With the Hadith
I used to ask about evil for fear that it would overtake me
We greet you all, dear listeners everywhere, in a new episode of your program "With the Hadith." We begin with the best greeting, may peace, mercy, and blessings of God be upon you.
It is mentioned in Sahih al-Bukhari - Book of Virtues - The destruction of my nation will be at the hands of young men from Quraysh.
Muhammad bin Al-Muthanna told me, Walid bin Muslim told us, Abdul Rahman bin Yazid bin Jaber told us, Basr bin Ubaidullah Al-Hadrami told me that he heard Abu Idris Al-Kholani saying: I heard Hudhaifa bin Al-Yaman saying: "People used to ask the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, about the good, and I used to ask him about the evil for fear that it would overtake me. I said: O Messenger of God, we were in ignorance and evil, then God brought us this good, so is there evil after this good? He said: Yes. I said: Is there good after that evil? He said: Yes, but with smoke. I said: What is its smoke? He said: A people who follow a path other than my Sunnah and are guided by a guidance other than mine. You will recognize some of them and disapprove of others. I said: Is there evil after that good? He said: Yes, callers at the gates of Hell. Whoever answers them, they will throw him into it. I said: O Messenger of God, describe them to us. He said: Yes, a people from our own skin who speak our language. I said: O Messenger of God, what do you think if I live to see that? He said: Stick to the community of Muslims and their leader. I said: What if they have neither a community nor a leader? He said: Then stay away from all those factions, even if you have to bite on the root of a tree until death overtakes you while you are in that state."
It is mentioned in the explanation of the Hadith in Fath Al-Bari Sharh Sahih Al-Bukhari - Book of Tribulations - The good that comes after the evil is not pure good, but rather contains turbidity.
His saying: (Chapter on how to act when there is no community)? It was complete, and the meaning is what should the Muslim do in the event of disagreement before consensus is reached on a caliph.
His saying: (For fear that it would overtake me) In the narration of Nasr bin Asim from Hudhaifa in Ibn Abi Shaybah: "I knew that good would not precede me."
His saying: (In ignorance and evil) refers to what was before Islam of disbelief, killing each other, plundering each other, and committing immoralities.
His saying: (God brought us this good) means faith, security, righteousness, and avoidance of immoralities.
His saying: He said: (Yes, and it contains smoke) with an unpointed "d", then a dotted "kh" with two opening vowels, followed by a "nun", which is resentment, and it was said deceit, and it was said corruption in the heart, and the meaning of the three is similar. It indicates that the good that comes after the evil is not pure good, but rather contains turbidity. It was said that what is meant by the smoke is the smoke, and it indicates the turbidity of the situation, and it was said that smoke is every undesirable thing.
His saying: (A people who are guided) with the first letter having a vowel mark fatha (by other than my guidance) with the addition of "ya" after the "ya" for most, and with one "ya" with tanween for Al-Kashmihani, and in the narration of Abu Al-Aswad: There will be after me imams who are guided by my guidance and do not follow my Sunnah."
His saying: (You will recognize some of them and disapprove of others) means from their actions, and in the Hadith of Umm Salama in Muslim "Whoever disapproves is acquitted, and whoever hates is safe."
His saying: (Callers) with a damma on the "d" is the plural of caller, meaning to other than the truth.
His saying: (At the gates of Hell) They are called that in view of what their condition will lead to, just as it is said to whoever is commanded to do a forbidden act: He stood on the brink of Hell.
His saying: (They are from our own skin) meaning from our people and from the people of our language and our religion, and in it is an indication that they are from the Arabs. Al-Dawudi said: Meaning from the children of Adam. Al-Qabisi said: It means that they are outwardly on our religion and inwardly مخالفون, and the skin of something is its appearance, which is originally the covering of the body. It was said that it supports the intention of the Arabs that brownness is predominant among them and the color only appears in the skin. Iyad said: What is meant by the first evil is the tribulations that occurred after Othman, and what is meant by the good that followed it is what occurred in the caliphate of Omar bin Abdul Aziz, and what is meant by those whom you recognize and disapprove of are the emirs after him, so there were among them those who adhered to the Sunnah and justice and those who called for innovation and acted with injustice. I said: What appears to be the case is that what is meant by the first evil is what he indicated of the first tribulations, and by the good what occurred of the meeting with Ali and Muawiyah, and by the smoke what was in their time of some emirs like Ziyad in Iraq and the opposition of those who opposed him from the Kharijites, and by the callers at the gates of Hell those who stood up in pursuit of the kingdom from the Kharijites and others, and to that is the indication in his saying: "Adhere to the community of Muslims and their leader" meaning even if he is unjust, and that is clarified by the narration of Abu Al-Aswad: "Even if he beats your back and takes your money." And such things were frequent in the emirate of Al-Hajjaj and the like.
His saying: (Adhere to the community of Muslims and their leader) with a kasra on the hamza, meaning their emir.
