What is the validity of the common people's claim that sheep hear the punishment of the grave?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : Yes. Some of the titles say that if a goat is startled, you hear it bleating as if it has heard the people of the graves being punished. A girl was struck on the head, so what does it say?
The Shaykh : Did you hear what he said? Some people say that if a goat, specifically, bleats like this at its head, it has heard a dead person being punished in his grave. This is not correct, because it does not hear anything except from the one next to it, as came in the hadith: Yes, indeed.
The questioner : Is this considered major shirk (associating partners with Allah) because it is presented to you in a frightening way, or is it?
The Shaykh : No, no, this is from opinion.
The Shaykh : Did you hear what he said? Some people say that if a goat, specifically, bleats like this at its head, it has heard a dead person being punished in his grave. This is not correct, because it does not hear anything except from the one next to it, as came in the hadith:
In al-Bukhari, it hears from the one next to it.
في البخاري يسمعه من يليه،The questioner : Is this considered major shirk (associating partners with Allah) because it is presented to you in a frightening way, or is it?
The Shaykh : No, no, this is from opinion.
Source
قناة «فضيلة الشيخ محمد بن صالح العثيمين»، 1262 - 4600 ما صحة قول العوام أن الغنم يسمعون عذاب القبر؟ ابن عثيمين — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.