aisha’s claim that she was nine the day of her wedding, and this is what I have not found till now.

The brother’s saying “a narration that Imam Ahmad and others have narrated from Khawla bint Hakeem” contradicts reality, because it suggests that this hadith in the Musnad of Imam Ahmad is part of the complete-chained narrations coming from Khawla bint Hakeem, but it is not so, for Khawla bint Hakeem in this hadith in the Musnad of Ahmad and other hadith books is merely a speaker [[khaatiba]]. She never said that she heard the Prophet PBUH say such things, nor did any narrators transmit such from her. The narration is from Aisha’s complete-chained hadiths and it is her own narration. [[Dr. Idlibi’s is pointing out that Khawla is not part of the chain of transmitters for this hadith. She is merely a character mentioned in a hadith by Aisha.]]

I said in my paper that the great scholars of hadith, may God have mercy on them, have said that when a hadith’s text [[matn]] contradicts facts of history that are better attested, then the hadith is rejected, because this means an error was introduced into the hadith due to the delusion of one of the narrators.

The respected brother commented on this by saying:

If historians had reliable evidence and were agreed on dating Aisha's birth, we would have been able to reject these sound narrations from her due to the possibility of delusion and forgetfulness. But when we see that the historical evidence has been criticized, and we see that the Successors, the great hadith memorizers [[huffaz]] and hadith scholars narrating that which goes against the historical evidence, then this makes us hold on to the narrations in the Sahihayn and other hadith works and we consider it unlikely that delusion and forgetfulness were factors. Among such opinions are what al-Dhahabi says: "She, meaning Asmaa', was older than Aisha by ten years or so." (Siyar A`laam al-Nubalaa', vol 2, 188) and what Ibn Hajar said: "Aisha was born after the Revelation by four or five years." (Al-Isaba, vol 8, 16).

I say:

When he says “we see that the Successors, the great hadith memorizers and hadith scholars narrating that which goes against the historical evidence”, there is in it ignorance of those narrators who narrated hadiths containing hadith-based clues that contradict Aisha’s hadith, which the brother neglected to mention.

The saying of al-Dhahabi, Ibn Hajar and others of the past and recent scholars is based on the famous narration that is in front of them with many sound chains of narrators going back to Aisha. This is not something they said after detailed research, it is merely a saying that they repeated.

Imam al-Dhahabi says in Siyar A`laam al-Nubalaa regarding Asmaa’ bint Abu Bakr that she was ten or so years older than Aisha, and this is in his biography of Asmaa’. But after a few lines he says: ‘Abd al-Rahman bin Abi al-Zinad says: “Asmaa was older than Aisha by ten years.”‘

Al-Dhahabi then said in his Siyar in his biography of Asmaa’s son Abdullah bin Zubayr: “She was older than Aisha by many years.” Then he said: ‘Ibn Abi al-Zinad says: “She was older than Aisha by ten years.”‘ Then he comments on this by saying: ‘Then according to this her age would be 91 years, but Hisham bin Urwa said: “She lived 100 years, not missing one year of this.”‘ He mentions in Tarikh al-Islam in his biography of Asmaa’ the saying of Ibn Abi al-Zinad and he writes a similar comment to this one in it.

You see that al-Dhahabi, the great scholar and historian, mentions different, contradictory, narrations as if he is unsure which ones to prefer, and he did not engage in a deep study and comparison of them.

If the historical clues I mentioned are not sufficient, then there are many clues from the books of hadith that point to Aisha being older than what the famous narration mentions, and those clues are the clues mentioned above in 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, and 10. It appears the respected brother has ignored them.

I repeat that clues are not evidence, but that the sum of clues can become  evidence, and if they all corroborate one another, then they can become a strong piece of evidence toward what I said.

The respected brother said regarding me:

He relies on the narration of Ibn Abi al-Zinad in determining the difference between Aisha and Asmaa's ages, disregarding what has been said about it in the literature of hadith criticism.

Then he said:

It is incorrect to rely on Ibn Abi al-Zinad's narration because of what follows: 1. Ibn Abi al-Zinad (100-174 AH) is the only narrator who determines the age difference between Asmaa' and Aisha at ten years. There is much previous evidence coming from more than one Successor, and it is well known that greater amounts of evidence surpass smaller amounts. 2. The narration that Ibn Abd al-Barr narrates from him in al-Isti`aab is not conclusive; there is doubt in it, as he says: "She was ten or so years older than Aisha" His saying "or so" agrees with the other narrations that the difference between them was ten and some years [[bid`u `ashara, meaning somewhere between 13 and 19]]. 3. Many scholars have considered Ibn Abi al-Zinad unreliable. In his biography in Tahdhib al-Tahdhib (vol 6, 172) Imam Ahmad says about him: "His hadiths are confused." Ibn Ma`een says: "His hadiths are not used by hadith scholars as a basis for legal opinions." Ibn Hibban says: "Abd al-Rahman was one of those who would transmit unique narrations that were rejected and that was due to his bad memory and his frequent errors, therefore it is impermissible to use his hadiths as bases for legal opinions except in those narrations that agree with other reliable narrators." Al-Dhahabi says: "His hadiths are good [[hasan]]." It is clear from this that the hadiths that are unique to Ibn Abi al-Zinad and that contradict other reliable narrators cannot be used as bases for legal opinions.

