The authenticity of the hadith stating that the deceased hears the sound of sandals

The questioner : Regarding the matter of the dead, they do not hear... in it that the deceased hears the sound of sandals; so what is the authenticity of this hadith?

The Shaykh : First, this hadith is authentic; because it is recorded in "Sahih al-Bukhari": , this hadith is authentic, but this is like that, meaning: this is an exception to the general rule; because it says: , so he does not hear at all times, the same hadith gives you the specification, and does not give you the generality, , when, what does "when" mean? It means time, when they turn away from him, but does the hadith mean that the dead, whenever someone passes by the opposite side, they are wailing and hearing the sound of sandals?!

The questioner : Should it not be interpreted as a rhetorical expression, for example...?

The Shaykh : What is it that is interpreted, my brother? Define your statement.

The questioner : People hear the sound of their sandals, - for example - : in an advertisement for an apartment... an apartment that sees the sea, it does not see the sea, but it is in a location that allows those inside it to see the sea, so here the meaning is interpreted as the sound reaching them; if a living person were in their place, he would hear the sound of the sandals.

The Shaykh : As for the sound of sandals, do they not hear?

The questioner : Yes?

The Shaykh : I mean, in the end, does it mean: that they do not hear the sound of sandals?

The questioner : I mean, I think, and Allah knows best.

The Shaykh : I am asking you so that I understand from you; do you mean that they do not hear the sound of sandals?

The questioner : The meaning may be interpreted as such.

The Shaykh : And it may not be interpreted, what do you derive from the clattering?
Then I remindThe questioner : and the other attendees of a very important linguistic rule: "If the matter revolves around estimation and its absence; then the original is the absence of estimation," in other words: if we can interpret the phrase or the Arabic sentence from the speech of Allah or from the hadith of the Messenger of Allah - (peace and blessings be upon him) - or any Arabic sentence; if we can interpret it literally; then it is not permissible to interpret it figuratively, unless there is a legal or rational indication; then it is said that the indication was found that compels us to interpret the verse or the hadith or the Arabic sentence figuratively, and not literally, but if the matter revolves without the presence of an indication between interpreting the sentence literally or figuratively; then the original is the literal, and not the figurative, otherwise the language would be corrupted, and its usage among people would be corrupted, if someone says: "The prince came"; is it permissible for the listener to understand "The prince's servant came"? - and this is a known Arabic expression with an estimated omitted addition - , it is not permissible; because there is nothing that compels the listener to interpret the speaker's statement: "The prince came" meaning it was not the prince, but his servant came or his deputy came !! or or to the end, if this door were opened, communication between people in the Arabic language would be corrupted, and from here was the response of the scholars and jurists to the extremists of the Sufis who say on one side what is known among scholars as the unity of existence, and who speak in explicit expressions of disbelief and the unity of existence, so the defenders of those Sufis come with falsehood and interpret their speech in a way that ultimately agrees with the Shari'ah, so we say to these people in this way: it is not possible to say that this speech is disbelief !! until I once said to some of them: bring me any sentence that contains disbelief in the apparent expression and I will, in your way, make it pure tawhid, what is their way? Interpreting the texts, for example, from what one of their speakers, deeply immersed in misguidance, said:
"And the dog and the pig are nothing but our God *** And Allah is nothing but a monk in a church"
They strain in interpreting: "And the dog is nothing but our God" meaning: nothing but up to here, to the preposition, here !! What is this interpretation? And therefore such an interpretation can be applied to any expression, for example, I say if someone said: "The priest created the heavens and the earth"; what is your opinion of this speech; is it permissible or not permissible? Of course, by consensus, it is not permissible, but I make it tawhid in the way of the Sufis, and it is the Lord of the priest, this is known in the language, its estimation is omitted, on the level of His saying - the Exalted - : , ask the village, what? Its walls? Its trees? No, rather its people, likewise the caravan, but this omitted addition, the Arabic style itself suggests it to the listener, so no one wonders, is the intended meaning here really the village? No, and therefore the naming of this expression in the Arabic language is that this is a metaphor, which Ibn Taymiyyah - (may Allah have mercy on him) - rejects in his specific treatise on the literal and the figurative, he says: naming this expression specifically as a metaphor from the chapter of omitting the addition? This is a later convention, and the Arabs did not understand from this expression but one meaning, which they call the figurative, by omitting the addition, likewise - for example - in the Arabic style: "The gutter flowed" in the way of the later scholars in dividing speech into literal and figurative, the literal of this expression: "The gutter flowed" means: the gutter, due to the intensity of the heat, melted, and became liquid, the gutter flowed, but who among the Arabs, if he heard this expression, would the meaning they call literal come to his mind? They say: No, here the intended meaning is the figurative, this meaning they call figurative in this example is the true intended meaning, "The gutter flowed" means: the water of the gutter flowed, like: completely.
And so many examples are mentioned by Ibn Taymiyyah, among them - for example - : "The river flowed", the river is the trench in which the water flows, so when the Arab says the river flowed, he does not mean the trench itself flowed without water, nor does the listener from him - from the Arabs - understand but what he intended; namely: the water of the river flowed, so naming these expressions as metaphor, Ibn Taymiyyah says this is wrong! The metaphor is what is coupled with the apparent meaning of the expression to the other meaning due to the presence of an indication, but here there is no other meaning but one specific meaning, which is: meaning its people, "The gutter flowed" meaning: its water, "The river flowed" meaning: its water, from here Ibn Taymiyyah begins to respond to the later scholars who interpret the verses of attributes and the hadiths of attributes by resorting to the path of interpretation, which is the path of metaphor, but what compels them to leave understanding the meanings from these verses and those hadiths, all of which are related to the attributes, to be interpreted literally, especially when they all say - the earlier and the later - : the original in every expression is that it be interpreted literally?! For example, His saying - Blessed and Exalted is He - : , No, "Your Lord came" this understanding is not permissible !! So "The mercy of your Lord came", which omitted addition do they estimate, and so on, we say: the truth is as the truth spoke in His Book: , but how does He come? We do not know, and this research was addressed by the scholars in the past and the present, and we recently addressed something similar - also - .
The conclusion: that the Arabic speech, first of all, should be interpreted literally, so his saying - (peace and blessings be upon him) - : literally, he hears the sound of sandals, rather I say the opposite of what you said, it is not possible to imagine that he hears everything; because He is All-Hearing of everything, this is impossible! But since the original is that the dead do not hear - as we explained to you earlier - ; if a text gives a dead person or dead people some hearing, we exclude it from the rule, we say: those polytheists in the pit heard the saying of the Messenger - (peace and blessings be upon him) -, but what was around it of the hadiths of the Companions and when 'Umar said: "O Messenger of Allah, you are calling bodies in which there are no souls"; we do not say that they heard the saying of 'Umar; because their hearing of the saying of the Messenger is a miracle for the Messenger, so it is stopped there, likewise in this hadith: only, and we do not add to that for two reasons:
First: that it is contrary to the original, that the dead do not hear.
Second, and finally: matters of the unseen—and this is part of the unseen in the barzakh (the interval between death and resurrection)—must never be expanded upon.
The truth is to stop at the text and not add to it.