about the meaning of the hadith: (The Fire will not touch him except for the release of the oath).

The questioner : You mentioned in the answer the hadith: .

The Shaykh : A questioner here asks about the meaning of his saying (peace be upon him) in the previous hadith: . This hadith refers to His saying (Blessed and Exalted is He) in the noble verse: , except those who enter it by an oath from Allah . The scholars have differed, both in the past and the present, on the meaning of the "entering" intended in this hadith, with three opinions:
- Entering at the edge of the Fire, just as one says, "I led the camels to the pool."
- The second meaning: passing over the Sirat above the Fire.
- The third meaning, which does not contradict the second: entering the Fire; because passing over the Sirat is an entering into the Fire.
So His saying (Exalted is He): , means: entering it. There is no difference between a believer and a disbeliever; all of them, both humans and jinn, must undergo this entering. But after this divine oath of entering is realized, then immediately afterward the righteous are distinguished from the wicked. The righteous, who are fit for entering Paradise, and the wicked, who are fit for entering the Fire. I will explain this with a hadith I will mention because of its clarification and detail, but I must associate with it the fact that this hadith is not authentic in terms of its chain of narration; because of its fame, we should mention it to point out its weakness, but its meaning is acceptable within the limits of what has come from the evidence. That hadith is narrated by some of the Tabi'un from the unknown, which is the defect, from Jabir ibn 'Abd Allah al-Ansari that he met him on his way. He said: "We were in a gathering where this verse was mentioned, or I mentioned it: . We differed (and mentioned the three opinions). What Jabir did, as the narration states despite its weakness, was that he put his two fingers in his ears and said: 'May they be deaf, may they be deaf, if I had not heard the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) say: .' So this entering mentioned in this verse and explained also in a hadith that Imam Muslim extracted in his Sahih from the hadith of Hafsa bint 'Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with them both), she said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: . She said: 'How is this, O Messenger of Allah, when Allah (Mighty and Majestic) says: ?' Here is an important note in that it helps the student of knowledge to understand the sacred texts. We find here that Lady Hafsa (may Allah be pleased with her) seems to want to say: What you are saying, O Messenger of Allah, is contrary to what I understand from the verse; so how do you reconcile this verse, according to my understanding, i.e., Hafsa's, with what you are saying, O Messenger of Allah? He said to her with complete calm and gentleness, as was his (peace be upon him) custom and habit: 'Read what comes after it: .' What is the benefit? The benefit is that when the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) hears a statement and does not deny it, that is evidence of its correctness in his view, but it is possible that a specification or restriction is introduced into it, which occurs to the speaker's mind, that word which the Messenger (peace be upon him) approved of, but he introduces a restriction or specification into it.
This is a very important benefit that some scholars may overlook, and there is no harm in me giving you an example. Imam Abu Muhammad ibn Hazm, the author of the book al-Muhalla, the great book, and the book al-Ihkam fi Usul al-Ahkam, and other books, fell into not paying attention to this precise legal point. He authored a treatise on the permissibility of entertainments in general, from musical instruments and songs and the like. Among what he used as evidence for his position in that treatise was the authentic hadith that al-Bukhari and Muslim extracted in their Sahihs from the hadith of 'Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her), she said: 'The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) came to me on a day of 'Id, and I had two slave girls singing with the singing of Ba'ath and beating the duff for me. When Abu Bakr came in, he said: 'Is the flute of Satan in the house of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him)?' This is, of course, a rhetorical question of disapproval. .'
The point is that Imam ibn Hazm used this hadith as evidence for the permissibility of beating the duff and singing with it; because the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) approved of the two slave girls doing that. But he missed what I wanted to point out: that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) approved of Abu Bakr al-Siddiq on his previously mentioned statement: 'Is the flute of Satan in the house of the Messenger of Allah?!' Abu Bakr called the beating of the duff and singing with it what? The flute of Satan. The Messenger (peace be upon him) did not deny that to him, but approved of him just as he approved of Hafsa on her statement about the verse. And just as the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) introduced a condition into Hafsa's reasoning that she was unaware of, so completely did the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) do with his companion in the cave, Abu Bakr al-Siddiq (also); he drew his attention, as if he were saying to him: The matter is as you say, O Abu Bakr, but here is an exception that was missed: . So if we combine the Messenger's (peace and blessings be upon him) approval of Abu Bakr on his statement: with his saying: , we arrive at the result that the flutes of Satan are not permissible, and the attribution to Satan is sufficient for the prohibition of them. But this ruling has an exception for beating the duff on the day of 'Id, and by whom? By the two slave girls. So we combined the Messenger's approval of Abu Bakr with his saying to him, and we arrived at a result completely opposite to the result that Abu Muhammad ibn Hazm (may Allah have mercy on him) reached; where he took the saying of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) and did not notice the Messenger's approval of Abu Bakr's statement: 'Is the flute of Satan in the house of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him)?!'
Do you have anything?

