Ahmad 7141

Its isnad is sahih. Bishr bin Mufaddal bin Lahiq Raqashi is the teacher of Ahmad, his reliability was established earlier at 908, and we add here that Bukhari gave his biography in Kabir 1/2/84, and Ibn Abu Hatim in Jarh wa Tadil 1/1/366. Ibn Ajlan is Muhammad, whose biography was given earlier at 1518. Saeed Maqburi is Saeed bin Abu Saeed, whose biography was given earlier at 6225. He is a well-known Follower, who narrates from Abu Hurairah, having heard from him directly, and also narrates from his father, from Abu Hurairah.This hadith will come again in the Musnad several times, with similar wording, through this route and others, at 7537, 7562, 8466, 8462, 9024, 9157, 9719. Abu Dawud narrated it, no. 3844, 3/430 of Awn al-Mabud, from Ahmad bin Hanbal, with this same isnad. Bayhaqi narrated it in Sunan al-Kubra 1/252, through the route of Hasan bin Arafah from Bishr bin Mufaddal, with the same wording. Hafiz referred in Fath al-Bari 10/213 to this narration, and to the narration of Saeed Maqburi, which contains the addition that the fly wards off with the wing carrying the disease, and noted that Ibn Hibban graded it sahih.It was narrated without this addition by Bukhari, 1/256 and 10/213-214, and Ibn Majah 2/185, through the route of Utbah bin Muslim, from Ubayd bin Hunayn, from Abu Hurairah. Bayhaqi also narrated it through this route. It will come again in the Musnad at 9157.Hafiz bin Qayyim erred, attributing this hadith in Zad Mad 3/209, 247 to the Sahihayn. The certain truth, after lengthy investigation, is that Muslim did not narrate it in his Sahih, and Hafiz stated this explicitly in Fath al-Bari 6/257, at the end of the Book of the Beginning of Creation. And it was an oversight on his part that he asserted otherwise at the end of the Book of Medicine, 10/215.This hadith is one that some of our contemporaries have toyed with, some knowing but erring, some knowing and deliberately siding with the enemies of the sunnah, and some ignorant and reckless. Some of them attacked Abu Hurairah, impugning his narration and his memory, and some even dared to impugn his honesty in what he narrated. Some went so far in their excess as to claim that the Sahihayn contain hadiths that are not sahih, if not claiming outright that they have no basis at all. This was based on doubts they saw in the criticism some early scholars made of a few chains in the two books, but they did not understand the objection of those earlier scholars, who meant by their criticism only that some of the chains fell short of the highest degree of soundness that the two Shaykhs committed themselves to, not that these were daif hadiths at all.It is strange indeed that this very hadith, the hadith of the fly, was not among those that any hadith scholar found fault with in Bukhari. Rather, it is regarded by all of them as meeting his standard at the very highest degree of soundness. It is strange too that these who attacked Abu Hurairah, despite the great knowledge many of them had of the sunnah and their wide learning, may Allah have mercy on them, overlooked, or feigned to overlook, that Abu Hurairah was not the only one to narrate it. Rather, Abu Saeed Khudri also narrated it from the Prophet, as found in Ahmad's Musnad at 11207 and 11666, Nasai 2/193, Ibn Majah 2/185, and Bayhaqi 1/253, with sahih chains. Anas bin Malik also narrated it, as Haythami mentioned in Majma al-Zawaid, 538, saying, "Bazzar narrated it, and its narrators are the narrators of the sahih books." Tabarani also narrated it in Awsat. Hafiz mentioned it in Fath al-Bari 10/213, saying, "Bazzar narrated it, and its narrators are trustworthy."So Abu Hurairah was not alone in narrating this hadith from the Messenger of Allah, but he alone was singled out for attack, indeed they overlooked that two other Companions besides him narrated it too. The truth is that they simply did not like this hadith, because deep within themselves they felt it contradicted modern discoveries about germs and the like. Their faith kept them from daring to attack the most exalted station, so instead they cast doubt on Abu Hurairah. The truth also is that they believed in these modern discoveries more than they believed in the unseen, but they do not admit it openly.Then they devised for themselves a strange strategy, to give these discoveries priority over everything, and to interpret the Quran in ways that take it out of the meaning of Arabic speech whenever it conflicts with what they call scientific facts, and to reject from the sahih sunnah whatever they think conflicts with these so-called facts of theirs, a fabrication against Allah, even while calling it renewal. Indeed, some of them believe in certain superstitions of the Europeans while denying, or reinterpreting away, the truths of Islam. Some of them believe in the superstitions of spirit summoning, while denying the existence of angels and jinn through modern reinterpretation. And some of