al-Tabarani

The three lexicons of al-Tabarani (d. AD 971): al-Mu'jam al-Kabir, al-Mu'jam al-Awsat and al-Mu'jam al-Saghir. A main source of reports outside the six books. Not one of the six canonical books. Many reports here are graded weak; each entry names its grading and links the printed edition so you can check it.

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Muhammad parts the little al-Husayn's thighs and kisses his zabiba Prophetic Character Strange / Obscure Basic al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir 2658
"I saw the Prophet spread apart al-Husayn's thighs and kiss his zabiba."

What the hadith says

Ibn Abbas reports that he saw the Prophet spread apart the thighs of his grandson al-Husayn, then a small child, and kiss his zabiba. The word literally means 'little raisin'; here it is the little boy's penis, which is how the classical scholars who discuss the report understood it. Al-Tabarani records it twice in al-Mu'jam al-Kabir (2658 and 12615), through Qabus b. Abi Zabyan from his father, and Ibn 'Adi and al-Diya' al-Maqdisi also transmit it. The grading is split. Al-Haythami says 'its chain is hasan' (Majma' al-Zawa'id 15108), al-Shawkani says the same in one of his works, and al-Diya' placed it in al-Mukhtara, his selection of reports he considered sound. Ibn Hajar, Ibn al-Mulaqqin and Ibn al-Qaysarani weaken it because of Qabus, whom al-Nasa'i called weak.

Why this is a problem

Nothing in the text or in its classical reception suggests a sexual act, and this entry claims none. The jurists who cite the report discuss it under one question only: whether touching a penis breaks ablution. Al-Haythami and al-Diya' simply file it among al-Husayn's merits. Ibn Hajar raises it in al-Talkhis al-Habir, and al-Bayhaqi, on a similar report about al-Hasan, comments that it does not say the Prophet touched it with his hand and then prayed without renewing his ablution.

That is the difficulty. Islam presents the Prophet's conduct as the model for believers, and a report that a leading hadith critic graded hasan shows him parting a small child's thighs to kiss his genitals. The jurists treated it as an ordinary data point for purity law, not as something that needed explaining. Whatever the intent, it is not behaviour a modern reader expects to find recorded, without comment, in the life of the model man, and a believer who takes the sunna as the measure of good conduct has no ground within the tradition to call it out of place.

The Muslim response

Muslim critics answer first that the report is weak. Qabus b. Abi Zabyan was called weak by al-Nasa'i, Abu Hatim and others, and Ibn Hibban said he 'narrates alone from his father things that have no basis', which is exactly this chain (the narrator's entries in the rijal books). Even if the report were accepted, they say, it shows a grandfather's tenderness towards an infant grandson, and the jurists used it only to discuss the law of ablution (Ibn Hajar, al-Talkhis al-Habir; al-Bayhaqi, al-Sunan al-Kubra).

Why it fails

The weakness argument is fair but not decisive. Al-Haythami, al-Shawkani in one work and al-Diya' accepted the chain, and Ibn 'Adi said of Qabus that he hoped there was no harm in him (al-Kamil), so the tradition is genuinely divided. The tenderness reading is the natural one, and this entry does not dispute it.

The point is narrower. A report that the Prophet parted a child's thighs and kissed his genitals was transmitted, graded sound by some masters, filed by al-Haythami among al-Husayn's merits, and discussed by jurists only for its consequences for ablution. Their silence about the act itself is what the report reveals: the standard for what needed explaining was set by the Prophet's example, not applied to it.

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Allah has married Muhammad in Paradise to Mary, Moses's sister Kulthum and Pharaoh's wife Prophetic Character Prophetic Privileges Paradise Jesus / Christology Women Basic al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir 8006
"Did you know that God, mighty and majestic, has married me in Paradise to Mary daughter of Imran, Kulthum the sister of Moses, and Pharaoh's wife?"

