In other words, what Zuhri narrated was simply what had reached him and he indicated that there was doubt about its authenticity, indicated by the words “fi ma balaghana”. The Hadith is Sahih in the sense that Zuhri did in fact hear it from the people (and so–as Dr. SHM Jaffir says–it gives us insight in the thinking of the people), but it is not Sahih in the sense that what the people were saying may simply have been a thing of legends.
Shia says
“ Even if you say it is a legend, then why did Sunnis narrate a legend which is offensive to the Prophet?! How can you narrate a legend that says the Prophet tried to commit suicide which is a grave sin????
”
We disregard the addition of Zuhri because of the weakness of its narration; the usage of “fi ma balaghana”, the grading of Mursal, and the reliability of Mursal narrations via az-Zuhri–these are all factors which force us to grade this addition as being Dhaeef (weak). This addition is graded as Dhaeef based on its Isnad (chain of transmission), not its Matn (content). In fact, the Matn (content) is not “blasphemous” as the Shia claim. If it is, then we ask: how is it blasphemous?
Rayat says
“ suicide is a terrible deed [i.e. sin]
”
This event took place at the very beginning of the Prophet’s mission, right when he was appointed as a Prophet. As such, the Shariah had not yet been expounded. The legend says that the Prophet tried to throw himself off mountains, but this was before suicide was declared as a sin. It was only much later that the Quranic verse (4:29) and the Command from Allah condemning suicide was revealed.
The Shariah was expounded gradually and progressively over the course of many years. In fact, at the start of the Prophetic mission, there were Sahabah who used to drink alcohol. This was not a sin because the legislation prohibiting it had not yet been revealed. It would be totally inappropriate to accuse these Sahabah of sinning when the legislation forbidding it had not been passed as of yet. Another example is that of Purdah; it was not ordained on women in the beginning and so we cannot say that Muslim women were sinning for not observing Purdah. It was only at a later point in time that this was ordained. There was no sin before the action was declared Haram. Likewise, even if we say that the Prophet was attempting suicide, then this was before suicide had been declared Haram and so there is no sin in that.
Shia says
“ Even if suicide had not been declared Haram yet, it is still a deplorable act. Even the Westerners think of suicide as a despicable act and they are not Muslim! It is like murdering children: yes that might not have been definitively declared Haram till much later, but still, would you find it appropriate if we claimed that the Prophet did that in the beginning of his mission before it was declared Haram? Nauzobillah! Suicide is intrinsically evil and the Prophet would have known that. Suicide is very wrong. I don’t think it was ever right in any culture on Earth. It feels wrong at every level.
”
In fact, this Shia’s analogy (i.e. of murdering a child) is not appropriate at all. This is a matter of impinging on someone else’s rights (i.e. of the child) and therefore all people–regardless of their religion–would admit that it is a wrong thing. However, suicide does not harm anyone else; it does not take away anyone else’s rights. Therefore, it is like comparing apples with oranges.
Having said that, it should interest these Shia to know that there were in fact Sahabah who used to–before the Islamic injunctions forbidding it–engage in female infanticide. And yet today we respect these Sahabah immensely. The point is that no blame can be put on a person before the Shariah declared it Haram. Burying a baby is worse than suicide, and yet we Sunnis do not have much problem with the fact that some upright Sahabah used to engage in that before Islam forbade it.
Furthermore, this Shia polemicist has mentioned that “even Westerners” look down on suicide despite not being Muslim. In fact, the Westerners come from the Judeo-Christian culture; they are descendants of an Abrahamic faith. Allah had declared suicide Haram to the people of Moosa and the people of Eesa. The proof of this is that we can find this prohibition in their religious books. So Westerners look down on suicide because it was something that permeated their culture from their religious beliefs which are originated from the same source as our own.
