Some hold that the hadiths of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) concerning acts of worship are binding on the Muslim to believe in them

Eid Abbasi : A second question: Some people in the present day hold that the hadiths of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) concerning acts of worship are binding on the Muslim to believe in them; whereas they do not consider that to be the case for hadiths concerning worldly matters. They believe that human reason can judge them as valid or invalid in accordance with the development of thought and scientific discoveries. They support their position with hadiths regarding the pollination of date palms, and hadiths regarding the positioning of the Muslim army at the water source during the Battle of Badr. They also say about the Companions: "They were men, and we are men," and that they were subject to victory and defeat in their conduct and speech, just like any other men. Please clarify the opinion on this matter, with thanks?

The Shaykh : This question, as you have noticed, contains... two questions; the first concerns the Messenger (peace be upon him) and his sayings, and the alleged distinction between what relates to religion and worship and what relates to other matters. The second question concerns the Companions. I do not know what the questioner intended by linking the first question to the second, except that he means to report that those people claim that these hadiths attributed to the Messenger (peace be upon him) contain a problem or a contradiction with science, as they claim, such as the hadith of the fly, for example: and so on. Perhaps the questioner means by the second question that such hadiths, which he referred to in his first question and which, in their claim, have nothing to do with matters of religion, were narrated by these Companions, and these Companions are merely human beings like us, so they may err. Thus, it seems the questioner intends, in his explanation of those people in this era, that they say: What has come to us from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) concerning pure religion and worship, we are submissive to it and surrender to it. But what has come to us from them concerning other matters, such as the universe, the heavens, the seas, the mountains, and similar matters of nature, we are not obligated or required to submit to it or surrender to it, for two reasons:
The first reason: If we accept the validity of these hadiths and their attribution to the Messenger (peace be upon him), the Messenger is a human being, and what applies to humans applies to him, except in matters of religion. These matters, in their claim, have no relation to religion. So if they contradict what is established in science and experimental science, then at that time we judge that it is one of the errors of the Messenger (peace be upon him) in worldly matters. An example of this is what came in the question, the hadith of pollinating the date palms. Or they say that the one who narrated the hadith and attributed it to the Messenger (peace be upon him) is the Companion or someone below him; he is not infallible, so he may have erred. They claim that science and experimental science indicated that this hadith is an error. We say: There is no doubt, and we do not favor anyone in the religion of Allah, nor do we follow our emotions in what concerns the Messenger (peace be upon him), but rather our minds and our knowledge derived from the Book of Allah and the hadith of the Messenger of Allah. We say: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) is not infallible in every matter, but he is infallible in the sense that he is not left in a state of error in any of these matters. Here are two things that must be distinguished: The first is that the Messenger (peace be upon him) may err, and we do not need to elaborate on the evidence for that; because the Qur'an says: What is not understood from this is that it was better that he not give them permission? ... This is an error. Similarly, and so on, many things and very many.
Finally: There is the hadith of pollinating the date palms. He said to them: If you left the date palms without pollination - meaning without cross-pollination, which they knew by experience - it would have been better than what you are doing. And Allah (Mighty and Majestic) willed to apply His (Mighty and Majestic) sunnah in the date palms in this very incident, so the date palms came out dry; meaning they consisted of a seed and a shell with no flesh; they were dry. So they came to him saying: So and so... so and so. He said: The hadith ends.
So we observe that the issue of pollinating the date palms is a purely professional, worldly matter. There is no harm to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), and no defect or shortcoming in him not being a pollinator, not being a farmer, not being a blacksmith, a carpenter, and so on; why? Because these are worldly matters. But in what concerns religion, and religion is not only acts of worship as those who the questioner reports about claim; religion contains matters concerning acts of worship, matters concerning the unseen, and matters concerning systems, which are called today in modern terminology economic, social, political, educational, and so on, which is known. Islam came complete, it came comprehensive for everything humans need in terms of systems: so ; and therefore, if a hadith comes from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) and they say: It is from worldly matters and not from matters of religion, for example - for instance - the hadith of the fly which we mentioned earlier, and an example of that - for instance - is: - except death -, and there is a lot and very much of this from it.
After the report from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) is established, it is not permissible for us to make this a type of worldly matter in which we have the choice, where we can take it or not take it, correct it or deem it wrong; no. The reason for that is from two aspects; the first aspect is what I mentioned earlier; that the Messenger (peace be upon him), if he errs - and he rarely errs - is not left in his error. So if the hadith comes and the Companions received it, and those after them received it, and so on, generation after generation, until these hadiths reached us as truth and veracity in terms of narration, and in terms of the fact that the Messenger (peace be upon him) spoke them and Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) approved him for them, then it is not possible, in this state, for us to say: That these are worldly matters. This is from one aspect...