I say:

It is impermissible to ignore a historical statement that one of the Successors of the Successors says and that is corroborated by narrations that contain many clues. The sayings of the latter-day scholars regarding determining Aisha’s age are mere transmission and copying of the famous narration’s contents.

The question now is: Is there any source on this matter other than what Aisha has said? If someone says yes and goes on to use other narrations by her, then he is corroborating a claim by itself. The actual question is whether there is any other source. His argument is begging [[dodging]] the question.

Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi al-Zinad is one of the Successors of the Successors and a teller of the truth [[sadduq]. He heard hadiths in Baghdad and transmitted them. The scholars of hadith considered the narrations he transmitted from Baghdad unsound, while they considered his narrations from Medina sound. The respected brother used Tahdhib al-Tahdhib as a reference and transmitted some opinions on considering him unsound and he ignored that which goes against those opinions. The same book mentions:

Musa ibn Salama said: I came to Medina and went to Malik bin Anas and said to him: I came to you to hear knowledge and to hear knowledge from those you tell me to. He said: "Go to Ibn Abi al-Zinad". Abu Dawud says from Ibn Ma`een: "The most authentic of transmitters from Hisham bin Urwa is Abd al-Rahman bin Abi al-Zinad." Ali bin al-Madini said: "What he transmitted in Medina is authentic and that which he transmitted in Baghad was corrupted by the people of Baghdad." Yaqoub bin Shayba said: "Reliable and trustworthy, but there is weakness in some of his hadiths." Ahmad said, according to what al-Saaji related: "His hadiths are sound." Ibn Ma`een said, according to what al-Saaji related: "Abd al-Rahman bin Abi al-Zinad from his father al-A`raj from Abu Hurayra is a reliable chain." Al-Tirmidhi and al-`Ijli say [[about him]]: "Trustworthy." Al-Aajiri relates from Abu Dawud: "He was a great scholar of the Quran and a great scholar of narrations."

There is no doubt that he cannot be legally relied upon on those narrations that he uniquely narrated, but his statement as a Medinan regarding Medinan female Companions is acceptable and I see no reason to dismiss them. Abu Dawud praised him when he said “he was…a great scholar of narrations.” If he says to us: “Asmaa’ bin Abu Bakr was ten years older than Aisha,” it is unacceptable to call his statement unsound and reject it.

As for his statement that there is much previous evidence from more than one Successor, he does not mention the evidence that comes from more than one Successor.

The statement “and she was older than Aisha by ten years or so” means that the difference was ten years more or less, that perhaps the difference is more or less by a month or year. Interpreting it as meaning that it could refer to three or more years of difference is far-fetched according to linguistic usage. If the difference was seven years or thirteen years, a person will not say “the difference is ten years or so.”

Additionally, Asmaa’ died 73 years after the hijra, having reached 100 years. This means that she was born before the Revelation by 14 years. If Aisha had been born 4 years after the Revelation as the common narrative says, this would mean that Asmaa’ was 18 years older than her. Does this fit the famous narrations?

Among the important issues is that this respected brother does not differentiate between clues and evidence, so that he treats clues as if they are evidence, then refutes them by saying they do not reach the standard of evidence. If he meditates upon my words when I say that they are only clues, I believe that his statements would have been very different. If I had thought that any of those clues were strong pieces of evidence I would have called them such, but I said they are clues, and clues do not represent [[independent]] evidence.

Where is the evidence then?

The evidence is formed by the sum of the clues. The concurrence of those ten clues that all suggest Aisha was born before the Revelation and not after it by four years is the evidence that a delusion had entered into the matter.

I hope that the respected brother and gracious readers will read those ten clues calmly and with meditation. After that, it remains to each of us his or her own effort and reward, and He [[God]] is the friend of the doers of good.

Our Lord, forgive us and our brothers who preceded us in faith and put not in our hearts [any] resentment toward those who have believed. Our Lord, indeed You are Kind and Merciful.

Written by Salah al-Din al-Idlibi on January 6, 2018.

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