Discussion on reconciling the two narrations of “Who is your Lord?” and “Do you testify?”

The Shaykh : As for when a hadith contains an addition to another hadith, this is not called a contradiction; rather, the rule of the acceptable addition by a trustworthy narrator is applied, or it is rejected.

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : Ah, so now you just mentioned two narrations that you opposed to the authentic narration of Muslim, which is: , . I am asking you now: which of the two narrations is the authentic one? Did the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) say to her: , or did he say to her: ? Now, in your opinion, is there a contradiction between the two narrations?

The questioner : Between and .

The Shaykh: Yes.

The questioner : No, there is no contradiction.

The Shaykh : Hmm.

The questioner : There is no contradiction.

The Shaykh: Why?

The questioner : It is possible to reconcile them or to prefer one of them.

The Shaykh : No, when you say “preference,” it means there is a contradiction. May Allah guide you. When you say there is a preference, it means there is a contradiction. So now, what is your answer, or what is the answer of your Shaykh whose guidance you are influenced by in this matter? His answer and our answer is: there is no contradiction. We say there is no contradiction between the two narrations. And the narration of Muslim, which is more authentic than these narrations, is sufficient for you, O people of the second section of the Muslim community. It is sufficient for you to know that these two hadiths, and , did not come in the two famous “Sahih” collections. It is sufficient for you to know that in terms of authenticity, these are the weaker position, and the stronger position is the narration of Imam Muslim. This is sufficient for you.

The questioner : We added, I would like.

The Shaykh: Yes.

The questioner : I wish you would add to us something other than these aspects so that we may benefit.

The Shaykh : Yes—may Allah bless you—I am in this regard, and they say: “Do not recommend, be careful.” Now we have three narrations: the narration of Muslim.

The questioner : Where is Allah?

The Shaykh : And the narration of Ibn Hibban, yes, that is right.

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : And the narration of other scholars, perhaps Ahmad and al-Bayhaqi, and so on. These three narrations, may Allah bless you, have absolutely no contradiction. It is possible that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) asked her, “Who is your Lord?” We are now, without likening Allah to creation, at the very beginning of guiding the Muslim to the correct creed. We tell him: This is the Allah you worship. This is the Allah you worship. Where is He? So I asked two questions at the same time, because the person in front of me, I know him; he is a Muslim who prays and fasts, like me. But I know that the majority of people are lost regarding the creed of the pious predecessors and regarding the answer of the slave girl whom the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) testified to as having faith. Listen to the answer, as we said earlier: Allah is present in every place. Allah is present in all of existence. Fear Allah. We humans, sometimes, try to purify ourselves because we are not purified like the angels. If it were possible, we would not enter some places, such as the bathrooms. So when you say “your Lord whom you worship in every place,” you mean in the bathrooms, in the caves, in the sewers, in the bars, and so on. Far be it from Allah.

The questioner : Unless he said it with His knowledge.

The Shaykh : Yes, with His knowledge. This is not the point of disagreement. The point is: I say, “This is the Allah you worship. Where is He?” So it is possible to reconcile that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) asked her: . She said: . Now, , do you see that there is no contradiction between the two narrations? Because the polytheists, Allah the Exalted said: . So they believe that these created things have a Creator, but they .
. So this slave girl, after he asked her “Who is your Lord?”, said “Allah.” “Do you testify that there is no god but Allah?” Because it is not sufficient for a person to believe that Allah is the Creator of this universe. And I say this is one of the calamities of the present age: the Trinity claimed by your companion, which denied the oneness of worship and the oneness of the attributes, and believed only in the oneness of lordship, and interpreted the verses with an interpretation other than that of the scholars. The disbelievers, when they give an answer to the question , are as if they are lying, saying something contrary to their creed. Look, for what purpose are all these interpretations? They are all for reaching a goal he has set before him. He wants to remove all the stumbling blocks from before him, in his claim. And it is established in “Sahih Muslim,” perhaps you know, that in the pre-Islamic age and in the early days of the Prophetic mission, women would circumambulate the Ka'bah naked, let alone men. And they would say, “Today some of it or all of it is revealed, and what is not revealed, I do not make lawful.” And in their talbiyah, and here is the point, they would say, “Here I am, O Allah, here I am. Here I am, You have no partner except a partner whom You own and whom You control.” This is the explicit hadith that explains the verses perfectly: that they truly believed that these partners, all of them, are Allah, as evidenced by “whom You own and whom You control,” and so on. So the point is.

The questioner : Give us all the information.

The Shaykh: Yes.

The questioner : By Allah, we would like to benefit, we mean every branch.

The Shaykh : May Allah bless you, may Allah reward you with good. So the point is: there is absolutely no contradiction between the three narrations. The question is authentic, the question is authentic, and is also authentic. There is no conflict. So resorting to the process of preference is when the path of reconciliation is narrow. And it is established in the book “Sharh al-Nukhba” by al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, who said: “If two acceptable hadiths contradict each other, reconcile them first of all by one of the means of reconciliation.” These means are so numerous that al-Hafiz al-Iraqi brought them to more than one hundred aspects. One hundred aspects. If it is not possible by this second, third, fourth, fifth, tenth, twentieth, ninety-ninth, or hundredth aspect, and reconciliation is still not possible, there is no power and no strength except in Allah.

The questioner : Where should I look?

The Shaykh : Yes, how?
The student : Restriction and clarification.

The questioner : Restriction and clarification.

The Shaykh : Yes, that is the intended meaning. He said the first stage is reconciliation by one of the means of reconciliation, because his book is very concise. So al-Hafiz al-Iraqi brought them to more than one hundred aspects, as we mentioned. He said: “If it is not possible, we descend to preference.” Preference, for example, is to oppose a good hadith with an authentic one, and to prefer the authentic over the good. Or to oppose an authentic hadith with a famous or widespread authentic hadith. Or to oppose this with a mass-transmitted report. This is the way of preference. He said: “If preference is not possible, consider the abrogating and the abrogated.” This is a rank. He said: “If this is not possible, leave the matter to its scholar and say, ‘Allah knows best.’” This is how the scholars work with hadiths that appear to them to have a contradiction. It is not that this is an anomalous hadith, even if Muslim narrated it, and so-and-so and so-and-so graded it as authentic. Where is the contradiction? Contradiction is mutual opposition, and this does not exist at all between these narrations, especially in the narration I found, glory be to Allah, even if.