What is the ruling on fasting on Saturday as a voluntary act?

The questioner : What is the ruling, O Shaykh, on fasting on Saturday?

The Shaykh : It is not permissible to fast on that day, and the hadith on this matter is explicit, namely his saying (peace and blessings be upon him) This hadith is, first of all, authentic, there is no doubt in it. What is said in some books—that so-and-so says this hadith is a lie, and so-and-so says it is a confused hadith—this arose either because the hadith did not reach the person who made the statement at all, which is the case with those who called it a lie, or because they did not trace the routes of the hadith with good, precise follow-up, so they said it is a confused hadith. The confused hadith is, without a doubt, among the categories of weak hadith according to the scholars of hadith. Some of them explicitly affirmed the authenticity of the hadith. These are three positions from the hadith perspective: one person says it is a lie, and this is refuted against the one who said it, if it is true that he said it, because it was reported as a hanging narration without a chain. The second position is that it is a confused hadith, and this was said by many scholars of hadith, including Imam al-Nasa'i. And some authenticated the hadith and strengthened it, such as al-Hakim, Ibn Khuzaymah, Ibn Hibban, al-Tirmidhi, and many others. From these, we can include Imam Abu Dawud al-Sirjistani, the author of the Sunan known by it, in the group of those who authenticated the hadith. We can include him in the group of those who authenticated this hadith because, although he reported that that Imam said it was a lie, he himself said it is an abrogated hadith. In that case, the student of knowledge understands from a scholar’s statement that a hadith is abrogated that it is a hadith established from the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him); otherwise, if it were not established, there would be no need to claim abrogation. This means authentication in an indirect way, but it is authentication without doubt or ambiguity. Whoever says about a hadith that it is abrogated, it necessarily follows that it is an authentic hadith. Imam Abu Dawud says this hadith is abrogated. So when we finish presenting the scholars’ opinions from the hadith perspective on this hadith, we say: whoever invalidates what is said about a hadith that a group of Imams have authenticated and which has several routes—invalidating the claim that such a hadith is a lie—then that claim is void of consideration, and we should not waste our time discussing it. The second defect is confusion. There is no doubt that whoever traces the routes and chains of this hadith cannot do anything but admit that there is confusion in it. But this does not mean that he can say it is a confused hadith. Perhaps it is not hidden from some of you that there is a difference between saying there is confusion in this hadith and saying it is a confused hadith. Because if we say it is a confused hadith, that equates it to a weak hadith. I do not mind mentioning a point on the occasion of these two defects: this does not equate to...
I was young, after my beard had grown, as they say, in my father’s shop for repairing watches. One day, a middle-aged man came to me; he was an officer in the Turkish army. I later learned his name from him: Najm al-Din Bey, as was the custom of the Turks at that time. He took a watch out of his pocket; watches at that time were mostly pocket watches. He handed it to me, and while I was opening it for inspection, he began to praise and commend us, based on what he had heard, that we were a group of honest and skilled watch repairers, and so on. I said to him, this praise is not fitting for you, because you have not yet dealt with us. I pointed to the hairs that had grown on my beard and said, do not be deceived by this; try it and then judge. He said, no, the Muslim has intuition. Then the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said I quickly responded by saying, this is a weak hadith. I was young and very surprised, meaning a young man of this age saying this is a weak hadith, while the man was middle-aged, and with the few who wore beards at that time, he had a beard, though it was light, according to the custom of the common people in the Levant. "The best of beards is a sign of..."
The audience: Heh