I say: I am amazed at these people. If an ordinary person, who does not have from his character and perfection even a millionth part of the speech of the Messenger (peace be upon him), said: . What do we say about this person? We say as was said in some cases or about some scholars, when it was said to some witty literati: So-and-so is such and such in knowledge and in his memorization of hadith. So he went and visited him. When he left him, they asked him: How did you find him? He said: He is either the most memorizing of people or the most lying of people. He is the most memorizing of people or the most lying of people; why? Because he is actually memorizing things, this man whom he visited is almost his equal in terms of memorization and narration, but he heard things that this visitor and the one he visited did not hear in their entire lives; so he is either one of the most memorizing of people or the most lying of people.
Likewise, I say: if an ordinary person spoke of this strange matter, saying, "In this small insect, one wing carries a disease and the other a cure," what would we say about him? Either he is a Dajjal, or he has been granted knowledge that people have not been granted. There is no escape from one of these two possibilities. It cannot be said that this is possible through his own independent legal reasoning (ijtihad), especially when he has not engaged in any science—neither medicine, nor surgery, nor anatomy, nor anything else. Yet it is said, "They say: this is his opinion?" No, this is the work of the Dajjals. Therefore, I say: these people are simple-minded. They attribute to the Messenger (peace be upon him) that he spoke of matters of the unseen, precise and extremely precise. Even the science they boast of today has not yet circled around this truth, nor has it been able to address it, despite some enthusiasts claiming that the hadith of the fly has been scientifically proven. We say: something of it has been proven, but the detail contained in the hadith has not yet been discussed by this experimental, anatomical science. Perhaps they may reach it one day. This is because science today says that the fly carries in its wings and in its body as well a type of germs, which I think they call bacteria, and these germs destroy and kill harmful germs. This is all that medicine has said, and this was indeed not known before. But the hadith comes with precise detail: it says, "The killing germ is in one of its wings, and the germ that kills the killing germ is in the other wing." This medicine does not know this at all, in accordance with the saying of the Exalted: . So how can we say that the Messenger (peace be upon him) said this based on his own opinion? If I said it, or if a person said it about me, I would say they are attacking me. Why? Because they are attributing to me that I am speaking without knowledge of the unseen! Far be it from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) to speak such words.
So, since the hadith is authentic, it is obligatory to believe in it and to include it in the category of religion. Religion is not only worship, prayer, and Hajj, but rather everything that comes from Allah and His Messenger. And His Messenger was approved in what he said, even if it was through his own independent legal reasoning (ijtihad); it is religion. Likewise, for example, the other hadith, and there are many, many hadiths in this regard: . Does a person say this through his own independent legal reasoning (ijtihad)? Only the Dajjals who want to dominate people's minds and extort their money unjustly would say this. But the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) is the furthest people from that. So he is saying what he saw, saying what he heard from Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He). Therefore, the hadiths that are authentic from the Messenger (peace be upon him) and have been established and not abrogated, even by a report that says, "This was my own opinion," as you heard regarding the pollination of date palms; its ruling is the ruling of prayer and zakah, and of all the hadiths that have a connection to the Shari'ah of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He).
And these hadiths were narrated by those Companions, those Successors, and those others who came after them, who narrated to us the first part of the religion that these people want to make the entire religion. So we say to these innovators in the religion, as our Salaf said to the previous innovators when they brought the innovation of distinguishing between a hadith that has a connection to rulings, where the narrator is trustworthy and this hadith is relied upon, and this hadith or a hadith like this that has no connection to rulings, but has a connection to creed and to the unseen; they said, "We do not accept this hadith until it reaches the level of mass transmission (mutawatir)." The scholars of the Sunnah, our righteous Salaf, refuted them and said: "Those who narrated to us the hadiths of worship are the same ones who narrated to us the hadiths of creed. So why do we say this one is trustworthy in this hadith, and in that hadith he is not trustworthy, when it is the same person? In fact, there may be two trustworthy narrators, each of whom, both of them, are not each of them; both narrated a hadith in worship, which is relied upon, and they narrated another hadith in other than worship, in creed and in the unseen, which is not relied upon. This distinction was old, and then the scholars of the Salaf put an end to it with their scholarly efforts. Then this innovation sprouted its branch in the present age in another way, in a scientific way, they claimed. There, they used to say: "The intellect does not accept a hadith in creed except what is mass-transmitted (mutawatir)." And here they also say: "The intellect does not accept a hadith that comes in matters related to medical sciences or experimental sciences or the like, and science has not yet verified them." We say: Are you more knowledgeable than Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He)?! And Allah (Mighty and Majestic) has revealed to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) what He revealed of matters that impose an obligation on us practically on one hand, and impose an obligation on us intellectually and creedally on the other hand; to test us whether we believe or disbelieve.
We ask Allah (Mighty and Majestic) to make us among those who believe in everything that is authentic from our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) from the narration of trustworthy narrators. And this is sufficient, and praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds.

Eid Abbasi : ... .

The Shaykh: At the end of the question, the hadith of the pollination of date palms was mentioned as an example, along with the hadith of the descent (al-Manzil).

Eid Abbasi : ... .

The Shaykh: Yes.
Is this a descent that Allah sent down to you, or is it opinion, war, and stratagem? He said: . He said: "So I see that you should descend to such and such a place." This story, despite its fame in the books of biography, is a story that is not established from the hadithical perspective. Therefore, it is not correct to take it as an example of that deviation, in its deviation. And I have explained the weakness of this story in my book that was published recently, titled: "Defense of the Noble Hadith."