Azami 460

It was narrated by Abu Dawud (4731) via Shuba, and Ibn Majah (180) via Hammad bin Salama, both from Yaala bin Ata, from Waki bin Hudus, from his uncle Abu Razeen, who related it. Ibn Khuzayma graded it sahih in his book Tawhid (359, 360), narrating it through two routes, as did Ibn Hibban in his Sahih (6141), Hakim (4/560), and Ahmad (16186), all of them through Hammad bin Salama alone, with his chain, similarly. Hakim said, "This is a hadith with a sahih chain." Dhahabi confirmed this and said, "Shuba narrated it from Yaala, and the name of Abu Razeen is Laqeet bin Amir." However, Ibn Hibban added a second question in the hadith, namely the statement of Abu Razeen, who said, I said, "O Messenger of Allah, where was our Lord before He created the heavens and the earth?" He said, "In a cloud, with no air above it and no air below it."This second part was narrated by Tirmidhi (3109) through Hammad bin Salama, with his chain, adding at the end, "and He created His Throne upon the water." He said, "This is a hasan hadith." I say, it is as he said, for its chain is hasan because of Waki bin Hudus (with the letter ha), as Hammad bin Salama said, from Yaala bin Ata. Shuba, Abu Awana, and Hushaym said, "Waki bin Adas" (with the letter ayn), but Imam Ahmad determined that the correct form is "Hudus" (with the ha), as related from him by his son Abdullah in his father's Musnad (16189). Then, he is "of unknown status" as Ibn Qattan said. Dhahabi said, "He is not known," because no one narrated from him except Yaala bin Ata. However, Ibn Hibban mentioned him in Thiqat (5/496), and for this reason Hafiz described him as "acceptable," meaning when corroborated, and he has indeed been corroborated in general within a long hadith, though it contains men who are unknown. I will present this long hadith here, then mention it broken up in its relevant places according to subject, and I will not present it in full elsewhere.From Asim bin Laqeet, that Laqeet bin Amir went out as a delegate to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, accompanied by a companion of his called Nuhayk bin Asim bin Malik bin Muntafiq. Laqeet said, I and my companion set out until we arrived before the Messenger of Allah ﷺ at the end of Rajab. We came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and found him just as he had finished the morning prayer. He stood among the people delivering a sermon and said, "O people, I have indeed withheld my voice from you for four days. Listen, let me make you hear. Is there any man whose people have sent him?" They said, "Learn for us what the Messenger of Allah ﷺ is saying.""Listen, then perhaps he may be distracted by his own thoughts, or the talk of his companion, or led astray by confusion. I am indeed accountable, have I conveyed the message? Listen and you will live. Sit down, sit down." He said, so the people sat, and I and my companion stood until, when his heart and gaze were free for us, I said, "O Messenger of Allah, what knowledge do you have of the unseen?" He laughed, by the life of Allah, and shook his head, knowing that I sought to catch him out, and said, "Your Lord has withheld the keys of five matters of the unseen that none knows except Allah" and he gestured with his hand. I said, "And what are they?" He said, "Knowledge of the time of death, He knows when the appointed time of each of you will come, but you do not know it. Knowledge of the seed when it is in the womb, He knows it, but you do not know it. Knowledge of what tomorrow holds, He knows what you will eat tomorrow, but you do not know it. Knowledge of the day of rain, when it looks down upon you in dire need, in dire need, apprehensive, and He continues laughing, knowing that relief for you is near."Laqeet said, I said, "We will never lack good from a Lord who laughs." "And knowledge of the Hour." I said, "O Messenger of Allah, teach us what you teach the people and what you know, for we are a people whom no one believes when we report the truth, from Madhhij who look down upon us, and Khatham who ally with us, and our own tribe from whom we come." He said, "You will remain as long as you remain, then your Prophet will pass away, then you will remain as long as you remain, then the Cry will be raised, and by the life of your God, it will not leave anything on its surface without dying, including the angels who are with your Lord . Then your Lord will come to roam the earth in the morning, and the lands will be emptied around Him, so your Lord will send down