The Shaykh : The man’s eyes rolled in his face. He said, how can this be a weak hadith? We read it recently from the Shaykh. I said to him, where did you read it? He said, in al-Risalah al-Qushayriyyah. So here, too, in a hadith, his mind flew away. I said to him, al-Risalah al-Qushayriyyah is not a hadith book; it is a book of Sufism. So knowledge is specialized. If we want to know an authentic hadith, we do not take it from books of Sufism; we take it from books of hadith. If we want to know a jurisprudential issue, we take it from books of jurisprudence, and so on.
He stood confused and began to ask me, who did you study under? I said to him, I did not study under anyone. He said, you must have studied under Shaykh Muhyi al-Din, or Badr al-Din, Shaykh Badr al-Din; he was called the Muhaddith of the Levant in his time. I said to him, no. He said, perhaps Shaykh Ali al-Diqn? I said to him, no. He said, perhaps? I said, this study is personal, a summary without connection, as they say in our place. He said, I want to bring you the chain of the hadith. I said to him, welcome. He was absent for two or three days, and I was sitting in the shop. Our shop had a western facade, facing the setting sun in summer, so I would lower... the iron and leave a small opening for the customer. So I did not notice until a paper was thrown into my lap. What is this? I did not see him again. I opened the paper, and there was the hadith, transmitted from the text of al-Risalah al-Qushayriyyah with the chain, indeed. I wished he had stayed so I could give him the answer. Anyway, he came to pick up the watch according to the appointment. He said to me, did you see the hadith? Here is the point. I said to him, yes, I saw the hadith. He said to me, what did you see? I said, I saw that the author weakens the hadith. The point is, he said, no, what is the talk? I transmitted it, I did this, and so on. At that time, we had pens called "copying pens", meaning not dry; at that time, one would do this and write. So what did I write for him? I wrote for him this chain: I read it to you from 'Atiyyah al-'Aufi from Abu Sa'id al-Khudri, who said, the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said. I wrote for him: 'Atiyyah. Two defects equate to weak according to the scholars of hadith. Since al-Qushayri mentioned this hadith with the chain, it means, O reader, look at the chain. I do not bear responsibility for the chain; I narrated the hadith as it came to me with its chain. This is its chain. You, then, study. Do you want to know? 'Atiyyah al-'Aufi is a weak man. The point is, if it is said about a hadith that it is a confused hadith, what does it equate to?

The questioner : A weak hadith.

