What is meant by the multitude of questions in the hadith: “Indeed, what destroyed those before you was the multitude of their questions”?
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Question:
May Allah reward you, Your Eminence, the father. The questioner says: In the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in the hadithSunan Ibn Majah 3029Sahih (Darussalam), he asks: What is meant by the multitude of questions?
Answer:
Questions that are not needed. Unnecessary questions that are not needed. Like the questions of the Children of Israel to Moses when he commanded them to slaughter the cow. They asked: What is it? What is its color? What is it? If they had slaughtered any cow, any cow would have sufficed and the requirement would have been met. But they made it difficult, so Allah made it difficult for them. So the questions that are not needed are what the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) forbade, and he informed that it was the multitude of their questions and their disagreement with their prophets that destroyed those before them. Yes.
May Allah reward you, Your Eminence, the father. The questioner says: In the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in the hadith
It was narrated that Ibn ‘Abbas said: “On the morning of ‘Aqabah, when he was atop his she-camel, the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: ‘Pick up some pebbles for me.’ So I picked up seven pebbles for him, suitable for Khadhf.* He began to toss them in his hand, saying: ‘Throw something like these.’ Then he said: ‘O people, beware of exaggeration in religious matters for those who came before you were doomed because of exaggeration in religious matters.’”
فإنما أهلك من كان قبلكم كثرة مسائلهمAnswer:
Questions that are not needed. Unnecessary questions that are not needed. Like the questions of the Children of Israel to Moses when he commanded them to slaughter the cow. They asked: What is it? What is its color? What is it? If they had slaughtered any cow, any cow would have sufficed and the requirement would have been met. But they made it difficult, so Allah made it difficult for them. So the questions that are not needed are what the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) forbade, and he informed that it was the multitude of their questions and their disagreement with their prophets that destroyed those before them. Yes.
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، [2425- 4717] ما المراد بكثرة المسائل في حديث: «فإنما أهلك من كان قبلكم كثرة مسائلهم»؟ - صالح الفوزان — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.