The hadith of Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), who said

The Shaykh : His statement: "And from Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family), who said: Al-Hakim narrated it and said: It is authentic according to the conditions of Muslim, and Abu Dawud narrated it in a longer form, saying: .
This hadith is among the strong hadiths, and you have heard that Al-Hakim authenticated it according to the conditions of Muslim, and that is the case. However, we indicated its goodness (hasan) rather than its authenticity (sahih); that is because one of its narrators has a slight weakness in his memory, and this weakness lowers the hadith, by the terminology of the scholars, from the rank of authentic to the rank of good. Therefore, it is good and according to the conditions of Muslim.
This is, in reality, something that people may find strange; that is: good and according to the conditions of Muslim. It must be known from the perspective of hadith studies that we must know that the ranks of hadiths, even in "the two Sahihs," are not all at the same level of authenticity. In "the two Sahihs," there are hadiths that are authentic in themselves, and hadiths that are good in themselves, and even in them are authentic—indeed, good—by other means.
This hadith is from the category of good in itself, and there is no doubt that a hadith that is good in itself is a proof with the scholars, and even if it were good by other means. Therefore, this hadith is among the hadiths that one should pay attention to its narration and its understanding, and then to its application for whom the matter is obligatory. That is because this hadith encourages cupping on specific days, on days after the middle of the month, the Arabic month, from the seventeenth to the nineteenth.
This specification, and the fact that the cupping commanded in this hadith, or that which is encouraged in this hadith, is on these days, is without a doubt an act of worship and a secret from the secrets of the Shari'ah. It may—I say it may—not be possible for the Muslim in general, and perhaps for the scholar in particular, to reach the knowledge of the essence and secret of this specification for the benefit of cupping on these days.
This specification is not a strange or unknown matter in the Shari'ah. For example, you pray five prayers every day, differing in number and manner of rak'ahs, in terms of the secret and in terms of the loud recitation, and yet we pray without hesitating in this application of differing numbers. Likewise, here we hear the Messenger (may the prayers and peace of Allah be upon him) say: , in the other narration, the narration of Abu Dawud: ; so this specification for these individual days is among the unseen matters that one must believe in, and it is never permissible for us to wait for experimental science to testify to this Prophetic medicine that it is correct and that it is a cure and beneficial. This is not permissible Islamically at all. And if some of the weak in faith hesitate in accepting many of the authentic hadiths, which are stronger than our hadith here, it may be among what is agreed upon by the two Shaykhs and among what the scholars of the Muslims all accepted.
If there are some of the youth today who doubt such hadiths, this is without a doubt a weakness in faith and a weakness in knowledge of Islam. Therefore, such hesitation is never appropriate, because it opens for the hesitating Muslim the door of doubt, not only in the hadith, but also in the Qur'an, which is the first of the two foundations of the Islamic Shari'ah. Because you all know that the Noble Qur'an cannot be understood except through the path of the Sunnah. So if doubt begins in a person regarding this Sunnah, it is without a doubt that it leads to doubt in the Qur'an itself. Because, first, the Qur'an cannot be understood, as we have stated repeatedly, except through the path of the Sunnah. So if a doubter doubts a certain Sunnah, that leads him to doubt the very Qur'an which is not interpreted except by the Sunnah. And second, because in the Qur'an are matters above the intellect, and I do not say contrary to the intellect, but above the intellect such that the intellect cannot encompass them and is unable to grasp the secret in them.
In the Qur'an is something of this, and much of it; especially what relates to matters that are miraculous, or to put it better, contrary to the cosmic laws that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) established and informed us of. So some matters come in contrast to these laws. If we do not believe in them on the basis that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) informed us of them in the Noble Qur'an, then doubt has entered the Qur'an, and the meaning of that is disbelief itself in the Qur'an.
Therefore, the door of doubt in the Qur'an is doubt in the Sunnah. I do not imagine a Muslim who is a believer with complete faith who does not doubt anything of the texts of the Qur'an and at the same time doubts many of the texts of the Sunnah. These are two matters that never coexist. So whoever doubts the Sunnah from the intellectual or logical perspective, it is without a doubt that that leads him to doubt the Qur'an itself.