The Shaykh : However, when it is said that a hadith is *mutashabih* (conflicting), it is not necessary that the chains be equal; they may be equal, or they may not be. How is this? They mentioned in the science of hadith terminology, and we know this by experience, that not every hadith in which there is conflict is thereby defective and weakened. Rather, it is only defective and weakened if the conflict in the hadith is from chains of equal strength. This conflict from multiple chains, where each chain is equal to the other in strength, means that the narrator was unable to secure the hadith, and so he sometimes says it this way and sometimes that way. But if the chain, or one of the paths of this currently conflicting hadith, is stronger than the other paths, then we study this stronger path in particular. And as long as it is stronger, we discard the other paths. Thus, the hadith is no longer considered conflicting because one of its paths has become stronger. Then we study this stronger path in terms of its content. If it gives us authenticity, we say it is an authentic hadith, and the conflict is in the weaker paths. If it gives us weakness, we say it is a weak hadith, not because it is conflicting, but because the strongest path contains weakness. I will confirm this for you with an example. As our Lord taught us in the Qur'an, . If a hadith comes, for example, from Imam al-Zuhri, and you all know that he is a mountain of trustworthiness, precision, and memorization, and from Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib, the master of the Tabi'un, and this is from Abu Hurayrah: al-Zuhri from Sa'id from Abu Hurayrah. This is a sound chain with no issue. But those who narrated the hadith from al-Zuhri—here is where the conflict arises. Some say, for example, as we mentioned to you: al-Zuhri from Sa'id from Abu Hurayrah. If it were not for the other chains, what would we say about this chain? Without a doubt, it is authentic. But if another trustworthy person, other than the one who narrated the first version from al-Zuhri, says: from al-Zuhri from Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib from a man from Abu Hurayrah. Is there an issue here? He has introduced an unknown person between Sa'id and Abu Hurayrah. A third person narrates again from al-Zuhri from Sa'id from a person he names, but this person is unknown, as if he said "from a man..." and he listed the examples. He names him, but this named person is weak. This named person is weak. If it came only from the path of al-Zuhri from Sa'id from this weak person from Abu Hurayrah, the hadith would be weak. When these chains come, they represent to you the hadith with a conflicting chain. Now, if we assume we have presented four chains from the trustworthy narrators from al-Zuhri, where each one brought us a chain, and they are all trustworthy, we do not need to prefer one path over another. We would say: what is this hadith? A conflicting hadith. But if we assume that one of these four who narrated from al-Zuhri one of the four chains is the most precise in memorization, then his path becomes the stronger one, and the other paths become the weaker ones. We discard them and study this stronger path. Let us assume now that the stronger path regarding the narrator from al-Zuhri is the first path, for example: Yunus ibn Yazid al-A'ili from al-Zuhri from Sa'id from Abu Hurayrah. This is a sound chain. It does not harm us that it came from another path, because those who narrated the hadith from al-Zuhri via the other paths are not in the position of Yunus ibn Yazid al-A'ili in terms of precision and strength. Now, let us reverse it. Suppose the stronger version is the second one, which says: from al-Zuhri from Sa'id from a man from Abu Hurayrah. The hadith has exited the state of being conflicting because this version is stronger, but this version does not give the hadith authenticity because it contains what? An unknown man. And so on. I think I have made it clear to you: how a hadith becomes conflicting, and when it does not become conflicting, even if it comes from different chains.
Our previous hadith, , has conflict, but it is not considered conflicting. Why? Because it came from three paths in one form. That is, three trustworthy narrators narrated the hadith from... "There is no god but Allah." The hadith, my master, is from Thawr ibn Yazid al-Shami from Khalid ibn Ma'dan from Abdullah ibn Busr. This is a Companion, and indeed he is the last of the Companions of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) to die in Sham. Khalid ibn Ma'dan is trustworthy, and the six compilers relied on him, including naturally the two Sahihs. The narrator from him, Thawr ibn Yazid, is relied upon by al-Bukhari, and he is trustworthy. Multiple paths came in one form from this noble Companion. So the hadith is authentic, and it does not harm us that it came from other chains like the ones remaining in my memory from Abdullah ibn Busr. The same path: Thawr from Khalid from Abdullah ibn Busr from his sister al-Sam'ah. What is the difference? The first was from the Companion himself, who said: I heard the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) say: . One of the chains of conflict is from Abdullah ibn Busr from his sister al-Sam'ah. A third chain is from his aunt al-Sam'ah. A fourth chain is from Aishah. It exited being from his sister or his aunt, etc. But all these chains are weaker compared to the first chain narrated by the three trustworthy narrators. So one who studies this hadith says finally: this is a conflicting hadith, but its conflict does not affect its authenticity because some of its stronger paths are authentic in themselves. Another important point in this matter: it is established from Abdullah ibn Busr that he said: "Fasting on Saturday is neither for you nor against you". This is a ruling from the narrator of the hadith, which strengthens the rank of the hadith from a jurisprudential perspective. "Fasting on Saturday is neither for you nor against you". This is an expression from one who draws from the wellspring of Prophethood and the Message, because it is exactly equal to . So what is taken from the hadith? Did he fast or did he break the fast? Does he fast?
The attendees: No.

