When is the soul breathed into the fetus? And how do you reconcile between the hadiths?

The questioner : The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: .

The Shaykh : To the end of it. What is the intention of the question regarding the hadith?

The questioner : Another hadith was reported in which it is said: .

The Shaykh : To the end of it. What is the question?

The questioner : So when is the soul breathed into the fetus? And how do you reconcile between the hadiths? And is it possible to medically measure the beginning of the soul being breathed in? May Allah reward you with good.

The Shaykh : And what is it?

The questioner : Is it possible to medically measure the beginning of the soul being breathed in?

The Shaykh : First, the second hadith is an anomalous narration (shadhdh), and it is apparent that the narrator was unable to master it, because he hesitates between forty and forty-two, and between forty-five. Therefore, when a student of knowledge reads a hadith like this, and he firmly believes that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) cannot hesitate in this manner in a single word, because he does not , rather this hesitation is from one of the narrators of the hadith. This hesitation indicates that the narrator did not master the hadith he heard. Either the doubt is from above, meaning from the Companion who heard the hadith directly from the Messenger (peace be upon him), or the doubt is from someone below this Companion. If the possibility revolves around whether the one doubting is the Companion or someone below him, scholars usually attribute the doubt to the one below the Companion. So the student of knowledge should note this aspect, or this is not from the speech of the Prophethood.
This doubt reminds me of another hadith, which is very important, because some scholars who did not notice the doubt in it built a ruling upon it. It is the hadith of Shubrumah, in which the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) heard a man performing the talbiyah in Hajj saying: . The narrator says like this: . This hesitation cannot come from that Companion who was performing Hajj on behalf of someone else, who is Shubrumah. Why? Imagine the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) is before you, and he asks you, "Who is this boy?" Is it correct for the one answering to say, "He is my brother or a relative of mine"? That would mean he wasted the answer to the Messenger (peace be upon him). The least that can be said about this is a lack of proper conduct, if it is not disbelief and lack of faith in the perfection of the Messenger (peace be upon him), which requires that he be honored. So this hesitation came from after, and it was not that Shubrumah's answer was about Shubrumah. . Therefore, no ruling is built upon this hadith in the presence of this doubt that it is permissible to perform Hajj on behalf of another person, as they say today, for someone other than a father or mother, because the hadith said, "My brother or a relative of mine." We say that the narrator doubted, and a ruling is not built upon doubt. Therefore, it is not derived from this hadith that one performs Hajj for a person who is not a parent. Rather, what is taken from it is the well-known argument from the hadith that it is not permissible for anyone to perform Hajj on behalf of another person except after having performed Hajj for himself, because the Messenger (peace be upon him) said to him: . As for Shubrumah, if we stop at this hadith, we say we do not know about Shubrumah; we do not know. However, if we return to some of the principles of Islamic law, we can determine that the person for whom Hajj is being performed is either one of his parents, or this pilgrim was bequeathed by the person to perform Hajj on his behalf. Performing Hajj for a parent is established in many hadiths, specifically the hadith of the woman from Khath'am, who asked the Messenger (peace be upon him) after stoning the pillars: . So performing Hajj on behalf of a parent who is unable to do so is established in many hadiths. It is possible that this pilgrim was performing Hajj for Shubrumah, meaning for his father. There is another possibility that he performed Hajj for Shubrumah who bequeathed to him to perform Hajj on his behalf, because such a bequest must be executed. But the first possibility is closer to me, because I found in some narrations, although there is some weakness in their chains, that it was said: . The hesitation and doubt disappeared, and in its place it was said, "My father." So if we return to the hadith first, we say this doubt is not built upon anything. Second, it contradicts the first hadith, and the first hadith is more authentic in chain than the other hadith from two aspects. One is that it is agreed upon by al-Bukhari and Muslim, and the other is that Muslim narrated it exclusively without al-Bukhari. The other thing is that the first hadith, which is from the hadith of Ibn Mas'ud, all the narrators agreed to transmit it with one wording, and this is one of the criteria for preference among scholars. Therefore, we find that when scholars mention the types of tashahhud in prayer, they mention many types. I mentioned the most authentic of them in *The Description of Prayer*, including the tashahhud of Ibn Mas'ud, which is well known, and the tashahhud of Ibn Abbas. Some of the imams took some of both tashahhuds: Abu Hanifa took the first tashahhud, and Imam al-Shafi'i took the second tashahhud, and so on. But the scholars of hadith who do not show bias for one school over another said that the hadith of Ibn Mas'ud is more authentic than the hadith of Ibn Abbas. Why? Because the narrators agreed on the narration of the tashahhud hadith, and they do not differ, not even in a single letter. Whereas the hadith of Ibn Abbas has differences: . In some narrations, the narrator is the same, which is Ibn Abbas: . Some of them drop the "waw" (and), and some of them keep the "waw." As for the hadith of Ibn Mas'ud: , there is no disagreement, not even in a single letter. Therefore, they said that the hadith of Ibn Mas'ud regarding the tashahhud is more authentic than the hadith of Ibn Abbas regarding the tashahhud. Similarly, we say here, quoting from the scholars' method of preferring one narration over another while the chain of both narrations is authentic. But here, the first criterion of preference exists, which is agreementThe Shaykh : upon the explicit hadith of Ibn Mas'ud that the soul is breathed in after the three stages mentioned in the hadith, meaning after four months. As for the other hadith, which Muslim narrated exclusively, it is from the hadith of Usayd ibn Hudhayfah or Hudhayfah ibn Usayd. I am doubtful now. Yes.

The questioner : Hudhayfah.

The Shaykh : Hudhayfah. Ah, so this is an exclusive narration by Muslim, as we said. Then some of the narrators were inconsistent in narrating the hadith. First of all, the doubt in forty, forty-two, forty, forty-five. The second thing is that it did not mention all the stages, whereas the hadith of Ibn Mas'ud mentioned them in their entirety. In summary, the answer is that this hadith of Hudhayfah is not taken, because the narrator did not master it. Rather, the reliance in this issue is on the hadith of Abdullah ibn Mas'ud.