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﴿ فَاسْأَلُوا أَهْلَ الذِّكْرِ إِن كُنتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ ﴾

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The hadith of the well of Badr and that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) called them by their names; does it indicate that the dead do not hear?

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The Shaykh : The hadith of Badr, the well of Badr, and that the Messenger (peace be upon him) came to the well in which the slain from the chiefs of Quraysh had been thrown, and he called them by their names:
O so-and-so, son of so-and-so, I have found what my Lord promised me to be true; have you found what your Lord promised you to be true? O so-and-so, son of so-and-so يا فلان ابن فلان ، إني وجدْتُ ما وعدني ربي حقًّا ؛ فهل وجدتم ما وعدكم ربُّكم حقًّا ؟ يا فلان ابن فلان
, sixteen people he called by their names. 'Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) said: O Messenger of Allah, you are calling bodies that have no souls in them!
And I hope that the questioner, specifically, or the female questioner, specifically, and the listeners, generally, pay attention to the statement of 'Umar; because this is the crux of the matter if we want to understand this story correctly.
'Umar says: O Messenger of Allah, you are calling bodies that have no souls in them. What is the meaning of 'Umar’s words? It seems he wanted to say it but did not dare to say it except in gentle and very gentle terms; he says: O Messenger of Allah, we have learned from you that the dead do not hear. You are the one upon whom it was revealed and you conveyed what was revealed to you:
but you cannot make hear those in the graves. وَمَا أَنْتَ بِمُسْمِعٍ مَنْ فِي الْقُبُورِ
[Fatir 35:22]
,
Indeed, you will not make the dead hear إِنَّكَ لا تُسْمِعُ الْمَوْتَى
[An-Naml 27:80]
, so what is it, O Messenger of Allah, that you are doing now at this moment, calling bodies that have no souls in them?
Did the Messenger of Allah say to 'Umar: You are mistaken, I did not tell you this, or I did not actually convey this to you? No, he affirmed him in that, he affirmed his statement: You are calling bodies that have no souls in them. But he answered him and made him understand something that 'Umar would not have understood had it not been for the clarification of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him and his family); he said to him:
You do not hear what I say any better than they do, but they cannot answer. ما أنتم بأسمَعَ لِمَا أقول منهم ، ولكنهم لا يستطيعون أن يجيبوا
Sunan an-Nasa'i 2075Sahih (Darussalam)
; as if he is saying (peace and blessings be upon him): What you said, O 'Umar, is true and correct, and indeed I conveyed to you that the dead do not hear. But Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) gave life to these people so that they heard the call and understood the rebuke and the denial. If they had been able to answer, they would have said: Yes, we found what you promised us to be true, but it is too late for repentance,
but it was not a time for escape. وَلاتَ حِينَ مَنَاصٍ
[Sad 38:3]
,
but they cannot answer. ولكنهم - يقول الرسول - ولكنهم لا يستطيعون أن يجيبوا
Sunan an-Nasa'i 2075Sahih (Darussalam)
.
Therefore, the story of the well of Badr confirms what was previously mentioned, which is that the dead do not hear. But at the same time, this story gives us a great warning; which is that it is not permissible for a Muslim to be rigid about the customary matters, the habits, and the laws that we can call the cosmic laws; meaning: if it is the law of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) that the dead do not hear, then his mind should not be too narrow to believe that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) is able to make the dead hear, even though their nature is that they do not hear. This is the benefit and the point of the story of the well of Badr; meaning: that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) is able to make the dead hear who usually do not hear, just as Allah (Mighty and Majestic) is able to enable the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) to ascend to the highest heavens, where no person in this world can ascend in this manner because it is contrary to the law of the universe. Allah (Mighty and Majestic) created man and gave him limited capacities; so he sees and hears and walks and lifts, but with limited proportions. He looks, for example, a distance of one kilometer, he cannot look to a hundred kilometers, let alone more than that. He lifts fifty kilograms, a hundred kilograms, two hundred kilograms; after what? Many exercises; but he cannot lift a thousand kilograms, for example; because these are the limits of human energy that Allah has created humans with. But Allah (Mighty and Majestic), by His power, can enable a person to lift a thousand kilograms with one hand; because Allah is able to do all things. And thus came the rule of miracles: the miracles of the prophets and the miracles of the awliya (close friends of Allah) are from the category of breaking the custom, whereas the laws do not support that. Likewise, the group of the well of Badr from among the disbelievers, considering them as dead who do not hear, but Allah made them hear; therefore, one of the narrators of this hadith, Qatadah, said it explicitly, where he said: Allah gave them life for him (peace be upon him); meaning: they did not hear while they were dead, but rather Allah (Mighty and Majestic) gave them life so they heard his words (peace be upon him) and his calling to them.
So the story of the well of Badr confirms that the dead do not hear, as our Lord (Blessed and Exalted is He) said. And here is an observation, and from the precise jurisprudence: when 'Umar said: O Messenger of Allah, you are calling bodies that have no souls in them, and the Messenger remained silent on that; his silence means affirmation. But from another angle, he made 'Umar understand that here is a matter that breaks the custom, which is that these people heard just as you are hearing them, but you are alive and hear by your nature, whereas these are dead and do not hear by their nature, but Allah gave them life so they heard, so 'Umar submitted.
This story is exactly similar in that the Messenger affirmed the Companion in what he said of denial, but taught him what he did not know; like this is the story of Abu Bakr al-Siddiq when he entered on the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) one day, and he was lying down covered as if he were sleeping, and with him were two maids from the Ansar singing and beating a drum for him. When Abu Bakr al-Siddiq entered, he said: Is the flute of Satan in the house of the Messenger of Allah? He denied the singing coming from the two maids in the house of the Messenger, and the Messenger was silent. Then he (peace and blessings be upon him) raised his head and said:
Abu Bakr, every people has a festival, and this is ours. دَعْهما يا أبا بكر ؛ فإن لكل قومٍ عيدًا ، وهذا عيدنا
Mishkat al-Masabih 1432
. This is exactly on the same scale as the statement of 'Umar and the response of the Messenger to him. Just as the Messenger did not deny 'Umar’s statement: You are calling bodies that have no souls in them, so he did not deny Abu Bakr al-Siddiq’s statement: The flute of Satan in the house of the Messenger of Allah. But he taught him what he did not know; as if he said to him (peace and blessings be upon him), as if he said to Abu Bakr: What you are saying is true, this is the flute of Satan, singing is the flute of Satan, but here there is an exception, here there is an exception on the occasion of the festival; therefore he said:
every people have a festival and it is our festival دَعْهما فإنَّ لكلِّ قومٍ عيدًا ، وهذا عيدنا
Sahih Muslim 892a
. If we want to take jurisprudence from the combination of 'Umar’s denial and the teaching of the Messenger to him, the result is: the dead do not hear unless Allah gives them life as a miracle for the Prophet, then they hear. And if we want to take jurisprudence from the denial of Abu Bakr al-Siddiq and the affirmation of the Messenger of this denial, along with teaching him what he did not know before, we come out with the following result: singing with the drum is the flute of Satan except on the day of the festival. This exception is what Abu Bakr al-Siddiq did not know before, so the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) taught him. So the well of Badr does not contradict the fact that the dead do not hear.
Source www.al-albany.com

The Arabic text is copied verbatim from the original source, without any edits.

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