rain from near the Throne, and by the life of your God, it will not leave any place of death of a slain person, nor any grave of a dead person, without the grave splitting open over him until it lifts him up from where his head lies, and he sits up straight. Then your Lord will say, 'What is your condition?' referring to what he had experienced, and he will say, 'O Lord, yesterday, today,' and because of how recently he had been alive, he will think it had been only a short time since he was with his family."I said, "O Messenger of Allah, how will He gather us after the winds, decay, and beasts of prey have torn us apart?" He said, "I will inform you of a similar example among the signs of Allah. Look at the earth when it is dry crumbling clay, and you say it will never come to life again. Then Allah sends rain upon it, and it does not remain more than a few days before you see it as a single mass of green growth. By the life of your God, He is more able to gather you from water than to bring forth the plants of the earth, and you will come out from the mounds and from your places of death, looking at Him as He looks at you."I said, "O Messenger of Allah, how can we, filling the whole earth, look at Him and He look at us, while He is a single being?" He said, "I will inform you of a similar example among the signs of Allah . The sun and the moon are a small sign among His signs. You see them and they see you at one and the same moment, and you are not harmed in seeing them. By the life of your God, He is more able to see you and for you to see Him than for you to see them and for them to see you without being harmed in seeing them."I said, "O Messenger of Allah, what will our Lord do with us when we meet Him?" He said, "You will be presented before Him with your faces uncovered before Him, nothing of you hidden from Him, and your Lord will take with His hand a handful of illness and sprinkle it upon your ranks. By the life of your God, no drop of it will miss the face of any one of you. As for the believer, it will leave his face like a white silk garment, while for the disbeliever, it will mark him like black tar. Then your Prophet ﷺ will depart, and the righteous will follow in his path, crossing a bridge over the Fire. Any one of you who steps on the embers will say, 'Ouch!' and your Lord will say, 'Its time has come.' Then you will come upon the Pool of the Messenger, more longing for it, by Allah, than any thirsty animal you have ever seen. By the life of your God, none of you will stretch out his hand without a cup falling into it that purifies him of filth, urine, and impurity. The sun and moon will be held back, and you will not see either of them."I said, "O Messenger of Allah, how then will we see?" He said, "By a sight like your sight at this very hour, and that will be before sunrise on a day when the earth shines and the mountains loom brightly with it."I said, "O Messenger of Allah, how will we be rewarded for our bad and good deeds?" He said, "A good deed is rewarded tenfold, and a bad deed is repaid in equal measure unless He forgives."I said, "O Messenger of Allah, what about Paradise, what about the Fire?" He said, "By the life of your God, the Fire has seven gates, and between every two of them a rider would travel for seventy years, and Paradise has eight gates, and between every two of them a rider would travel for seventy years."I said, "O Messenger of Allah, what will we look upon from Paradise?" He said, "Rivers of purified honey, and rivers of a drink with no headache and no regret in it, and rivers of milk whose taste never changes, and water that never turns foul, and fruit, by the life of your God, beyond what you know, and something better than it besides, and purified spouses."I said, "O Messenger of Allah, will we have wives there, or wives made righteous from among them?" He said, "The righteous women for the righteous men, you will enjoy them just as you enjoyed pleasure in this world, and they will enjoy you likewise, except that there will be no procreation."Laqeet said, I said, "Is this the furthest extent we will reach and arrive at?" The Prophet ﷺ did not answer him. I said, "O Messenger of Allah, on what shall I pledge allegiance to you?" He said, the Prophet ﷺ extended his hand and said, "On establishing prayer, giving zakat, separating from the polytheist, and that you associate no god with Allah besides Him."I said, "And do we have everything between the east and the west?" So the Prophet ﷺ withdrew his hand, thinking that