Suicide is evil because Allah said so, and it is not intrinsically evil, in the sense that if a man were left all to himself on an island since birth, then there is no way he would himself figure out that it was an immoral thing to do. As proof of this, we give the example of many Eastern cultures in which suicide is not looked down upon. In fact, suicide is looked at as an honorable act in Japanese culture. When Samurais were defeated by their enemies, they would often take their own lives as opposed to become prisoners. When Japanese people failed in certain tasks, they then took their own lives to compensate for that; this was an act of devotion and not of desperation. In the Indian culture, a woman is supposed to commit suicide after her husband dies and if she does not do it then she is looked down upon! This is proof that the assertion that “suicide is wrong in every culture” is patently false. Because suicide is one of those sins that does not directly harm others, there is no way that humans could figure out on their own that it is wrong. Allah had to tell us that it was.
Before he was declared a Prophet, Muhammad ibn Abdullah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) used to engage in Tahannuth atop Mount Hira. Then one day out of nowhere the Arch-Angel Jibraeel descended on him and declared him to be a Prophet. But after this initial revelation, there was then a pause in the revelation. This was a period in which no message was sent to the Prophet by Allah. This interruption or pause in revelation is known in Arabic as “Fatrah”. This is mentioned in the Shia Tafseer of the Quran available on Al-Islam.org:
In the beginning of the ministry of the Holy Prophet there was a short interval during which he received no revelation. The pagans jeered at him as one forsaken by Allah, and slandered and persecuted him as well as those who believed in him
(Pooya/Ali Commentary 93:3, http://www.al-islam.org/quran/)
We read:
Subsiding of the Revelations
Muhammad expected the revelations to guide his path from day to day, but they subsided. Gabriel did not appear for some time, and all around him there was nothing but silence. Muhammad fell into solitude, separated from himself as well as from the people. His old fears recurred. It is told that even Khadijah said to him, “Does it not seem that your Lord is displeased with you?” Dismayed and frightened, he returned to the mountain and the cave of Hira’. There, he prayed for God fervently, seeking assiduously to reach Him. Particularly, he wanted to ask God about the cause of this divine displeasure. Khadijah did not dread these days any less than Muhammad, nor was she any less fearful. Often Muhammad wished to die, but he would again feel the call and the command of his Lord which dispelled such ideas. It was also told that he once thought of throwing himself down from the top of Mount Hira’ or Mount Abu Qubays, thinking what good was this life if his greatest hope therein was to be frustrated and destroyed? Torn between these fears on one hand and despair on the other, revelation came to him after a long interval. The word of God was as clear as it was reassuring:
“By the forenoon, and by the night as it spreads its wings over the world in peace, your Lord has not forsaken you; nor is He displeased with you. Surely, the end shall be better for you than the beginning. Your Lord will soon give you of His bounty and you will be well pleased. Did He not find you an orphan and give you shelter? Did He not find you erring and guide you to the truth? Did He not find you in want and provide for you? …And as for the favor of your Lord, rehearse and proclaim!” -Quran, 93:1-11
The Call to Truth Alone
Oh, what divine majesty, what peace of mind, what joy of heart and exaltation to the soul! Muhammad’s fears dissolved and his dread was dissipated. He was overjoyed with this fresh evidence of his Lord’s blessing and fell down in worship to God and praise of Him. There was no more reason to fear, as Khadijah had done, that God was displeased with him, and there was no cause for his dread. God had now taken him under His protection and removed from him every doubt and fear. Henceforth there was to be no thought of suicide but only of a life dedicated to calling men unto God and unto God alone.
(source: Hayat Muhammad, Chapter “From the Beginning of Revelation to the Conversion of `Umar”)
The Prophet had become depressed because he thought that he had earned the displeasure of Allah. The Prophet thought that Allah had forsaken him due to some failure on his own part and as such he wished to end his life. So we see that even if we accept the addition that the Prophet wished to commit suicide, then we find that this does not disparage the character of the Prophet, but rather it shows the Prophet could not live with the fact that he had displeased and failed his Lord.
