Clarification About The Spread Of Innovated Du'aa's -
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Writers Articles And Opinions
8 February 2010
By Muhammed Salih Al-Munajjid
Question: Clarification about the
spread of innovated du'aa's
I seek your advice regarding a matter that became
widespread on the internet. This is writing fabricated
ahadeeth and innovated du'as on forums. We do not know
if those ahadeeth and du'as are sound or weak. People
became attached to such things; they forward them to
one another via the internet and mobile phones. Among
these du'as I read 'A du'a that shook the heavens':
"Oh All-Loving, Oh All-Loving! Oh Lord of The Mighty
Throne! Oh Who creates from the very beginning and
restores life! Oh Doer of All that He intends! I ask
You by the light of Your Face that lightened Your
Throne, and ask You by Your Power by which You control
All creatures, and by Your mercy that comprehend every
thing, There is no God except You. Oh Who Helps! Help
me"
Then I read that this du'a is innovated. So many
similar things are being spread. What shall we do when
we find such ahadeeth in days where temptations are so
many? I seek your advice regarding this matter so that
I put it on forums, hoping that it limits such
mistakes.
Please remember to make du'a for me, make du'a that
Allah gives me success in my study, ease our anguish,
and bless us with righteous offspring and to keep them
on the straight path. Make du'a that Allah cures the
Muslim patients. May Allah reward you and bless you
with the high paradise! May he make the knowledge you
provide beneficial for all Muslims!.
Praise be to Allah.
In recent years we have - unfortunately - seen a
serious spread of an abhorrent sin that is a major sin
and one that dooms people to Hell, but many people are
heedless of it, and thus their religious commitment is
corrupted thereby, and they show a great deal of
disrespect towards the Noble Messenger Muhammad (peace
and blessings of Allah be upon him). This phenomenon
is the spread of ahaadeeth that are falsely attributed
to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon
him) and the grave audacity to narrate things from him
(peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) without
checking or verifying them.
Hence we and every Muslim who feels a sense of pride
in his religion must remind the people and tell them
of the seriousness of what they take so lightly, and
we must warn them of how bad the situation is, out of
sincerity towards Allah and to His Messenger and to
the ordinary Muslims.
So we say:
Firstly:
Our duty is to support the Prophet (peace and
blessings of Allah be upon him) and to love him
properly by following him properly and protecting the
purity of his sharee'ah at a time when the fools and
haters are showing a great deal of disrespect towards
him (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him).
Undoubtedly one of the greatest ways of supporting the
faith and honouring the Messenger is being truthful in
narrating his words and reports from him, and
rejecting the lies that are attributed to him. If we
know that no one would accept to have words attributed
to him that he did not say, then what should we think
about the Messenger who received Revelation from
Allah, may He be blessed and exalted, and his eternal
sharee'ah which came to set the affairs of all people
straight until the Day of Resurrection? Undoubtedly he
(peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) is the one
who would most hate to have lies attributed to him.
Hence al-Mugheerah ibn Shu'bah (may Allah be pleased
with him) narrated that he said: "Lying about me is
not like lying about anyone else. Whoever tells a lie
about me deliberately, let him take his place in
Hell." Narrated by Muslim in the Introduction to his
Sahih (no. 4). Al-Haafiz Ibn Hibbaan included a
similar hadith from Abu Hurayrah under the heading:
Chapter: Inevitability of entering Hell for one who
attributes anything to al-Mustafa (peace and blessings
of Allah be upon him) when he does not know whether it
is sound.
By Allah, the Muslim is astounded when he sees people
doing their utmost to avoid falling into blatant sin,
such as cheating, backbiting, stealing or committing
zina, then they treat this matter with such
carelessness, thinking that it is insignificant when
in fact it is very serious before Allah. So you see
them memorizing false ahaadeeth and narrating them in
gatherings and on websites, and they do not take care
to ask about that or to verify whether they are Sahih
(sound).
Secondly:
Everyone who spreads a hadith without ascertaining
whether it is Sahih - whether that is via a text
message or in an internet forum or transferring it
from one site to another or attaching it to an e-mail
- should understand that he is deserving of that
punishment in the Hereafter, both he and the one who
fabricated the hadith in the first place. The crime of
transmitting it without verifying it is like the crime
of the liar who has the audacity to show disrespect
towards the Messenger (peace and blessings of Allah be
upon him).
The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)
said: "Whoever narrates a hadith from me thinking that
it is false is one of the liars." Narrated by Muslim
in the Introduction to his Sahih (p. 7).