I was setting a condition he would not give me. I said, "We will simply travel through it wherever we wish, and no man bears wrongdoing except against himself." So he extended his hand and said, "That is yours, travel wherever you wish, and no wrongdoing falls upon you except from yourself."He said, so we departed from him, then he said, "By the life of your God, these two are indeed among the most God-fearing of people, in this world and the next." Then Kaab bin Khudariyya, one of Banu Bakr bin Kilab, said to him, "Who are they, O Messenger of Allah?" He said, "Banu Muntafiq are the people meant by that."He said, so we departed, then I turned back to him and said, "O Messenger of Allah, is there any good for those of our people who have passed away in the days before Islam?" He said, a man from among the common folk of Quraysh said, "By Allah, your father Muntafiq is indeed in the Fire." He said, it was as though heat had struck between my skin and my face and my flesh because of what he said about my father before the people, and I nearly said, "And your father, O Messenger of Allah?" but then I thought of something better, so I said, "O Messenger of Allah, and your family?" He said, "And my family as well, by the life of Allah, whenever you come upon the grave of an Amiri or a Qurayshi polytheist, say, 'Muhammad has sent me to you, to give you news that will grieve you, you will be dragged upon your face and belly into the Fire.'"I said, "O Messenger of Allah ﷺ, what was done to them that resulted in that, when they were upon deeds they did well only in that way, and thought themselves to be righteous?" He ﷺ said, "That is because Allah sends, at the end of every seven nations, a prophet, and whoever disobeys his prophet is among the misguided, and whoever obeys his prophet is among the rightly guided."This was reported by Abdullah bin Ahmad in his father's Musnad (16206), and in his book Sunnah (1120), where he said, "Ibrahim bin Hamza Zubayri wrote to me, 'I am writing to you with this hadith, having verified it and heard it as I have written it to you, so relate it on my authority. Abdul-Rahman bin Mughira Hizami narrated to me, Abdul-Rahman bin Ayyash Samee Ansari Qubai narrated to me, from Banu Amr bin Awf, from Dalham bin Aswad bin Abdullah bin Hajib bin Amir bin Muntafiq Aqeeli, from his father, from his uncle Laqeet bin Amir.'"Dalham said, "And Ibn Abu Aswad also narrated it to me, from Asim bin Laqeet, that Laqeet went out as a delegate to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, accompanied by a companion of his called Nuhayl bin Asim bin Malik bin Muntafiq." Laqeet said, "I and my companion set out until we arrived before the Messenger of Allah ﷺ in Madinah at the end of Rajab. We came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ when he had finished the morning prayer, and he stood among the people delivering a sermon, and said" (and he then related the hadith). Laqeet is Abu Razeen Aqeeli.Tabarani related it in Kabir (19/211), and Ibn Khuzayma graded it sahih in Tawhid (382), as did Hakim (4/560), all of them through Abdul-Rahman bin Mughira, with his chain, though there are errors in Mustadrak involving the reversal of chains. Hakim said, "This is a comprehensive hadith on this subject, with a sahih chain, all of them being from Madinah." Dhahabi criticized this, saying, "Rather, Yaqub bin Muhammad bin Isa Zuhri is daif." He is the one who narrated from Abdul-Rahman bin Mughira, but he has been corroborated, as in the narration of Abdullah bin Ahmad, and Ibn Abu Asim in Sunnah (524, 636), except that in it he says, "from Dalham bin Aswad, from his grandfather," instead of "from his father."Haythami mentioned it in Majma (10/340) and said, "Abdullah and Tabarani narrated it in similar wording, and one of Abdullah's two routes has a connected chain with reliable narrators." By his statement "reliable," he means the reliability attributed by Ibn Hibban, for otherwise Abdul-Rahman bin Ayyash, his teacher Dalham, and his father Aswad are known only through this chain. Dhahabi said, "Dalham bin Aswad and his grandfather Abdullah bin Hajib are unknown." Ibn Hibban mentioned Abdul-Rahman bin Ayyash in Thiqat, and Hafiz said in Taqrib, "Acceptable," meaning when corroborated, otherwise the hadith is weak. It has indeed been corroborated regarding his statement, "We will never lack good from a Lord who laughs, O Messenger of Allah," as previously mentioned in the chapter on laughter.As for Hafiz bin Qayyim, he strengthened this