Some people hold in the present day 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

The questioner : A second question: Some people hold in the present day 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 this to be the case for the hadiths concerning worldly matters. They believe that human reason can judge them as valid or invalid according to the development of thought and scientific discoveries. They support their position with the hadiths regarding the pollination of date palms and the hadiths concerning the Muslim army’s positioning at the water source during the Battle of Badr. They also say regarding the Companions, “They were men and we are men,” and that they were subject to victory and success in their conduct and speech, just like any other men. Please clarify the opinion on this matter, with thanks?

The Shaykh : As you have noticed, this question contains two questions. The first relates to the Messenger (peace be upon him) and his sayings, and the alleged distinction between what is related to religion and worship and what is related to other matters. The second question relates to the Companions. I do not know what the questioner intended by linking the first question to the second, unless he means the claim of ... people that these hadiths reported from the Messenger (peace be upon him) and attributed to 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 are subject to error. It seems that what the questioner intends in explaining the views of those people in this era is that they say: "What has come to us from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) regarding pure religion and worship, we are submissive to it and surrender to it. But what has come to us from them regarding other matters, such as the universe, astronomy, seas, mountains, and other matters of nature, we are not obligated to submit to it or surrender to it for two reasons. The first reason is that if we accept the authenticity 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 related to religion. And these matters, in their claim, have no relation to religion. So if they contradict what is established in science and experimental science, we then judge that it is an error 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 a Companion or someone below him, and he is not infallible, so he may have made a mistake. They claim that science and experimental science indicate that this hadith is wrong. We say: There is no doubt, and we do not favor anyone in the religion of Allah, nor do we follow our emotions in matters related to 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 that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) is not infallible in every matter, but he is infallible in the sense that he is not left to persist in any of these matters while being in error in them. Here are two things that must be distinguished. The first thing is that the Messenger (peace be upon him) may make a mistake, and we do not need to elaborate on the evidence for that, because the Qur'an says: What do we understand from this? That it would have been better not to give them permission, so this was a mistake. Likewise, and so on, many things. Finally, the hadith of pollinating the date palms comes: "If you had left the date palms without pollination, meaning without cross-pollination, which they knew by experience, it would have produced better fruit than what you are doing." And Allah the Exalted and Majestic willed to apply His decree in this specific incident regarding the date palms, so the date palms came out dry, meaning consisting of seeds and shells with no moist pulp. So they came to him saying such and such ... 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, no defect, and no shortcoming in him not being a pollinator, not being a farmer, not being a blacksmith, a carpenter, and so on, because these are worldly matters. But regarding religion, and religion is not only worship as these people who the questioner mentions claim; religion includes matters related to worship, matters related to the unseen, and matters related to systems, which are called today in modern terminology economic, social, political, educational, and other known matters. Islam came complete, coming comprehensively to everything humans need in terms of systems. And therefore, if a hadith comes from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) and they say it is from worldly matters and not from matters of religion, for example, the hadith of the fly that we mentioned earlier, and for example, except death. And this is a lot, and a very large amount. After the report is authenticated from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) regarding this, it is not permissible for us to treat this type of worldly matter as one in which we have the choice to take it or not take it, to correct it or declare it wrong. No. The reason for that is from two aspects. The first aspect is what I mentioned earlier: if the Messenger (peace be upon him) makes a mistake, and he rarely makes a mistake, he is not left to persist 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 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: How strange these people are! If an ordinary person, who does not have a millionth of the character and perfection of the words of the Messenger (peace be upon him), said: "If a fly falls into the vessel of one of you, let him dip it and then take it out, for in one of its wings is a disease and in the other is a cure," what would we say about this person? We would say, as was said in some cases or about some scholars, when it was said to some witty literate person: "So-and-so is such and such in knowledge and ... the hadith." So he went and visited him. When he left from 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 either the most memorizing of people or the most lying of people. Why? Because he is actually memorizing things. So this man who visited him is almost equal to him 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 one of the most lying of people. Likewise, I say: If an ordinary person spoke about this strange matter, saying that in this small insect, in one of its wings is a disease and in the other is a cure, what do we say about him? Either he is a false messiah, or he was given knowledge that people were not given. There is no escape from one of two things. It cannot be said that this might be by his independent legal reasoning, and that he, for example, did not engage in any science, no medicine, no surgery, no anatomy, or anything else, and yet it is said that he said this by his opinion. No, this is the work of false messiahs. Therefore, I say that these people with simple minds attribute to the Messenger (peace be upon him) that he speaks about unseen matters, precise and very precise, to the point that this science which they boast about today has not yet circled around this truth, nor has it been able to, despite the fact that some enthusiasts claim that the hadith of the fly has been scientifically proven. We say: We have proven something of it, but the detail contained in the hadith has not yet been discussed by this experimental, anatomical science. And perhaps they may reach it one day. That is because science today says that the fly carries in its wings and also in its body a type of germs, which I think they call bacteria. And these germs destroy and kill harmful germs. All this was said by medicine, and this was indeed not known before. But the hadith comes with a precise detail, saying that 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 it at all, in accordance with the saying of the Exalted: So how can we say that the Messenger (peace be upon him) said this by his own opinion? If I said it, I would say it is a criticism of me. Why would I attribute to myself what I say by guessing? May Allah be far from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) speaking such words.
So, as long as the hadith is authentic, it is obligatory to believe in it and to include it in the category of religion. Religion is not just worship, prayer, and Hajj; rather, it is everything that comes from Allah and His Messenger. And His Messenger approved of what was said, even if it was based on independent reasoning from the person himself; that is also religion. For example, the other hadiths in this regard are numerous and very numerous. Would a person say this based on independent reasoning from himself? No, only the Dajjals (false messiahs) who want to control people's minds and extort their money through falsehood would say this. But the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) was the furthest of people from that. So, he only said what he saw and heard from Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He). Therefore, the hadiths that are authentic from the Messenger (peace be upon him), which were established and not abrogated, even by a report that a person says, "This opinion is from me," as I heard in the criticism, their 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). 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 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 used as evidence, and this hadith or a hadith like this that has no connection to rulings but has a connection to creed or the unseen, they said, "We do not accept this hadith until it reaches the level of mass transmission." 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 not trustworthy in that hadith, when it is the same person? Or perhaps there are two trustworthy narrators, each of whom did not narrate a hadith in worship to be used as evidence, and narrated another hadith in creed and the unseen not to be used as evidence. This distinction was old, then the scholars abolished it, and then the scholars of the Salaf abolished it through their scholarly efforts. Then this innovation was scattered in the present age in another way, a scientific way. They claimed that there, they used to say that the intellect does not accept a hadith in creed unless it is mass-transmitted. Here they say the intellect does not accept a hadith that comes in matters related to medical sciences or experimental sciences or the like, and knowledge has not yet verified them. We say, are you more knowledgeable or Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He)?! Allah (Mighty and Majestic) revealed to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) matters that involve our obligation practically and our obligation intellectually and creedally, 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 (may Allah's prayers and blessings be upon him) from the narration of trustworthy narrators. And this is sufficient, and praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds.