The Shaykh speaks about the ruling on returning the greeting to a Muslim.

The Shaykh : Peace be upon you, and Allah’s mercy and blessings.

Those present : All together: And upon you be peace, and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.


The Shaykh : For some reason, I greeted you with the full greeting, saying: "Peace be upon you, and the mercy of Allah and His blessings," but I did not hear a response from you other than the same. I had hoped to hear a better response from you, except... from here I heard "and His forgiveness." A discussion took place today between me and some of the students; he asked me... and this conversation arose on the occasion that he greeted...
I felt that he had read to some of them a critique of the hadith I mentioned in some volumes of "Silsilat al-Ahadith al-Sahihah," which states that when the Companions greeted the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), he would add: . Some of them criticized this hadith and held that it is weak. I did not want to get into this point with him... that is: whether the hadith is authentic or not. So I said to him: What do you have to do with the hadith now? The Qur'an is sufficient for you. Our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) says—as you all know: . I said to this questioner:The questioner : Is it permissible for the one who initiates the greeting to say, "As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh" (Peace be upon you, and Allah's mercy and blessings)? He answered affirmatively. I said: What is the best response mentioned in the previous verse? I was surprised by his hesitation and delay, because the verse is very explicit: . So the response is to say the same greeting that I said... As for the best, it is to add to it, even if it is just the word . I said to him: Why this hesitation? This is a text from the Noble Qur'an in which no two people differ, and it is explicit that there are two responses for the one who initiates the greeting: the first response is to reply in kind, and the other response is to reply with something better. So if I say, "As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh," and you repeat this greeting to me, you have replied in kind. But if you want to elevate the response and reply with the better as mentioned in the previous verse, do you add to what I said? After some reluctance and discussion, he said that it seems the matter is like this. So I do not know why we hesitate even in applying an explicit Qur'anic text that does not accept figurative interpretation? And if a hadith comes that matches the text of the Qur'an, if this hadith did not exist at all, we would not lose the legal ruling that the Qur'an explicitly stated. So why do we stop at this hadith and ask: Is it authentic or weak? If the intention is purely scientific hadith research, there is no harm. But if the intention is not to act on the jurisprudence contained in this hadith, the content of this hadith is contained in the same noble verse. Therefore, I say to you: You should spread knowledge, not just what is a point of disagreement between the people of the Sunnah and the people of innovation, and we are biased toward the Sunnah against the people of innovation, and we do not speak except about these issues, while there is a very wide field of jurisprudence derived from the Book, in addition to the jurisprudence derived from the Sunnah. This jurisprudence is explicit and came from the Salaf. "The limit of the greeting is peace and its blessings." This is a correct statement, but some of them misunderstood these reports and thought that it is not permissible to add even in the response. The limit of the greeting in the initiation is "As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh," so it is not permissible to add here, because the addition did not come in the Book or the Sunnah. But if the one who initiated came with the complete greeting, then we must add to it in order to implement the previous Qur'anic text and the hadith that agrees with it. This is a reminder, and the reminder benefits the believers.
And now we will hear your questions, and I earnestly hope that they are not repeated questions; because a repeated thing becomes boring, disliked, and unwanted. For example, honey—a person keeps eating honey and gets tired of it... So we hope that the questions contain some need and novelty, and are not repeated. And now we begin first with the rightmost, then the rightmost, because it is a Prophetic Sunnah, then the closest, then the closest, because people say: "Allah (Mighty and Majestic) said: The closest are more entitled to kindness." Some people ask: Why did he say...The Shaykh : Because people say: "The closest are more entitled to kindness," and did not say: "Allah (Mighty and Majestic) said: The closest are more entitled to kindness?" Because this is one of the common illusions. This text does not exist in the Qur'an. Some people imagine that one of the verses of the Qur'an is "The closest are more entitled to kindness"!! This is not Qur'an, but it is a meaning acceptable in the Shari'ah. So we begin with the closest, then the closest, as we mentioned, starting with the rightmost, then the rightmost, because the Sunnah—as the Lady Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) says: "The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) loved to favor the right side," and in another wording: "Favoring the right side in everything; in putting on his clothes, in purifying himself, in putting on his shoes, and in all his affairs," and among the affairs is what we are in at this hour.
Do you have anything with you now?

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh: Go ahead.