hadith, saying in Zad Mad (3/677), "This is a great and momentous hadith, whose grandeur, magnificence, and greatness proclaim that it has emerged from the niche of prophethood. It is not known except through the hadith of Abdul-Rahman bin Mughira bin Abdul-Rahman Madani, narrated from him by Ibrahim bin Hamza Zubayri, and both of them are among the great scholars of Madinah, two reliable men whose testimony is relied upon in Sahih, relied upon by the imam of the people of hadith, Muhammad bin Ismail Bukhari. The imams of the sunnah narrated it in their books, received it with acceptance, met it with submission and compliance, and none of them criticized it nor any of its narrators." He then mentioned those among them who narrated it, including Abdullah bin Ahmad bin Hanbal, Ibn Abu Asim in Sunnah (459, 460), Abu Ahmad Assal in Marifah, Tabarani as mentioned before, Abu Shaykh in Sunnah, Ibn Manda, and Abu Naeem Asbahani. He said, "A group of memorizers of hadith besides them, too many to mention... etc." And Allah knows best.His statement "tahdib" means to rain. Aswa refers to graves. Shurba, with a fatha on the ra, is the basin where water collects, while with a sakin and a ya, it refers to the colocynth plant. He means that water had become abundant, so drink from wherever you wish. According to the reading with sakin and ya, the earth is compared, in its greenness, to the plant, likening its greenness and evenness to that of the colocynth. His statement "hiss" is a word a person says when struck by something unexpected that burns or hurts him. Asmai said it is similar to "ouh."His statement, "Your Lord says, 'Its time has come.'" Ibn Qutayba said there are two interpretations of this, one being that "anahu" means "yes," and the other being that the predicate is omitted, as though he said, "You are indeed as described," or "It is as he says." In the hadith, "None of you should pray while holding back the urge to relieve himself or urinate." Tawf means excrement. Jisr means the Bridge (Sirat). His statement, "Your Lord will say, 'Mahyam'" means "What is your condition, what is your affair, and what were you engaged in?" His statement, "looking down upon you in azalin," azal, with a sakin on the za, means hardship, and azal, on the pattern of "katif," is one who has been struck by hardship so severely that he nearly despairs.His statement, "and He continues laughing," is among the attributes of His actions , in which nothing among His creation resembles Him, just as with the attributes of His essence. This attribute has come in many hadiths, which cannot be rejected, just as they cannot be likened to creation or distorted. Likewise, "Then your Lord will come to roam the earth in the morning" is among the attributes of His action, as in His saying, "And your Lord comes, with the angels" [Fajr 89:22], and "Are they waiting for anything but that the angels should come to them, or your Lord should come" [Anam 6:158], and "Our Lord descends every night to the lowest heaven," and "He draws near on the evening of Arafah, and boasts of the people gathered there before the angels." The discourse in all of these follows one straight path, affirmation without likening, and exaltation without distortion or denial.His statement, "and the angels who are with your Lord," I know of no explicit hadith mentioning the death of the angels except this one, and the long hadith of Ismail bin Rafi, which is the hadith of the Trumpet, and it may be inferred from the words of Allah Almighty, "And the Trumpet will be blown, and whoever is in the heavens and whoever is on the earth will fall dead, except whom Allah wills" [Zumar 39:68]. This concludes what is in Zad.On this subject there is also what has been narrated from Ibn Umar, who said, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, "The lowest in rank among the people of Paradise is he who looks upon his gardens, his spouses, his bliss, his servants, and his delights, extending a distance of a thousand years, and the most honored before Allah is he who looks upon His face morning and evening." Then the Messenger of Allah ﷺ recited, "Faces that Day will be radiant, looking at their Lord" [Qiyamah 75:22–23].This was narrated by Tirmidhi (2553), Ahmad (2/13), Ibn Manda in Radd Ali Jahmiya (91), and Hakim (2/509–510), all of them through Thuwayr bin Abu Fakhita, from Ibn Umar, who related it. Hakim said, "This is a hadith that explains matters clearly against the innovators, and even though Bukhari and Muslim did not include Thuwayr bin