What the hadith says

In this report, narrated by Abu Umama, the Prophet tells Aisha that God has married him in Paradise to three women of earlier scripture: Mary the mother of Jesus, Kulthum the sister of Moses, and the wife of Pharaoh. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Kabir (8006). A second version in the same work (vol. 22 no. 1100) has him tell Khadija, naming Pharaoh's wife as Asiya. Khadija asks whether God has really done this, he says yes, and she answers with the customary wedding congratulation: 'With harmony and sons!' Ibn Kathir transmits these reports in his commentary on Q 66:5. The critics grade every route weak or worse. Al-Albani called the Abu Umama report munkar (al-Silsila al-Da'ifa 812) and fabricated (7053); al-Haythami names its weak narrator, Khalid b. Yusuf al-Samti, and calls the Khadija route broken; al-Dhahabi records al-Bukhari's verdict that its narrator Yunus b. Shu'ayb is munkar al-hadith; and Ibn Kathir himself calls it weak.

Why this is a problem

Q 66:5 is a warning to the Prophet's own wives: if he divorced them, his Lord might give him better wives in their place. That is the verse under which Ibn Kathir places these reports, and the setting shows what the story does. Women the Quran honours in their own right, above all Mary, whom it says God chose 'above the women of the worlds' (Q 3:42), become a reward for Muhammad in the next life, assigned to him by God with no word about their own will. Mary, the virgin mother of Jesus, is made the bride of a later prophet.

The story fits a wider pattern of privilege. On earth Muhammad was allowed more wives than other believers; here the privilege extends past death to the most celebrated women of earlier revelation. Khadija's reply turns it into a family celebration, with the wedding greeting for a marriage she will share.

The Muslim response

The standard Muslim answer is that none of this is authentic. IslamQA surveys all the routes and concludes that 'all the hadiths on this subject are weak and munkar; none of them is sound' (IslamQA 111279). On this view the story has no more standing than any other unsound report, and Muslims are not answerable for it.

Why it fails

On the chains that answer is right, and this entry does not treat the report as authentic. But it is not a forgery the tradition threw out. It sits in al-Tabarani's major collection and in Ibn Kathir's commentary, one of the most widely read tafsirs, under the verse about replacement wives. And it is still taught: a Hanafi mufti on the AskImam service affirms that Asiya and Mary will be among the Prophet's wives in Paradise, citing Ibn Kathir on 66:5 and the Abu Umama hadith while noting al-Haythami's remark on its weakness (AskImam fatwa). A belief that survives the critics' verdict and is restated in fatwas belongs to the tradition, not to its opponents.

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'I saw my Lord in a dream as a young man ... wearing golden sandals' Allah's Character Strange / Obscure Moderate al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir vol. 25 no. 346
"I saw my Lord in a dream in the form of a dignified young man, in green, wearing two sandals of gold."

What the hadith says

Umm al-Tufayl, the wife of Ubayy b. Ka'b, reports that the Prophet said he saw his Lord in a dream in the form of a young man dressed in green, wearing two sandals of gold, with what the text calls a firash of gold on his face. Firash is unclear in this position (a spread or covering); other versions instead seat him on a golden couch. The printed text has muwaqqar, 'dignified'; al-Dhahabi and others read muwaffar, 'with thick hair'. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Kabir (vol. 25 no. 346), and it also appears in al-Bayhaqi's al-Asma' wa-l-Sifat (942), al-Daraqutni's Ru'yat Allah (287) and Ibn al-Jawzi's book of defective reports (al-'Ilal al-Mutanahiya 9). The critics are united against it. Ahmad b. Hanbal called it munkar and its narrator Marwan b. Uthman unknown; al-Bukhari found no evidence that Umara b. Amir heard from Umm al-Tufayl; Ibn Hibban and al-Dhahabi called it munkar; and al-Albani graded it fabricated (al-Silsila al-Da'ifa 6371).

Why this is a problem

The Quran says 'there is nothing like Him' (Q 42:11), and Sunni creed denies that He resembles anything He created. Yet this description of God as a young man in green clothes and gold sandals was not left in some fringe collection. It was copied into the books Sunni scholars wrote on God's attributes and on the vision of God: al-Bayhaqi's al-Asma' wa-l-Sifat and al-Daraqutni's Ru'yat Allah. That shows how much anthropomorphic material circulated among early Muslims, and how close to the centre of creed it travelled.