them believe in the legends of the ancients and what is attributed to male and female saints, then deny all the miracles of the Messenger of Allah, and reinterpret what is mentioned in the Book and the sunnah of the miracles of the earlier prophets, stripping them entirely of the meaning of miracle. And so on, and so on.In our own time there is a friend of ours, a capable writer, a skilled man of letters, and a man of wide learning, whose pen, knowledge, and learning we admire. Yet lapses after lapses appeared from him, on the pages of newspapers and magazines, impugning the sunnah and disparaging its narrators, from the Companions down to those after them. He clings to statements made by earlier scholars about specific chains of transmission, and turns them, as the Orientalists do, into general rules, expanding their scope and taking them beyond the limits their authors intended.We had, over this, oral debates and private correspondence, out of my concern for his religion and his faith. Then, more than two years ago, he wrote a piece in a certain magazine, following his usual manner, in which he had grown even more excessive and extreme. So I wrote him a long letter, in the month of Jumada Awwal, in the year 1370, and what I said to him in it, without naming him here or naming the magazine in which he wrote, I said to him,"I read, about two weeks ago, a piece of yours in a magazine, in which you left nothing unsaid of what has settled in your heart by way of impugning the sahih narrations of hadith. I do not claim that I can convince you, nor am I content merely to embarrass you into abandoning what you are engaged in. I wish, my brother, that you had studied the sciences of hadith and its methods of transmission thoroughly, uninfluenced by the absurdities of so-and-so ﷺ and others like him, whom you have imitated, and those who imitated you. You research and dig in light of something that had already settled in your heart beforehand, not as free research empty of bias. Be assured that I am a sincere, faithful, trustworthy advisor to you.It does not concern me nor anger me that you say whatever you wish about the sunnah. I have read many times over what is like your words, but you string statements together, one after another. Be assured, my brother, that the Orientalists did the same regarding the sunnah, and you said the same as they said, and their view pleased you, because it matched some desire in you. But you forgot that they did the same, and more, to the Quran itself, yet neither the Quran nor the sunnah became anything on account of what they did. Before them, the Mutazilah and many people of personal opinion and desire arose and did some or all of this, yet the sunnah only grew firmer, as firm as the mountains, and these people only wore out their own heads and destroyed them.We have never seen among the scholars who preceded us anyone who dared claim that the Sahihayn contain fabricated hadiths, let alone the vague insinuation and defamation folded into your words, which gives the naive the false impression that most of what is in the sunnah is fabricated. This is the language of the Orientalists. The furthest the scholars ever went was to criticize specific individual hadiths, not by claiming they were fabricated, Allah forbid, nor by claiming they were daif. They only criticized in the two books hadiths that they thought did not reach the very highest peak of soundness that each of the two authors committed himself to.This is something many people have erred about. Among them is our teacher Sayyid Rashid Rida, despite his knowledge of the sunnah and his jurisprudence, who was never able to establish proof for what he held, and statements slipped from him that were beneath his learning to fall into. But he was very heavily influenced by Jamal al-Din and Muhammad Abduh, and neither of them knew anything about hadith. In fact he was, after that, more knowledgeable than the two of them, of higher standing, and firmer in view, were it not for the residue that remained deep within him. May Allah forgive us and him.I have only confided this to you out of fear for you regarding Allah's reckoning. As for people in this age, they carry no weight in this matter, and they neither add anything to it nor take anything from it. For the accursed European upbringing has made them accept the Quran only reluctantly. Some of them state this openly, and some reinterpret the Quran or the sunnah to satisfy their enlightened mind, not to protect them from the attacks of detractors. In truth they do not believe, and they fear to declare this openly, lest there be an uproar. And so they remain, until Allah brings about His decree.So be wary for your own sake of Allah's reckoning on the Day of Judgment. I have advised you, though I may not have conveyed it fully."As for the ignorant and reckless, they are many in this age. Among the strangest instances I have seen of their foolishness and