Abu Fakhita, no criticism was made against him except for his Shiite leanings." Dhahabi criticized this, saying, "Rather, he is one whose hadith is weak." Haythami based his criticism on the same point in Majma (10/401), saying, "In their chains is Thuwayr bin Abu Fakhita, and his weakness is agreed upon."On this subject there is also what has been narrated from Abu Musa Ashari, who said, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, "Allah will gather the nations upon a single plain on the Day of Resurrection. When it becomes Allah's wish to separate among His creation, He will present to each people what they used to worship, and they will follow them until they lead them to the Fire. Then our Lord will come to us while we stand upon an elevated place, and He will say, 'Who are you?' We will say, 'We are the Muslims.' He will say, 'What are you waiting for?' They will say, 'We are waiting for our Lord .'"He said, "He will say, 'Would you recognize Him if you saw Him?' They will say, 'Yes.' He will say, 'How would you recognize Him without having seen Him?' They will say, 'Indeed, there is none equal to Him.' Then He will manifest Himself to us, laughing, and say, 'Rejoice, O Muslims, for there is not one among you but that I have placed a Jew or a Christian in his place in the Fire.'"This was narrated by Imam Ahmad (19654), Ajurri in Sharia (607), Ibn Khuzayma (464), and Darimi in Radd Ali Jahmiya (180), all of them through Hammad bin Salama, from Ali bin Zayd, from Amara, from Abu Burda, from Abu Musa Ashari, who related it similarly, and the wording is Ahmad's. In a version reported by Darimi, and similarly by Ajurri, from Amara Qurashi, that he was with Umar bin Abdul-Aziz, and Abu Burda bin Abu Musa Ashari came to him. Umar granted his requests, and when he left, he returned. Umar said, "Do you remember, old man?" Umar said to him, "What brought you back? Did I not grant your requests?" He said, "Indeed, but I remembered a hadith that Abu Musa Ashari related to us, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said" (and he related the hadith).This has two flaws. The first is Ali bin Zayd, who is Ibn Jadan, considered daif by the majority of scholars. The second is his teacher Amara, who is Qurashi, and Dhahabi quoted from Azdi that he said, "Extremely daif. Only Ali bin Zayd bin Jadan narrated from him." He then cited part of the aforementioned hadith. Mizan (3/178). However, some of its statements have sahih supporting evidence, such as his saying, "Rejoice, O Muslims, for there is not one among you but that I have placed a Jew or a Christian in his place in the Fire."This was narrated by Muslim in Tawba (2767) through another route, from Awn and Saeed bin Abu Burda, who both narrated to him that they witnessed Abu Burda relating to Umar bin Abdul-Aziz, from his father, from the Prophet ﷺ, who said, "No Muslim man dies except that Allah admits, in his place, a Jew or a Christian into the Fire." He said, so Umar bin Abdul-Aziz made him swear by Allah, besides whom there is no god, three times, that his father had related this to him from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. He said, so he swore to him. He said, but Saeed did not tell me that he made him swear, nor did he object to Awn's statement.Ibn Khuzayma, may Allah have mercy on him, said, "Allah only revealed Himself to this nation, whether righteous, wicked, or hypocritical, after those earlier nations had fallen into the Fire, for Allah Almighty had been veiled from all of them, and none of them had ever seen Him, just as He Almighty said, "Not at all! Rather, what they used to commit has covered their hearts with rust. Not at all! Indeed, from their Lord, that Day, they will be veiled. Then indeed, they will be burning in the Blazing Fire. Then it will be said, 'This is what you used to deny.'" [Mutaffifin 83:14–17]. So He informed us that those veiled from Him on that Day are those who denied that in this world. Do you not hear His statement, "This is what you used to deny" [Mutaffifin 83:17]? As for the hypocrites, they used to deny that with their hearts while affirming it with their tongues, out of hypocrisy and to be seen and heard, so He revealed Himself to them as a trial and a test, so that His veiling them afterward from seeing Him would be a source of regret and remorse for them, since they had not believed it with their hearts and innermost selves, nor in His promise and warning, nor in what He commanded and forbade, nor in the Day of Regret and Remorse."