The proof that the Prophet’s worries were due to his fear that he had angered Allah can be found in the Quran itself:
“By the forenoon, and by the night as it spreads its wings over the world in peace, your Lord has not forsaken you; nor is He displeased with you. Surely, the end shall be better for you than the beginning. Your Lord will soon give you of His bounty and you will be well pleased. Did He not find you an orphan and give you shelter? Did He not find you erring and guide you to the truth? Did He not find you in want and provide for you? …And as for the favor of your Lord, rehearse and proclaim!”
(Quran, 93:1-11)
We have already discussed how suicide was not a sin at that time, and that the suicide legend was not one that disgraces the nature of the Prophet because it was only due to the Prophet’s noble devotion and worry that he had displeased His Lord. But let us now play along with the Shia and forget the fact that suicide had not been declared Haram yet. We find that even if we pretend that suicide was a sin back then, even so the Prophet did not at all commit a sin if the legend was true.
Simply inclining towards a sin is not a sin; in fact, if one inclines towards a sin but refrains from it, then this is counted as one thawab (reward in Paradise). In his book “Minhaj as-Sunnah”, Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah brings up the example of Prophet Yusuf (Joseph). He was being seduced by a very attractive woman named Zulaykha and this story is narrated in the Quran. Allah says in verse 12:24 of the Quran:
wa laqad hammat bihi (and she did desire…)
wa hamma bih (and he also desired…)
lawl ‘an ra’ burhna rabbihi (…had it not been for him seeing the burhan of his Lord)
kadhlika linarifa `anhu as-s’a wa al-fash’a ‘innahu min `ibdin al-mukhlana (Thus it was, that We might ward off from him evil and lewdness. Lo! he was of Our chosen slaves.)
In the Tafseer of Shafi Uthmani, we read:
In this verse, the word “hamm” (thought, desire, etc.) has been attributed to both Zulaykha and Sayyiduna Yusuf both, as in: wa laqad hammat bihi (and she did desire…) wa hamma bih (and he also desired…)
Prophet Yusuf’s hamm to commit zinnah (adultery) is similar to any hamm Prophet Muhammad may have supposedly had about committing suicide. As Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah makes clear: we do not say that Prophet Yusuf committed sin when he had that hamm, so why would we attribute sin to the Prophet when he had similar hamm? And we think that zinnah is a worse sin than suicide or at least of a similar nature. So if the hamm of Prophet Yusuf as mentioned in the Quran does not negate the nobility of his Prophethood, then similarly we say that the nobility of the Prophethood of Muhammad ibn Abdullah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) is not affected even if he did have any hamm to commit suicide.
The Prophet said:
“Allah has forgiven the scruple and thought of sin for my Ummah if not put into practice.”
(Sahih Bukhari)
Therefore, neither Prophet Yusuf nor Prophet Muhammad were given any sin for having the thought because neither of them put it into practice. Allah says:
“…if a servant (of Mine) intends to do a sin, but then does not do it due to the fear of Allah, then write one good deed in his or her book of deeds in lieu of that sin.”
The Quran says: wa hamma bih (and he also desired…) lawl ‘an ra’ burhna rabbihi (…had it not been for him seeing the burhan of his Lord). What does burhan mean? It translates to “miraculous evidence.” The scholars–both Sunni and Shia–are agreed that this is not the same as “daleel” (evidence) but rather this is a miracle from Allah. The burhan that Prophet Yusuf saw at that moment was some miraculous vision. Some say that this burhan was Arch-Angel Jibraeel while others say that it was a vision of Prophet Yaqoob. Ibn Katheer says:
“As for the evidence as to (exactly) what Yusuf saw at that moment, there are conflicting opinions to what it was. Ibn Jarir At-Tabari said: The correct opinion is that we should say that he saw an Ayah from among Allah’s Ayat that repelled the thought that crossed his mind. This evidence might have been the image of Yaqoob (Jacob), or the image of an angel (i.e. Gabriel), or a divine statement that forbade him from doing that evil sin, etc. There are no clear proofs to support any of these statements in specific, so it should be left vague, as Allah left it.
(Tafseer Ibn Katheer)