one asks more about my servants thatn myself. Who is asking me, so I
can give to him? Who is calling uon me, so I can answer him? who is
seeking my forgiveness, so I can forgive him?'". I got two questions
aboutthis hadith.
How sahee ( or correct ) is this hadith.
And second, what meaning is this hadith?.
Praise be to Allaah.
Your question covers two matters:
1 – The extent to which this hadeeth is saheeh.
This hadeeth is a saheeh hadeeth which is provenin the soundest two
books after the Book of Allaah. It was narrated by al-Bukhaari in his
Saheeh (1145) and by Muslim (1261) from Abu Hurayrah (may Allaah be
pleased with him), that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be
upon him) said: "The Lord descends every night to the lowest heaven
when one-third of the night remains andsays: 'Who will call upon Me,
that I may answer Him? Who will ask of Me,that I may give him? Who
will seek My forgiveness, that I may forgive him?'"
This hadeeth was narrated from the Prophet (peace and blessings of
Allaah be upon him) by approximately twenty-eight of the Sahaabah (may
Allaah be pleased with them) and the Ahl al-Sunnah are unanimously
agreed that it is to be accepted.
2 – What is meant by the descent of Allaah – may He be exalted – to
the lowest heaven:
It should be noted that the descent of the Lord –may He be exalted –
to the lowest heaven is oneof the actions that are attributed to Him
and has to do with His will and wisdom. It is descending in a real
sense, in a manner that befits His majesty and might. Allaah descends
however He wills, whenever He wills. Glory be to Him, there is nothing
like unto Him and He is the All-Hearing,All-Seeing. It is not
permissible to distort themeaning of the hadeeth by saying that what
is meant is that His command or mercy descends, or that one of His
angels descends. Thisis false for several reasons:
(i) This misinterpretation goes against the apparent
meaning of the hadeeth.The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be
upon him) attributed descent or the act of descending to Allaah, and
the basic principle isthat a thing is attributedto the one who does
it, so if it is attributed to someone else, that is a distortion that
goes against this basic principle. We know that the Messenger (peace
and blessings of Allaah be upon him) is the mostknowledgeable of all
people about Allaah, andthat he (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon
him) is the most eloquent of mankind and the most truthful in what he
says. There are no lies in his speech and it is impossible for him to
attribute something to Allaah that is not one of His names or
attributes or actions or rulings. Allaah says (interpretation of the
meaning):
"And if he (Muhammad) had forged a false saying concerning Us (Allaah),
45. We surely would have seized him by his right hand (or with power and might),
46. And then We certainly would have cutoff his life artery (aorta)"
[al-Haaqqah 69:44-46]
Moreover the only intention of the Prophet (peace and blessings of
Allaah be upon him) wasto guide mankind, so if he said, "Our Lord
descends" and someone else says something that runs contrary to the
apparent meaning of these words, such as saying that His
commanddescends, then we say: Do you have more knowledge about Allaah
than the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon
him)? The Messenger (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said,
"Our Lord descends" but you say His command descends. Or are you more
sincere towards the ummah than he was,since he (allegedly) concealed
what he was supposed to tell them and told them something different.
Undoubtedly the person who tells the people onething but means
something else is not sincere towards them. Ordo you think that you
are more eloquent than the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of
Allaah be upon him)?! Undoubtedly such a misinterpretation implies
that one is accusing the Messenger (peace and blessings of Allaah be
upon him) of some kind of shortcoming that a Muslim can never accept
on the part of the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah
be upon him).
(ii) The descent ofHis command and mercy is not
restricted to this part of the night, rather His command and mercy
descend all the time. If it is said that what is meant is a specific
command or specific mercy which does not happen all the time, the
answer to that is that if we assume that this interpretation is
correct, then the hadeeth indicates that where the descent of this
thing ends is in the lowest heaven, so what benefit can it be to us if
mercy descend to the lowest heaven without reaching us? Why would the
Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) even tell us about
it?
(iii) The hadeeth indicates that the One Who descends says:
"Who will call upon Me, that I may answer Him? Who will ask of Me,
that Imay give him? Who will seek My forgiveness, thatI may forgive
him?" No one can say that except Allaah, may He be exalted.
See: Majmoo' Fataawa wa Rasaa'il al-Shaykh Muhammad ibn Saalih
al-'Uthaymeen, 1/203-210.
No comments:
Post a Comment