Lesson on "Encouragement and Warning," Explanation of the Hadith of Anas (may Allah be pleased with him), Number (16)

The Shaykh : ... As for what follows:
Indeed, the best of speech is the speech of Allah, and the best of guidance is the guidance of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him and his family), and the worst of matters are their innovations, and every innovation is a religious innovation, and every religious innovation is misguidance, and every misguidance is in the Fire. And after that:
Our last lesson from the book "Encouragement and Warning" by al-Hafiz al-Mundhiri (may Allah have mercy on him) reached the sixteenth hadith in my copy. He said (may Allah have mercy on him): And from Anas (may Allah be pleased with him), who said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) delivered a sermon, and I have never heard the like of it. He said: . The Companions of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) covered their faces, and there was a sound of weeping from them. It was narrated by al-Bukhari and Muslim.
In another narration: Something reached the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) regarding his Companions, so he delivered a sermon and said: . No day was harder for the Companions of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) than that day; they covered their heads, and there was a sound of weeping from them.
He said: Al-khanin, with the khah opened and followed by a noon, is weeping with a nasal tone due to the spreading of the voice from the nose. This is how the author (may Allah have mercy on him) explained the term al-khanin. In the books of language and hadith commentaries, there is somewhat more detail. They stated that al-khanin and al-hanin mean the same thing; this is one opinion. The other opinion—and it is perhaps clearer and more evident—is that al-khanin is what you heard defined by the author: it is the sound that comes out during weeping, containing some nasal tone because it comes from the nose. As for al-hanin, it comes from the chest. This is the difference between al-khanin with the khah and al-hanin with the hah.
This hadith is a part of the long hadith that we read to you in the last lesson, so there is nothing in it that we need to comment on except for brief words. Anas’s statement: "The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) delivered a sermon, and I have never heard the like of it": He did not specify this sermon. However, if we look at the routes of this hadith and its narrators from among the Companions, we find the Lady Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her), and we find this phrase from this hadith: to the end. This is the last phrase that came in her hadith, which Imam al-Bukhari narrated in his "Sahih" through her route, mentioning that the sun was eclipsed during the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). We also mentioned to you something of the story of this eclipse, and that the Messenger (peace be upon him) saw Paradise and the Fire. We also explained to you some of that, and that he delivered a sermon to them, and among the first things he said was: to the end. Then he (peace and blessings be upon him) mentioned in this sermon that he saw 'Amr ibn Luhay, and he saw the woman who used to torment the cat, and he saw the owner of the hook who used to use his hook to steal the belongings of pilgrims. The Lady Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) mentioned all of this in her hadith, and she said: The Messenger (peace be upon him) said in this sermon: .
Thus, we can identify the sermon that Anas referred to in this hadith as the sermon of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) in the prayer of the eclipse. What confirms this is the other narration mentioned by the author when he said in the first narration: "It was narrated by al-Bukhari and Muslim," and in another narration: "Something reached the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) regarding his Companions, so he delivered a sermon and said: . This other narration mentioned by the author confirms that the sermon is his (peace be upon him) sermon during the eclipse; because he saw Paradise and the Fire. Therefore, this sermon to which Anas ibn Malik refers is his (peace and blessings be upon him) sermon in the prayer of the eclipse.
Then, his statement: "In another narration: Something reached the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) regarding his Companions"—this "something" is also indefinite, like the sermon in Anas’s previous statement. It is possible that this "something" is something of the disputes or conflicts that sometimes occur among some of the Companions, which is not uncommon for humans, no matter how high they rise. And it is possible—and this is what my heart leans toward—that it refers to what happened on the occasion of the Messenger’s (peace and blessings be upon him) prayer for the eclipse. We mentioned to you in the previous lesson that when the sun was eclipsed during the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), it happened that this eclipse was on the day of the death of his son Ibrahim (peace and blessings be upon them both). So they said: "The sun was eclipsed because of the death of a great man," meaning Ibrahim, the son of the Prophet. So he (peace and blessings be upon him) delivered this sermon to them, beginning with: . Thus, it was the custom of the pre-Islamic age that when they saw the sun eclipsed, they would predict that a great person of status in society had died. So this was a pre-Islamic custom. Something of that reached the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) from his Companions. Naturally, this is a pre-Islamic matter, and the only thing for him (peace and blessings be upon him) to do was to put an end to it and invalidate it. Therefore, he said: to the end of the hadith.
Thus, the indefinite "something" here is the statement of some of the Companions, based on their custom in the pre-Islamic age and before the guidance from Allah (Mighty and Majestic) came to them through the tongue of His Prophet (peace be upon him), that the sun was eclipsed because of the death of Ibrahim (peace be upon him).
So Anas here is narrating part of that great sermon, which he described as one he had never heard the like of from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), let alone from anyone else. He narrated part of it, while others narrated more of it, such as the Lady Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her). I had compiled the benefits of the Companions’ hadiths regarding the story of this eclipse prayer in a thesis. In reality, it contains many benefits because tracing the routes gives us obscure benefits that were in some narrations, like this example we are mentioning regarding Anas’s general reference to the sermon, and his general use of the word "something." This is what can be, or is appropriate to, comment on in this hadith of Anas.