His saying: (Even if you bite) with a fatha on the silent "ayn" and a shadda on the dotted "dad", meaning: Even if the isolation is by biting, do not deviate from it.
And his saying: (While you are in that state) i.e. "biting", which is a metaphor for adhering to the community of Muslims and obeying their rulers, even if they disobey. Al-Baydawi said: The meaning is that if there is no caliph on earth, then you must isolate yourself and be patient with the severity of the times, and biting the root of the tree is a metaphor for enduring hardship, as in their saying: So-and-so bites the stones from the severity of the pain, or what is meant is adherence, as in his saying in the other Hadith: "Bite on it with your molars." The former is supported by his saying in the other Hadith: "If you die while biting on a stump, it is better for you than following any of them." Ibn Battal said: In it is an argument for the group of jurists on the obligation of adhering to the community of Muslims and abandoning rebellion against unjust imams, because he described the last group as "callers at the gates of Hell" and did not say about them: "You will recognize and disapprove" as he said in the first two, and they will not be so unless they are on other than the truth, and with that he commanded adherence to the community. Al-Tabari said: There is disagreement about this matter and about the community. Some said: It is for obligation and the community is the great majority. Then he quoted from Muhammad bin Sirin from Abu Masoud that he advised the one who asked him when Othman was killed: You must adhere to the community, for God would not gather the nation of Muhammad on misguidance." Some said: What is meant by the community is the Companions, not those who came after them.
Some said: What is meant by them is the people of knowledge, because God has made them a proof for creation and people follow them in matters of religion. Al-Tabari said: The correct view is that what is meant by the news is adhering to the community who are in obedience to whoever they have agreed to appoint as emir. Whoever breaks his allegiance has left the community. He said: In the Hadith is that whenever people do not have an imam and people split into factions, then do not follow anyone in the division and isolate yourself from everyone if you can do so for fear of falling into evil. That is how what is mentioned in the other Hadiths is interpreted, and that is how what appears to be contradictory in them is reconciled, and that is supported by the narration of Abdul Rahman bin Qurt mentioned earlier. Ibn Abi Jamra said: In the Hadith is God's wisdom in His servants, how He established each of them in what He willed; so He made more of the Companions love to ask about the aspects of good so that they would know them and convey them to others, and He made Hudhaifa love to ask about evil so that he would avoid it and be a reason for repelling it from whoever God wanted to save, and in it is the broadmindedness of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, and his knowledge of all aspects of judgment until he would answer everyone who asked him with what suited him, and it is taken from it that everyone who loves something excels in it over others, and therefore Hudhaifa was the keeper of the secret that no one else knew until he was singled out with knowledge of the names of the hypocrites and with many of the things to come, and it is taken from it that it is one of the etiquettes of teaching that the student should be taught the types of knowledge that he sees as inclined to from the permissible sciences, for he is more likely to hasten to understand it and carry it out, and that everything that guides to the path of good is called good and so is the opposite. And it is taken from it condemnation of whoever makes for religion a principle contrary to the Book and the Sunnah and makes them a branch of that principle that they invented, and in it is the obligation to reject falsehood and everything that contradicts the prophetic guidance, even if it is said by whoever said it of high or low.
Dear listeners:
The one who looks at this Hadith and contemplates its words finds that it carries more than one indication and deals with more than one issue. The first is the eagerness of the Companion Hudhaifa of faith to remain on the correct path in the event of tribulations and the occurrence of evil to him, so that he knows how to be the way of salvation and how to teach others this way.
The second issue is the news of the Noble Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, that the evil that will come after the good that the Noble Messenger brought will be followed by evil, and then good will follow it, as he pointed to people who claim to be callers to good, but they are only callers at the gates of Hell, as the Hadith described them, even though they are from us and from our skin, and the listener thinks that they are calling him to good, and this type of caller, the Noble Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, warned us against. From Omar that the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, said: The most fearful thing I fear for my nation is every eloquent hypocrite (a Hadith narrated by Al-Daraqutni and he said it is more like the correct, and Ahmed added in a narration "He speaks with wisdom and acts with injustice").
The last issue that the Hadith dealt with is the state of the Islamic nation today, which is the absence of the caliph and the absence of an imam.
It is necessary to stand on this issue, because some people have understood that what is meant by the Hadith is to abandon parties and groups in general, and they have not understood that what the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, meant is to abandon the groups that include these callers, not the parties in general. Party work is obligatory, and the Muslim must work with a group that follows the way of the Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, to resume Islamic life and appoint the absent caliph to rule according to the rulings of Sharia and be a heaven for us, but their understanding of this contradicts the widespread evidence that came in the Qur’an and the Sunnah, which came to indicate the obligation of establishing parties that call to good, enjoin good and forbid evil.
May God bless our master Muhammad and his family and companions and grant them peace.
Dear listeners, until we meet you with another prophetic Hadith, we leave you in God's care, and may peace, mercy, and blessings of God be upon you.
