Miscellaneous by Al-Albani-062

The Shaykh : The eleventh hadith, which is the last in this chapter, is from Abu Hurayrah as well. He said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: This "neck" refers to a flame of the Fire. A side of the Fire emerges, having two eyes with which it sees, two ears with which it hears, and a tongue with which it speaks. It says: I have been entrusted with... meaning to identify them... those who set up a god alongside Allah. Al-Tirmidhi narrated it and said: It is a good, authentic, and unique hadith. He explains the unique term in the hadith by saying: "Neck" (with a dammah on the 'ayn and a nun) means a group on the side of the Fire. This last hadith contains a strangeness in terms of the news of the unseen it contains, which one must believe in, namely that Allah (Mighty and Majestic), by His power, brings out a part of the Fire of Hell that takes the form of a head with two eyes, two ears, and a tongue with which it speaks. It speaks and says that it has been entrusted with torturing three groups: those who took a god alongside Allah, every arrogant, stubborn tyrant, and the image-makers. This hadith, which is the tenth of the hadiths in the chapter—I read them all to you except the ninth, which has weakness in its chain—and all the hadiths we read suffice for the chapter in place of it. As we said, the term "image-making" and "image-makers" is absolute. Therefore, in terms of its absoluteness, it includes three-dimensional images and non-three-dimensional images. And in terms of looking at the reason for the arrival of some of them, it indicates that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) only said it in the context of non-three-dimensional images.
Therefore, the one who restricts these hadiths to three-dimensional images that have a shadow, and does not include images drawn on clothes, curtains, walls, or paper today, is one of two types. Either he has not looked into these hadiths, especially the clarification that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) directly intended images that have no shadow. This type is only conceivable regarding some of the early scholars who did not live in a time when the Sunnah had been collected. The other type are those who looked into these hadiths after they were written down and access to them was facilitated, namely the contemporaries today. They only interpret these hadiths with false interpretations that indicate their falsity. These interpretations are shown to be false by two things together. The first thing: The generality and absoluteness of the hadiths, as you heard in some of them . The one who says, "No, not every image-maker is in the Fire; rather, the intended meaning of 'image-makers' here is those who carve idols," is contradicting this explicit universal statement in the hadith of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). The meaning of this universal statement is . Also, from the words of comprehensiveness, meaning that every image-maker is in the Fire. This is one aspect. The second aspect, which is clearer as we mentioned and established, is that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) mentioned these hadiths you heard in the chapter regarding images that were drawn on curtains and not carved from stone as the disbelievers did in the pre-Islamic age of ignorance. Therefore, interpreting these hadiths as [referring only to] three-dimensional images is a refutation of these hadiths. We fear that one who interprets them with this false interpretation, after this falsity becomes clear in the general saying of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) , if the Messenger says , or he is not blowing, and says that and similar things in the context of images that have no shadow, how can a Muslim who believes in Allah and His Messenger say that the forbidden images in these hadiths are only those that have a shadow, i.e., three-dimensional images? Thus, we conclude that the forbidden images, in general and comprehensively, include those that have a shadow and those that do not, including three-dimensional and non-three-dimensional. Among the deviations and circumventions of the rulings of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) in His Shari'ah, after refuting such texts that indicate that the forbidden images are also non-three-dimensional images, some writers in the present age have resorted to a ruse that I think preceded the Jews. I say it plainly, and you will say it with me when you hear what he did and what he did. It came in the hadith of Abu Hurayrah, which detailed for us the refusal of Jibril (peace be upon him) to enter the house of the Messenger, although he had an appointment with him, as he mentioned to him that there were statues, i.e., images on the door and on the curtain. So he ordered the images on the curtain to be changed until they became like the shape of a tree. This means that this curtain was embroidered and had statues, i.e., images of winged horses as in some narrations. When Jibril (peace and blessings be upon him) ordered this image to be changed until it became like the crest of a tree, it meant adding new constraints to this image so that the features of the previous image would be eliminated and it would appear to represent the image of a tree. So the scholars took from this hadith that if an image is changed, it exits the prohibition and becomes permissible. But unfortunately, they did not stop at or adhere to this change that Jibril specified for the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon them both), i.e., they did not stop at this total change, which is what obscures the features of the previous image and then another image appears like the permissible tree. They did not stop at this comprehensive change, but said, for example, if the image, an image on paper for example, is changed by drawing a line on the neck. They claimed that this image had its form changed. Why? They claimed that its head became separated from the body. What is the benefit of this image? If this image was changed, it became permissible. And the sequence of changes, if this expression is correct, the absolute comprehensive change mentioned by the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) regarding Jibril, they narrowed its circle. They said, as you heard in the first change, that a line is drawn on the neck, so the image remained as it is, and it is a permissible image because it was changed. So this is change number one to the total change ordered by Jibril (peace be upon him) in the previous hadith. Then they were not satisfied with this change and moved to another stage. They said if the image is half, this is a great calamity, so this is a permissible image because a person does not live with half of himself unless he has the ribs and the belly and so on. This is a changed image. And we all know that the criterion for everything, and especially for the human being, is his head. So if the head remains and the legs, for example, are gone, the image and its effect in the society that the wise Lawgiver fears, even in the distant future, have not been eliminated. And for that reason, one of the causes of the wisdom of forbidding images is that images were forbidden so that they are not worshipped besides Allah (Mighty and Majestic), even in the distant future.