Al-Nawawi said, commenting on this hadith in Sharh
Muslim (1/65):
This is a stern warning against lying or taking part
in narrating lies. The one who thinks that what he is
narrating is mostly likely false but still narrates it
is a liar; how can he not be a liar when he is
narrating something that did not happen? End quote.
Shaykh al-Albaani (may Allah have mercy on him) said
in Tamaam al-Minah (32-34):
Many writers - especially in the current era -
regardless of their madhhabs and specialities, narrate
ahaadeeth that are attributed to the Prophet (peace
and blessings of Allah be upon him) without pointing
out which are da'eef (weak), either because they are
ignorant of the Sunnah or they are too lazy to refer
to the books of specialists. Abu Shaamah said in al-Baa'ith
'ala Inkaar al-Bida' wa'l-Hawaadith (p. 54): This,
according to the scholars of hadith and of usool and
fiqh is a mistake, and it should be pointed out if
known, otherwise it comes under the warning in the
hadith in which the Prophet (peace and blessings of
Allah be upon him) said: "Whoever narrates a hadith
from me thinking that it is false is one of the
liars." Narrated by Muslim. End quote.
This is the ruling of one who keeps quiet about da'eef
(weak) ahaadeeth about righteous deeds! So how about
if it has to do with rulings and the like?
It should be noted that the one who does that has to
be one of two things:
1 - Either he knows that these ahaadeeth are weak but
he does not point out their weakness, so he is
deceiving the Muslims and he definitely is included in
the warning mentioned. Ibn Hibbaan said in his book
al-Du'afa' (1/7-8): This report indicates that the one
who narrates something that is not Sahih from the
Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him),
which is something fabricated about him and he know
that, then he is like one of the liars, but the
apparent meaning of the report is stricter than that.
The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)
said: "Whoever narrates a hadith from me thinking that
it is false ..." And he did not say 'and he is certain
that it is false'. So anyone who doubts whether what
he is narrating is Sahih or not is included in the
apparent meaning of this report.
2 - Or he does not know that it is weak, but he is
also sinning because he is attributing it to the
Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)
without knowledge, and he (peace and blessings of
Allah be upon him) said: "It is sufficient lying for a
man to speak of everything that he hears." Narrated by
Muslim in the Introduction to his Sahih (no. 5)
So he has a share of the sin of the one who told the
lie about the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings
of Allah be upon him), because the Prophet (peace and
blessings of Allah be upon him) indicated that the one
who speaks of everything that he hears - and the one
who writes everything that he hears - will inevitably
lie about him (peace and blessings of Allah be upon
him), and thus he is one of the two liars, the first
of whom is the one who fabricates it and the second of
whom is the one who spreads it.
Ibn Hibbaan also said (1/9): The report also contains
a rebuke to the one who speaks of everything that he
hears, unless he knows that it is definitely sound.
End quote.
Al-Nawawi stated that if a person does not know
whether a hadith is weak, it is not permissible for
him to quote it as evidence without examining it if he
is knowledgeable, or asking scholars about it if he is
not knowledgeable.
End quote from Shaykh al-Albaani (may Allah have mercy
on him).
Thirdly:
What these people are falling into - when they spread
ahaadeeth without checking or verifying - is very
serious, as they spread what they fabricate far and
wide and it is read by millions of people, and it is
transmitted through many generations. The one who
fabricated it and the one who helped him to spread it
will bear that sin until the Day of Resurrection.
It was narrated from Samurah ibn Jundub (may Allah be
pleased with him) that the Messenger of Allah (peace
and blessings of Allah be upon him) said:
"Last night I saw two men come to me … they said: 'The
one whom you saw with the side of his mouth being torn
is the liar who tells lies that are conveyed from him
until they reach the horizon; that will be done to him
until the Day of Resurrection.'" Narrated by al-Bukhaari
(6096).
Fourthly:
All we can do - in the light of all these warnings -
is to remind ourselves and our Muslim brothers to fear
Allah with regard to our religion and sharee'ah, and
not to be the cause of doom and corruption.
Propagating false ahaadeeth is one of the worst means
of corrupting religion; the Jews and Christians were
only doomed when they fabricated lies against Allah
and His Messengers, and they attributed things to
their religions that the Messengers did not bring,
thus they incurred the wrath and anger of Allah.
Does these people who are so careless about
fabricating ahaadeeth without verifying them want to
be included with those with whom Allah is angry and
whom He has cursed?!
Would anyone want to be a tool for the propagation of
corrupting material, or to help the heretics who tell
lies against our sharee'ah and our Prophet?!
