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Muhammad
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"The fifth case is when the speaker does not intend to disparage the Prophet nor mention a fault nor curse him. However, he appropriates some of the Prophet's attributes or cites one of his states which were allowed for him alone in this world, likening himself or someone else to him. Or he might mention an unfortunate occurrence which happened to the Prophet or a mishap connected to him, not saying it by way of consolation and verification but rather with the intention of promoting himself or someone else or to liken him to the Prophet or out of lack of respect for the Prophet or meaning what he says as a joke."
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Translated
by Aisha
Abdarrahman Bewley
Part
Four
The fifth case is when the speaker does not intend to disparage the Prophet nor mention a fault nor curse him. However, he appropriates some of the Prophet's attributes or cites one of his states which were allowed for him alone in this world, likening himself or someone else to him. Or he might mention an unfortunate occurrence which happened to the Prophet or a mishap connected to him, not saying it by way of consolation and verification but rather with the intention of promoting himself or someone else or to liken him to the Prophet or out of lack of respect for the Prophet or meaning what he says as a joke. An example of this is someone who says, "If something is said about me, it was also said about the Prophet," or, "If I am called a liar, the Prophets were called liars," or, "I am safe from the tongues of people while the Prophet of Allah and His Messengers were not safe from them," or, "I am patient as those of resolution were patient," or, "like the patience of Ayyub," or, "The Prophet of Allah was patient and endured his enemy and was forbearing in much the same way as I am." It is like the words of al-Mutanabbi:
And similar things are found in the poems of arrogant men who indulge themselves and speak carelessly like al-Ma'arri:
There is something terrible at the end of the poem which contains contempt and belittlement of the Prophet and preference for the state of someone else.
The first half of the second verse contains something terrible since it makes someone similar in excellence to the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. There are two possible ways that this kind of insidiousness shows itself. One is that this "excellence" lowers the Prophet and the other is in order to remove excellence from him. The latter is more terrible. We find a similar thing in another poem:
Another of the people of this time[37] said:
Another example is what Hassan al-Masisi, an Andalusian poet, said about Muhammad ibn 'Abbad, known as al-Mu'tamid, and his wazir, Abu Bakr ibn Zaydun:
There are many more examples like this. We have a lot of evidence of things of this nature but we are extremely loath to relate them and thus publicise them. People are loose in speech, indulging themselves by entering through this narrow door and attaching no importance to the gravity it entails. They do not realise what a terrible wrong action lies in it. They speak about what they do not know, "and you reckon it to be a light thing, while it is a mighty thing with Allah." (24:16) This is especially the case with the poets. The worst of them regarding clears tatements and free speech were Ibn Hani' al-Andalusi and Ibn Sulayman al-Ma'arri. Many of their words reach the limit of scorn, disparagement and clear disbelief. We have given the answer to this. Now we intend to discuss this subject through the examples we have given. All of this, even if does not contain a curse or relate to disparagement of the angels and Prophets (and I do not mean the two wretched verses of al-Ma'arri nor the intention of the speaker to belittle and show contempt), nevertheless contains no respect for prophethood nor esteem for the message nor regard for the chosen ones nor consideration for the honour that is due them. Such people make another person similar to Prophet regarding the honour in which they are held or regarding a blemish which they mean to make light of, or make a resemblance in connection with the delight of his company, or extol a quality to beautify someone's words by means of the one whose importance Allah has exalted and whose worth He honoured and whose respect and obedience He has made binding. Allah forbade that the Prophet be spoken to loudly or that a voice be raised in his Presence. This right is defended by execution, discipline, imprisonment or strong reprimand depending on the enormity of what the person has said, the ugliness of what he has uttered, whether this sort of thing is a habit with him or a rare occurrence, the context of his words, and his regret for what he has done. The early people objected to this sort of thing. Harun ar-Rashid rebuked the poet Abu Nuwas for saying,
Ar-Rashid said to him, "Son of a stinking uncircumcised woman! You are mocking the staff of Musa!" He commanded that he be removed from his army that very night. Al-Qutaybi mentioned that the part of this poem for which Abu Nuwas was censured and charged with disbelief were his words about Muhammad al-Amin[38] when he likened him to the Prophet by saying:
They also objected to his words:
Because of the right of the Messenger and the obligation to esteem him, his position is too lofty for anyone to be related to it. The judgement regarding things like this are as we have already detailed in the fatwas about this subject. The fatwas of the Imam of our school, Malik ibn Anas, and his companions have already been presented. There are incidents from the transmission of Ibn Abi Maryam about a man who rebuked another man for poverty. He retorted, "Do you rebuke me for poverty when the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, herded sheep?" Malik said, "He has alluded to the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, outside its proper place and I think that he should be disciplined." He added, "When people of wrong action are censured, they should not say that the Prophets before them erred." 'Umar ibn 'Abdu'l-'Aziz said to a man, "Search out a scribe for us whose father was an Arab." One of his scribes said, "But the Prophet’s father was an unbeliever." He said, "You dare make this comparison!" He dismissed him, saying, "You will never write for me again." Sahnun disliked people saying the prayer on the Prophet on account of astonishment, unless it was out of regard and proper consideration because of the respect and esteem for him which Allah has commanded. Al-Qabisi was asked about a man who said to an ugly man, "Like the face of Nakir!" and to a frowning man, "Like the face of angry Malik!" He asked, "What did he mean by that? Nakir is one of the questioners of the grave, and they are angels. What did he mean? Is it terror which filled him when he saw him because of his face or was he simply averse to look at him because of his ugly appearance? If this is the case, it is terrible because it is a way of belittlement and humiliation, so there is a more severe punishment." There is no clear statement here which might be construed as cursing an angel. The curse falls on the one addressed. There is exemplary punishment by flogging and imprisonment for the insolence involved. He said, "As for mentioning Malik, the Guardian of the Fire, the one who mentioned him in connection with his dislike of the other man frowning was being coarse unless the man who frowned possessed power and hence the first man was alarmed by his frown. In that case the speaker compared him to Malik to censure the one who frowned for what he did and for holding to, in spite of injustice, the attribute of Malik, the angel who obeys his Lord in his action. It is as if he were saying, 'By Allah! He has the anger of Malik!' For this reason his punishment is lighter." However he should not allude to this sort of thing. If he was praising the frowner for his frown and used the quality of Malik to express his praise, that is even worse, and he should be severely punished. There is, however, no censure in this statement against the angel. If he had intended to blame the angel, then he should have been put to death. Abu'l-Hasan al-Qabisi also said that a young man known as Khayr said something to a man and the man said to him, "Shut up, you are illiterate." The youth retorted, "Wasn't the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, illiterate?" He was denounced for that and the people called him an unbeliever. The young man became fearful about what he had said and showed regret. Abu'l-Hasan said, "It is an error to say that he is an unbeliever. But he made a mistake in quoting this quality of the Prophet as an argument. If he asks for forgiveness, repents, admits it and takes refuge in Allah, he will be left alone because what he said did not reach the limit of killing, and as for discipline, the one who voluntarily repents must be spared it." There was
a case where one of the qadis of Andalusia asked for a fatwa
from our Shaykh, Abu Muhammad ibn Mansur,[39]
about a man who was demeaned for something by another man and he said
to him, "You mean to say that I am imperfect. Well, I am a mortal and
all mortals are touched by imperfection, even the Prophet, may Allah
bless him and grant him peace." He gave a fatwa that the man
should be jailed for a long time and painfully punished since he did
not intend to curse. One of the Andalusian fuqaha' gave a fatwa
that the man should be killed.
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