What is meant by Najd mentioned in the hadith: “And in our Najd, O Messenger of Allah”? Is it Iraq, or the Najd known today?

The Shaykh : Please, go ahead!

The questioner : I read, my master, in “Al-Fath,” Fath al-Bari.

The Shaykh: Yes.

The questioner : An explanation of the noble hadith regarding the virtues of the Levant: .

The Shaykh three times.

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : Then they said, “And in our Najd, O Messenger of Allah?” He said: , yes.

The questioner : The explanation in the edition currently in our hands states: “Najd is Iraq”!!

The Shaykh: Yes.

The questioner : That is, we know that Najd is Najd, and Iraq is Iraq. Where did Ibn Hajar get this interpretation from? Or is it convincing, and you quoted it in the “Mukhtasar”?!

The Shaykh : Of course, this is the statement of the scholars. Where did it come from? From knowledge. In the Arabic language, any elevated land is called Najd.

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : So there are many elevated areas, not just one Najd. Every country that is elevated relative to another takes the name Najd. The Najdi countries known today are undoubtedly Najd, but this does not preclude that there is another place linguistically called Najd, even if it is not known or famous as Najd like the famous Najd of Saudi Arabia today. And Ibn Hajar (may Allah have mercy on him) is one of the great scholars of the Muslims, the jurists, and the hadith scholars. In fact, he is a rarity of his time in that he combined these two qualities. There are many hadiths that clarify where this understanding came from. First: a hadith in Sahih Muslim narrated by Abdullah ibn Umar: that a man came to Ibn Umar and said to him: “O Abdullah, a man among us sees a fly land on his garment; does his garment become ritually impure?” He said: “O people of Iraq, you do not ask us about the small matter, but you burden us with the great one. I heard the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) say: ,” and he pointed to the east, meaning to Iraq. So, do you not notice that the questioner is Iraqi? And he asks about the fly; what impurity does this fly carry on its legs? Nothing significant. Therefore, Ibn Umar rebuked him for this question and drew the attention of those present: that this man is Iraqi. “You do not ask us about the small matter, but you burden us with the great one,” the fitan, you killed al-Husayn and did what you did, and so on. I heard the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) say: , to the end of the hadith. So this hadith indicates that the fitnah mentioned in the hadith of Najd is this fitnah that Ibn Umar referred to in this hadith. Knowing that the narrator of the hadith in al-Bukhari, and the narrator of the hadith, replaced the word: , they said: . And as the hadith scholars say: “The narrations explain one another.” Then, in observing this from the perspective of narration, from the perspective of knowledge and understanding: if the questioner had said “and in the Najd,” it might have caused a problem. But he added “our” to Najd and said: “And in our Najd,” meaning: he was Iraqi. Therefore, he did not simply say Najd, because there are many elevated areas as we said earlier. From here, Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani said, and al-Khattabi said, and they are scholars of language: that the intended meaning of Najd here is: Iraq. Then history testifies that the fitan that the Messenger (peace be upon him) mentioned took place in Iraq, not in the Najd known today. There, only the emergence of Musaylimah the Liar and his like occurred, and his fitnah was dealt with by Abu Bakr al-Siddiq’s fighting and his elimination of those who claimed prophethood in the era of the first Caliph. So from here, and here, and here, the interpretation of Najd in the hadith as Iraq is established.

The questioner : May Allah reward you with good.

The Shaykh : And beware of that.