Another questioner : How does the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) approve of the flute of Satan in his house?

The Shaykh : I have not answered you on this, may Allah reward you. We say: The original ruling for musical instruments is that they are from the flutes of Satan, but the Wise Lawgiver excepted them from being a flute of Satan at this specific time. So the original ruling is that it is a flute of Satan on other than the day of 'Id, but on the day of 'Id; it is not a flute of Satan, so there is no contradiction here, and praise be to Allah.
This is also, perhaps it is useful to mention also with another example, and it is very important in terms of the intellectual life that the majority of the Muslim world lives today, who believe that the dead hear. The dead hear, and they argue for that with many arguments, and we are not now in this context, except in relation to drawing attention to the fact that when the Messenger (peace be upon him) approves of something, it is truth... benefiting from that. Here I mention the Battle of Badr, and when Allah (Mighty and Majestic) destroyed the chiefs of Quraysh, and they were thrown into the well of Badr, then the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) came after the war had laid down its burdens, so he stood over the well and called out to those dead disbelievers by their names, O so-and-so ibn so-and-so: . 'Umar said, here is the point, he said: 'O Messenger of Allah, you are calling out to bodies that have no spirits in them.' What do we understand from 'Umar's statement here? We understand roughly what we understood from Abu Bakr's word there, and from Hafsa's word there. We understand that 'Umar ibn al-Khattab holds that the dead do not hear, and therefore he is surprised and astonished at the Messenger's (peace be upon him) calling out to these dead people, saying: O so-and-so ibn so-and-so, O so-and-so ibn so-and-so, and so on by their names: . This calling out contradicts, as I understand it, and it is truth if Allah wills, what 'Umar ibn al-Khattab received as teaching from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) that the dead do not hear. The noble Qur'an is sufficient for that: , and also His saying (Mighty and Majestic): .
Of course, the two verses contain discussion from the perspective of exegesis, but the summary of the matter is that they never contradict this legal reality, which is that the dead do not hear. This is the reality that 'Umar ibn al-Khattab had previously received and learned from his Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him); therefore, he had a difficulty: how did he teach us this knowledge and then call out to them? What was the position of the Messenger (peace be upon him) toward him? His position toward him was the same as his position toward Abu Bakr and Hafsa: he approved them all in what they said, but he introduced a condition they did not know, because they are not revealed to as he is revealed to. So the Messenger (peace be upon him) approved 'Umar ibn al-Khattab in this statement of his, and the meaning of this is as if he is saying to him: You are right, the dead do not hear, but these people hear me. And so he answered him in clear Arabic: , meaning: these people hear me. So you, O 'Umar, what you received from me is truth and correctness, but know that here is a miracle and a special karamah for his Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family); where He makes them hear his voice, and their nature is that they do not hear. Why? Because they are dead. And this meaning is confirmed by the fact that Imam Ahmad (may Allah have mercy on him) narrated this story with his authentic chain in "Al-Musnad" that 'Umar said: "And the dead do not hear." Also, the answer came as you heard; he did not say to him: You are wrong, the dead hear. If he had been wrong, but he approved him in this explicit expression, but he introduced a condition into it, which is that the dead do not hear; except these people. And so it came in "Sahih al-Bukhari" in this story through the route of Qatadah from Anas ibn Malik; this story that we narrated, except for the narration of Imam Ahmad, is narrated in "The Two Sahihs," and through the route of Qatadah, Qatadah said: "Allah revived them for him, so He made them hear his voice as a rebuke and humiliation and harm to them."
So this attention to the approval of the Messenger (peace be upon him) of the Companion's statement, this means that the Companion's statement is truth, but one looks to see if the Messenger added to it anything of specification and restriction to be added to it? So we come out with a result that is one hundred percent correct: the dead do not hear except these people who heard, and musical instruments are not permissible, especially the hand drum except on the day of the festival, and all people must enter the Fire - as Hafsa understood from the verse - but they differ, from a righteous person who passes through "transit" - as they say today - to Paradise, while the disbelievers will remain in it for ages. Yes.

Another questioner: Musical instruments are permissible on the day of the festival; is it permissible to teach them?

The Shaykh: To teach them? Do you mean making it a profession?

Another questioner: Either making it a profession or opening schools for it.

The Shaykh: Because it is not ... - May Allah reward you - the one who wants to teach has made that a profession, like a teacher who teaches people any knowledge; so the answer is: No, and the matter is simpler - and I do not want to say lower - than it needs to be learned; because it is a matter of innate disposition, people dance and beat the drum and so on without needing to be taught, so the matter is simpler than that.
From the exceptions mentioned in the authentic Sunnah from the flutes of Satan is beating the hand drum at the wedding; because the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: , and they did so in the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him).
And I have explained this matter with some detail in my booklet "The Etiquettes of the Wedding in the Pure Sunnah"; so whoever wants to expand on that should refer to it - if Allah wills -.