The Shaykh : He does not fast. What do we take from this Companion's statement: "Fasting on Saturday is neither for you nor against you"? Do we fast? We do not fast. Why? Because if we want to fast, we fast for the reward, and he will tell you "it is not for you." And if he said "nor against you," it means "nor against you," just as he said: "He did not fast and he did not break the fast". So Islamic jurisprudence gives us this ruling, even if we did not have the first hadith, , because of this Companion's statement, and there is no other Companion's statement contradicting it. We say this is the jurisprudence of a noble Companion, so we are with him: we do not fast on Saturday. But the hadith is actually more important than this Companion's statement. Why? Because a Companion's statement may be subject to specification. For example, suppose that... the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) may be subject to specification. This is what some scholars did with the first hadith, . They said: unless it is a day with him. They argued for this with a hadith that appears to be a proof, because it is in Sahih al-Bukhari. It is the hadith of Juwayriyah. When the food was placed in front of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), he invited her to eat. She said: "I am fasting". He said: . She said: "No". He said: , meaning Saturday. She said: "No". He said: . So this hadith appears to contradict our first hadith, meaning that it permits fasting on Saturday in order to avoid the singularity of Friday by fasting. Our answer in this case is in two ways. The first way, and this is what happened in the past 'Arafah: most people fasted on Saturday and did not have news of fasting on Friday, because they do not fast on Friday, just as they do not fast on Saturday or Thursday, like most people. But the Day of 'Arafah has this established virtue in the Sunnah: it expiates the previous year and the following year. So most people fasted on Saturday alone.
Students of knowledge, here are those who read in the books and do not have the capability... they come to discuss what the Messenger allowed Juwayriyah to fast on Saturday. Our answer in that case is on two tracks. The first track: we ask those who fasted on the Day of 'Arafah, which was a Saturday, and did not fast on Friday, what is their excuse? These people did not fast on Friday so that they would be permitted to fast on Saturday. Thus, these people contradicted the hadith in its core. We say to those who may have actually fasted on Friday and intend to act upon the hadith of Juwayriyah: No, it is not permissible for you to fast on Friday, even if you intended to fast on Saturday. Why? Because there are general scientific, usuli, and fiqhi rules, and now comes what relates to the topic of preference (tarjih) and reconciliation (jam'), etc. Al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar (may Allah have mercy on him) says: If two hadiths from the category of acceptable ones contradict each other, it is necessary to reconcile them by one of the modes of reconciliation. Al-Hafiz al-'Iraqi, in his commentary on the Introduction to the Sciences of Hadith by Ibn al-Salah, mentioned more than one hundred modes for reconciling two contradictory hadiths. If reconciliation between two contradictory hadiths is not possible, then the search for the abrogating and the abrogated (nasikh wa mansukh) comes into play. Among the modes of preference, if a prohibitive hadith (hā'ir) and a permissive hadith (mubīh) contradict each other, the prohibitive is preferred over the permissive. Now, the hadith of Juwayriyah is permissive because he (peace and blessings be upon him) permitted fasting on Saturday. But as for the one who fasted on Friday, the problem is resolved for him. Yes. The one who fasted on Friday, the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) permitted in that hadith and others for him to fast on Saturday. But the hadith of 'Abdullah ibn Busr is prohibitive, meaning it is preferred over the permissive hadith of Juwayriyah, because we cannot reconcile them by any of the many methods indicated by Al-Hafiz al-'Iraqi (may Allah have mercy on him) except by this method: prohibitive and permissive. This is a rule derived from evidence in the Shari'ah, including Allah does not burden you with fasting on Friday for the sake of fasting on Saturday and falling into contradiction with the hadith And if we wanted to do as some scholars in the past said, to specify the hadith with the hadith of Juwayriyah, the result would be... regarding the speech of the Messenger, whose summary is his saying The one who was given the summaries of words said absolutely, then he excepted one thing and said: "except in what is obligatory upon you." What are we doing now? "Except in what is obligatory upon you," or if you fast with it on Friday. This is a negation after this general prohibition, then the specific exception: "except in what is obligatory upon you." And here, fasting on Friday is not fasting on Saturday; fasting on Saturday is not among what is obligatory upon us. Thus, we prefer the prohibitive over what? The permissive, which is the hadith of Juwayriyah (may Allah be pleased with her). And the closest example to what we are saying—and I said this on the occasion of the festival, glory to Allah, Saturday was the Day of 'Arafah, Sunday was the first day of the festival, the Day of Sacrifice, and Monday was the first day of the days of Tashriq. Now, did anyone fast on Sunday? The answer is no. Even though those who contradict the hadith argue with it, and today one person asked me in the mosque, saying that the Messenger used to fast on Saturday, used to fast on Sunday, and when asked, he would say: "They are days of festival for the Jews and Christians, so I love to fast on them." Now, it came. Yes?

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh : Yes, he brought this hadith? Good.
Sunday came, which is a festival day for us, and the Messenger used to fast on it as an obligation. I say "obligation" because this hadith is weak in its chain, and it has been established for us recently. So, suppose the Messenger used to fast on Sunday, as we know for certain that he used to fast on Thursday and used to fast on what? Monday. Now, did anyone fast on the festival day? It was a Sunday, and it is among the days the Messenger used to fast, as some say regarding some hadiths. No.