audacity is that a physician wrote, in one of the medical journals, seeing nothing but that this hadith simply did not please him, and that it conflicted with his own knowledge, and that it was narrated by an author named Bukhari. He found no recourse except to attack this Bukhari, charging him with fabrication and lying about the Messenger of Allah, while he knew nothing about Bukhari at all. Indeed, I do not think he even knew his full name, his era, or his book, except that he had narrated something that he, in his vast learning, considered not sahih. So he fabricated against him whatever he pleased, something for which he will be held to a severe reckoning before Allah.These reckless objectors were not the first to speak on this, for their like among the ancients preceded them. But those earlier ones were more courteous than these. Khattabi said in Maalim Sunan, no. 3695 of Tahzib Sunan,"Some who have no decency have spoken about this hadith, saying, 'How can this be? How can disease and cure both exist in the two wings of the fly? And how does the fly itself know this, so as to lead with the wing of disease and follow with the wing of cure? And what purpose would it have in doing so?'I say, this is the question of one who is either ignorant or feigning ignorance. One who finds that his own self, and the selves of animals in general, combine heat and cold, moisture and dryness, which are opposing qualities that would corrupt one another if they simply met, and then sees that Allah, Glorified is He, has harmonized them together, forced them into coexistence, and made from them the very faculties of animal life by which they survive and thrive, is well placed not to deny that disease and cure can coexist in two parts of a single creature.The One who inspired the bee to build its wondrously crafted home and to make honey in it, and inspired the ant to gather its provisions and store them for the time it needs them, is the very One who created the fly and gave it the guidance to lead with one wing and follow with the other, for the sake of the trial Allah intended, which is the pathway of devotion, and the test which is the arena of religious obligation. In everything there is a lesson and wisdom, and none takes heed except people of understanding."As for the medical explanation, Ibn Qayyim said, regarding the medicine of old, in Zad Mad 3/210-211,"Know that the fly has a toxic force, evidenced by the swelling and itching that occur from its sting, and this is like its weapon, so when it falls into something that could harm it, it guards itself with its weapon. So the Prophet ﷺ commanded that this toxin be met with what Allah placed in its other wing of healing, by dipping the whole fly into the water or food, so that the toxic substance is met by the beneficial substance, and its harm is removed. This is medicine that even the greatest physicians and their leading authorities could never arrive at on their own, rather it comes from the lamp-niche of prophethood. Even so, the knowledgeable, discerning, rightly guided physician submits to this remedy, and acknowledges that the one who brought it is the most perfect of all creation, and that he is supported by divine revelation beyond human capacity."And I say, regarding modern medicine, people have been, and still are, disgusted by flies, and avoid whatever food or drink a fly has fallen into. They are hardly willing to accept its nearness. There is much excess in this, when people go too far with it. Flies keep persistently bothering people in their food and drink, in their sleep and waking, and in all their affairs.Physicians and researchers have uncovered harmful and beneficial germs, and they have gone to great excess in describing the harmful germs flies carry, to the point that they would nearly have ruined people's lives had people obeyed them in complete literal compliance. You can see with your own eyes that most people eat and drink from what flies have landed on, and nothing befalls them except in the rare exception. Whoever stubbornly denies this only deceives people and deceives himself.We also see that the harm of flies is severe when a general epidemic occurs, and no one disputes that. So there are, then, two distinct situations, with great differences between them. As for the case of an epidemic, there is no doubt that caution extends to the utmost guarding against flies and their harm through the germs they carry, the utmost caution. But when there is no epidemic, and life is proceeding as usual, this degree of caution has no meaning.Observation itself disproves the excess of those who exaggerate, who claim that every food or drink a fly lands on is spoiled. Whoever stubbornly denies this is only arguing with words, not with actual practice, and is obeying the call of pretense and affectation, and I do not think he could actually bear applying precisely what he calls for, and many of them say what they do not do.