[Another Session] The Shaykh’s continuation of his discussion on the previous hadith and his explanation of some guidelines regarding the treatment of disbelievers from among the People of the Book and others.

The Shaykh : In the lesson, we recited the hadith of the Companion who was angry with you, the hadith of the Lady Aisha regarding her story with the Jews who greeted the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) with the ambiguous phrase, which is their saying, "As-sam 'alaykum." In it, the Messenger (peace be upon him) returned the greeting to them with the same, meaning he said, "Wa 'alaykum." As for the Lady Aisha, she went beyond that by cursing them and invoking the anger of Allah upon them. It remains for us to mention the legal ruling. We mentioned in the previous lesson that at the time when it is not permissible to transgress against the dhimmis by doing what the Lady Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) did, at the same time, we said that it is also not permissible to ... with them in a way that contradicts the Shari'ah. We mentioned from this the prohibition of the Messenger (peace be upon him) from initiating the greeting to them. If the matter is so, and so, then that means that a Muslim in his dealings with the dhimmis must conduct himself with them within the limits of the Shari'ah, not within the limits of personal logic and intellect ... Here we say: if a man from the People of the Book greets us with this Islamic greeting and says to us, "As-salamu 'alaykum," what do we say?
Some people may understand from this hadith and what is similar to it that returning the greeting to a dhimmi should be only "Wa 'alaykum." Is that the case, or is there a detail in the issue?
If we look at another hadith that was reported from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), he said: .
If we look at this hadith, we find that it contains a ruling with a stated cause, which is . This clarifies that our response to them with this abbreviated phrase, , is only appropriate and in its place when he twists his tongue with the greeting, when he says "As-sam 'alaykum." From that, one might understand the Islamic greeting, or one might understand the Jewish greeting. However, if his greeting is explicit, clear, distinct, and obvious, as some Christians do today, for example, those who have mixed with Muslims, lived among them, and accepted their greeting from them, saying "As-salamu 'alaykum" clearly. If one of them greets us, do we say "Wa 'alaykum," or do we say as they said, "Wa 'alaykum as-salam"?
If we first look at the text of the Noble Qur'an, at least, and secondly to the hadith I mentioned earlier: "If one of them says 'As-sam 'alaykum,' then say 'Wa 'alaykum,'" we take from the verse and this hadith that if the dhimmi's greeting is explicit and clear, we return it to him in the same explicit and clear manner. However, if it is a booby-trapped greeting, as we said, then at that time ... and we alert him that we are not oblivious, so we say to him, "Wa 'alaykum." He might ask, "Why? I said 'As-salamu 'alaykum.'" So we say to him, "We have returned it to you, whether you said the true 'As-salamu 'alaykum' or said it in a booby-trapped manner." This is what I wanted to mention on the occasion of the previous lesson's hadith.