Or would he work to propagate ahaadeeth without
checking them to imitate groups that follow
misguidance such as the Raafidis who have filled the
world with lies against the Prophet (peace and
blessings of Allah be upon him) and the members of his
household?!
Do these people realize that their prayer, fasting and
worship will not avail them anything before Allah and
will not ward off from them the shame and sin of that
lie, if they take part in propagating these false
ahaadeeth?!
There may be a sin that a person commits, taking it
lightly, but it will cause him to fall into the Fire
and be the cause of his doom.
Abu'l-Wafa' 'Ali ibn 'Aqeel al-Hanbali said:
Our Shaykh Abu'l-Fadl al-Hamdaani said: Those who
introduce innovations in Islam and fabricate ahaadeeth
are worse than the heretics, because the heretics want
to corrupt the religion from without, but these people
want to corrupt it from within. They are like the
people of a city who want to spread evil and
corruption inside it, but the heretics are like those
who are besieging it from without, and those evildoers
within are able to open the gate to the enemy. They
are more dangerous to Islam than those who do not
claim to be Muslims. End quote.
Quoting from al-Mawdoo'aat by Ibn al-Jawzi (1/51).
Fifthly:
After all of that there comes to you one who
apologizes for his mischief and spreading false
ahaadeeth by saying: The weak ahaadeeth may be quoted
as evidence with regard to righteous deeds.
But he should understand that this is the deception of
the shaytaan, and it is a sign of sophisticated
ignorance; the one who says this will increase his
burden of sin. This principle, which was mentioned by
some scholars, is subject to a number of conditions,
which must be followed by the one who wants to apply
it. They are:
1- The hadith should have to do with righteous deeds
for which there is a basis in sharee'ah, and not with
matters of 'aqeedah, rulings or reports on which fiqh
and actions are based. It should not have to do with
righteous deeds for which there is no basis in
sharee'ah.
2- It should not be very weak (da'eef). It is not
permissible to narrate or act upon mawdoo'
(fabricated) and munkar ahaadeeth, according to
scholarly consensus.
3- It should not be believed that it can be attributed
to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon
him).
4- The one who narrates the hadith should state
clearly that it is weak, or he should indicate its
weakness by using phrases to indicate that it is weak:
it was narrated, it was said, and so on.
These conditions are derived from the words of
al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar in his book Tabyeen al-'Ajab and
some of them were narrated from al-'Izz ibn 'Abd
al-Salaam ibn Daqeeq al-Eid.
For information on accepting weak ahaadeeth, please
see the answer to question no. 44877 and 49675.
So those scholars who follow this principle do not say
that it is permissible to do what these people are
doing by publishing every hadith and every report in
the chat rooms, whether it is Sahih or false or da'eef
(weak).
Shaykh al-Albaani (may Allah have mercy on him) said
in Tamaam al-Minah (36):
Unfortunately we see many of the scholars - let alone
the common folk - neglecting these conditions, so they
act on the basis of a hadith without knowing whether
it is Sahih or da'eef, and if they know it is weak
they do not know to what extent - is it slightly weak
or is it so weak that it may not be accepted? Then
they demonstrate that they are accepting it and acting
upon it as if it were a Sahih hadith . Hence there are
many acts of worship done by Muslims which are not
valid, and which distract them from valid acts of
worship which were narrated with sound isnaads. End
quote.
Sixthly:
If a person repents from propagating false ahaadeeth
or he finds out that what he was doing is haraam after
he was unaware of the ruling, then the door of
repentance is open, but it is subject to the condition
of disclosure after concealment, and correction after
corruption.
Allah says (interpretation of the meaning):
"Except those who repent and do righteous deeds, and
openly declare (the truth which they concealed).
These, I will accept their repentance. And I am the
One Who accepts repentance, the Most Merciful" [al-Baqarah
2:160]
Hence every Muslim should propagate Sahih hadith
instead of false and fabricated ones. The books of the
Sahih Sunnah are filled - by Allah's grace - with
proven ahaadeeth which if a man were to spend his life
memorizing and studying them, he would hardly be able
to do it. It is sufficient to find a scholar of hadith
who has judged a hadith to be Sahih and acceptable, so
let him accept it from him and propagate the hadith
along with the scholar's ruling on it.
But if it so happens that he has propagated weak
ahaadeeth, then he must publish the comments of the
scholars concerning them. On our site there are a
number of answers concerning weak ahaadeeth that are
widespread on forums, and he can make use of these
answers. That includes the hadith mentioned in the
question, which has been explained as da'eef (weak) in
the answer to question no. 98821.
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