Muslim 2737 records what is among the most theologically antisemitic and anti-Christian hadith in the Sunni canon. The teaching: on the Day of Resurrection, every Muslim destined for Hell because of his sins will be 'redeemed' or 'ransomed' by Allah substituting a Jew or a Christian to take his place. The Muslim goes to Paradise; the Jew or Christian who never sinned that specific sin goes to Hell instead.
The hadith is sahih in Muslim, with the explicit notation that ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz (the eighth Umayyad caliph and a respected figure in Sunni piety) himself questioned the report and required the narrator to swear by Allah that he had heard it from Muhammad. The narrator (Abu Burdah, son of Abu Musa al-Ashʿari) did so swear. The report's preservation in the canonical collection thus passed through this verification.
The theological problems:
1. Substitutionary damnation. The hadith establishes a mechanism in which non-Muslims are punished for Muslims' sins. A Jew or Christian who lived a different life, made different choices, and committed different (or no) sins is sent to Hell as a 'ransom' for a Muslim's eternal welfare. This violates basic individual moral responsibility — each person should answer for his or her own deeds.
2. Quranic conflict. Q 6:164 explicitly states: 'No bearer of burdens shall bear the burden of another' (lā taziru wāziratun wizra ukhrā). The principle is that no one carries another's sin. The same principle appears in Q 17:15, Q 35:18, Q 39:7, Q 53:38. The hadith Muslim 2737 directly contradicts this principle: a Jew or Christian carries the burden (the hellfire punishment) of a Muslim's sins.
3. Theological antisemitism. The hadith's structure — Jews and Christians are exchangeable for Muslims in damnation — depicts non-Muslims as the disposable reservoir of Hell's population. This is not a peripheral implication; it is the hadith's central mechanism. The teaching has been a foundational text for theological antisemitism in Islamic discourse: Jews are valued less, ontologically, than Muslims.
4. The 'ransom' framing. The Arabic fidā' (ransom) implies an exchange — the Muslim's freedom from Hell is purchased by the Jew's or Christian's damnation. This commercial-religious framing reduces eternal moral fate to a transaction in which non-Muslims are the collateral.
5. Modern reception. The hadith has been used in modern Islamic anti-Jewish rhetoric, particularly in the post-1948 Israeli-Palestinian context. Hamas, Hezbollah, and various clerical figures have invoked the hadith as evidence of Allah's preference for Muslims over Jews. The hadith remains operative in inflammatory contexts.
6. ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz's discomfort. The fact that the eighth Caliph required the narrator to swear by Allah that he had heard the hadith from Muhammad suggests the Caliph found it theologically uncomfortable. This is one of the rare canonical cases where a Caliph publicly demanded oath-verification of a hadith. The discomfort indicates that the hadith was already controversial in the early period.
7. The classical responses. Classical Sunni scholars have offered several interpretive moves: (a) the hadith refers to specific Jews and Christians who would have been damned anyway; (b) the 'substitution' is not a literal exchange but a metaphor for Allah's mercy; (c) the hadith should be read alongside Q 6:164 and harmonised. None of these is fully convincing — the hadith's plain text describes substitutionary damnation, which the classical responses cannot fully explain away.
- P1. Muslim 2737 records Muhammad teaching that on the Day of Resurrection, Jews and Christians will be substituted for Muslims in Hell as a 'ransom.'
- P2. The hadith is sahih in Muslim and required oath-verification from the Caliph ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz, indicating its early-period theological discomfort.
- P3. Q 6:164 (and parallels Q 17:15, 35:18, 39:7, 53:38) explicitly state that no soul bears another soul's burden.
- P4. The hadith's substitutionary mechanism directly contradicts the Quranic principle of individual moral responsibility.
- P5. The structure depicts non-Muslims as the disposable reservoir for Hell's population, providing a textual foundation for theological antisemitism.
- P6. Modern Islamic anti-Jewish rhetoric has cited the hadith — particularly in the post-1948 context — as evidence of Allah's preference for Muslims over Jews.
- P7. A morally serious revelation does not punish one person for another person's sins, especially when the punished person is a member of a religious group that is then theologically denigrated.
Muslim 2737 is a sahih hadith with significant theological problems. It establishes a mechanism — substitutionary damnation of Jews and Christians for Muslim sinners — that directly contradicts the Quran's individual-responsibility principle. The hadith is foundational antisemitic material in the Islamic textual record. Modern Muslim apologetic responses face the difficulty that the hadith plainly says what it says, and harmonising it with Q 6:164 requires hermeneutic moves that few classical scholars made. The hadith is what we would expect of 7th-century intra-religious polemic — privileging in-group salvation by depicting out-group damnation — and exactly what we would not expect of a divine teaching about ultimate moral judgment.
The hadith refers to specific Jews and Christians who would have been condemned for their own sins anyway — they are not punished for Muslims' sins, but their pre-existing damnation is repurposed to redeem Muslims.
The hadith does not specify pre-existing damnation; it says Jews and Christians will be substituted as ransom. The 'specific guilty individuals' reading inserts qualifications the text does not contain. And even granting it, the framework still treats the damned as instruments for redeeming Muslims — using their suffering for someone else's benefit, which is itself morally problematic. The defence does not save the substitutionary structure.
The hadith is metaphorical for Allah's mercy — the 'substitution' depicts the magnitude of mercy granted to Muslims, not a literal exchange.
If metaphorical, the metaphor is gratuitously antisemitic. Why frame divine mercy specifically as substitution of Jews and Christians for Muslims? The choice of imagery reflects a theological framework in which non-Muslims are conceptually expendable. And classical scholars (Nawawi in Sharh Muslim) read the hadith largely literally, with various harmonising attempts. The metaphorical reading is modern and apologetic.
Q 6:164 ('no soul bears another's burden') is the operative principle — the hadith should be harmonised with the Quran and read as compatible.
The harmonisation is the difficulty. The hadith plainly contradicts the Quranic principle. Standard Sunni hermeneutic privileges the Quran in such conflicts, but Sunni scholars have been reluctant to declare the hadith outright invalid because it is in Muslim. The conflict reveals an internal inconsistency in the system's claim that Quran and authentic hadith are mutually consistent.
ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz's verification process actually strengthened the hadith — the Caliph ensured it was authentic, which we should accept.
The verification confirms the chain of transmission, not the doctrinal soundness. ʿUmar's discomfort is itself significant — it shows that the early community recognised theological problems. The verification proves Abu Burdah said his father heard it from Muhammad; it does not prove that the report was correctly remembered, correctly contextualised, or theologically sound. Verification confirms hadith mechanics, not doctrinal coherence.
Modern Muslims do not interpret the hadith as antisemitic — pastoral teaching emphasises individual responsibility and respect for People of the Book.
The hadith remains in Muslim's canonical text. Modern pastoral practice may de-emphasise it, but Hamas, Hezbollah, and various political-clerical figures continue to invoke it. The 'modern non-application' represents selective filtering of inconvenient texts, not textual revision. And the hadith's continued availability for political weaponisation shows that its problematic character is not eliminated by selective non-application.