The greatest example of that is what I referred to earlier, from what is known among the scholars as miracles. And miracles are among the matters that are contrary to the custom; that is: the custom did not proceed in that way. People doubt in them except for one who is a true believer in Allah (Mighty and Majestic). Many people, in the past and present, when their minds were constrained by believing in such texts that contain matters contrary to the custom, they used to, and their like still do, try to interpret them figuratively. For example, the miracle of the splitting of the sea for Musa (peace be upon him) and his passage with his army of the Children of Israel as if they were moving on a paved land; until when the last man of the Children of Israel came out to the other shore, the sea returned and closed over Pharaoh and his army. This is among the matters that are very, very contrary to the custom, with no parallel, and no example is known for it in the world. How do the deniers interpret such a miracle? They said: This is an expression of the tide and ebb of the natural sea!!
And every person knows that the tide and ebb of the sea does not become with this system and this speed. Now the sea was in its state, a surface of water, in one moment it split into two halves, and this huge army moves, and no one exits—as we said—the last soldier but it closes over the soldiers of Pharaoh. This is not a natural matter if we were to treat it with the ebb and tide of the sea. When the army of Musa (peace be upon him) entered, it ebbed, and when the last man of the Children of Israel exited, it flowed and returned. This is also an unnatural matter.
Therefore, there is no room for submission to every matter that is contrary to the custom where the text is established with this condition. There is no way and no room for submission to every matter that is contrary to the custom where the text is established by it, either in the Book or in the authentic Sunnah; so that the Muslim is a believer, the first condition of the conditions of faith, as Allah (Mighty and Majestic) said in the Qur'an: . This is the first condition: that you believe in everything that is hidden from your intellect; whether it is a natural material matter like these examples contrary to the custom, or it is a scientific issue like this example we are in, that the cure on the nineteenth day—for example—there is a cure in these days, a cure from every disease. And we will explain the disease here. This is a matter that the intellect does not know first, and it has not entered into medical scientific experimentation now, as far as I know. Therefore, as Muslims, we must believe in this which the Messenger (peace be upon him) informed us of, because as He said: .
The scholars here interpreted the term "disease" in a way that specifies it as that whose cause is the agitation and stagnation of blood in the body. Therefore, the hadith here is not understood as: as is the case with some of the hadiths in which the Messenger (peace be upon him) reported, for example, that the black seed contains a cure for every disease; that is absolute and general. This is because the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), to emphasize this generality regarding the black seed, made an exception and said: , . But here he said: . So the scholars understood that the disease for which cupping is beneficial, and specifically on these odd days, is the disease whose cause is an excess and agitation of blood in the person.
Therefore, if there were, for example, as we mentioned in a previous lesson, cuppers who still practice this Prophetic medicine, they should be advised to tell their clients to choose the seventeenth, nineteenth, and twenty-first days of the lunar month; this is more beneficial than cupping on the other days.
Then, this encouragement in this hadith is only for when a person wants to undergo cupping not out of necessity, but as a precaution; because cupping is of two types: cupping that a person is compelled to undergo due to the dominance and agitation of blood in his body, in which case it is permissible and beneficial, by the permission of Allah (Mighty and Majestic), on whatever day he does it. But if there is no necessity to hasten, it is recommended that he choose these days; because the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) specified them by stating that healing is obtained in them.

Eid Abbasi: ... as much as possible, our brothers.

The Shaykh: In this very hadith, in a narration, or rather two narrations, which are weak hadiths in this regard, so we avoided them, or we kept away from them. So whoever has a copy of *al-Targhib* should mark that.
Now we have another hadith, and it is the last authentic hadith in this chapter, and it clarifies that there are specific days designated for healing.