Nor is the dream itself a marginal motif. A canonical report in al-Tirmidhi (3235) has the Prophet say that, asleep in his night prayer, he saw his Lord 'in the best form'. The Umm al-Tufayl version simply fills in what that form looked like.

The Muslim response

Muslim scholars reject the report outright. Al-Nasa'i's reaction is well known: 'Who is Marwan b. Uthman that he should be believed about God?!' The modern editor al-A'zami concludes that it 'is not sound', and notes that most of the early authorities held that the Prophet did not see God with his eyes (al-A'zami, al-Jami' al-Kamil). A dream, on this view, is not a sight of God, and the sound 'best form' report is a separate tradition that says nothing about youth, clothes or gold.

Why it fails

As a verdict on this report that is correct: by the critics' own standards it is fabricated, and this entry does not say otherwise. Its value lies elsewhere. Apart from al-Nasa'i's outburst, the reasons the critics gave were about the chain: an unknown narrator and a missing link. The image itself was copied into creed works by al-Bayhaqi and al-Daraqutni and survived in the record.

The dream defence also only moves the difficulty. The canonical report still gives God a 'best form' in which the Prophet saw Him. What that form was is the tradition's own question, and the Umm al-Tufayl report is one answer that early transmitters gave to it.

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Born circumcised, private parts never seen; an 'ifrit kept the newborn from nursing Prophetic Character Prophetic Privileges Strange / Obscure Magic & Occult Basic al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 6148
"Part of the honour my Lord has given me is that I was born circumcised, and no one has ever seen my private parts."

What the hadith says

Anas reports the Prophet saying that part of his honour with God is that he was born circumcised and that no one has ever seen his private parts. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Awsat (6148) and al-Mu'jam al-Saghir (936), through a single narrator, Sufyan b. Muhammad al-Missisi. A related report from Aisha in al-Hakim's al-Mustadrak (4177) has a Jew in Mecca announce, on the night of the birth, that the prophet of this community has been born and will not nurse for two nights, 'because an 'ifrit of the jinn has put his two fingers into his mouth and kept him from nursing'. Al-Hakim adds that the reports of the Prophet being born circumcised are mass-transmitted (mutawatir). Most critics weaken the Tabarani report: Ibn al-Jawzi, al-Dhahabi (al-Missisi 'steals hadith'), al-Albani (munkar) and Ibn Kathir. Mughlatay called its chain good and al-Diya' called it sound, as quoted in al-Salihi's Subul al-Huda. Al-Hakim graded his own report sound, and Ibn Hajar is quoted as calling its chain hasan; the editors of the Risala edition call it weak, because its narrator Yahya al-Kinani is unknown.

Why this is a problem

The report turns a detail of anatomy into a badge of prophetic honour. If being born without a foreskin is a mark of God's favour, the foreskin every other boy is born with becomes a defect the Prophet was spared. The second clause reaches further still: 'no one has ever seen' his private parts, a claim that runs back past adult modesty to his birth.

The al-Hakim report shows how such material grew. A Jew in Mecca foretells the birth, one of the jinn physically interferes with a newborn, and one of the great hadith masters declares the circumcision story mutawatir, the category reserved for reports so widely transmitted that error is held impossible. Al-Dhahabi's reply, quoted by the Risala editors, exposes the inflation: 'I do not know that this is even sound, so how could it be mutawatir?!'

The Muslim response

Muslim scholars answer that these are weak reports from the literature on the Prophet's miraculous birth, not doctrine. The Risala editors grade al-Hakim's chain weak and print al-Dhahabi's rebuke alongside Ibn Kathir's remark that 'some claimed it is mutawatir; all of this is doubtful' (al-Mustadrak 4222, Risala ed.). Dorar's list of widespread reports that are not sound includes the born-circumcised hadith (dorar).

Why it fails

That answer is largely right, and the entry grades the reports as the critics do. What they show is the tradition at work. The claim was not invented by outsiders. Al-Tabarani and al-Hakim transmitted it; al-Hakim called it sound and mass-transmitted; Mughlatay and al-Diya' accepted the Tabarani chain; and Ibn Hajar, as quoted, graded al-Hakim's chain hasan.

When a story of a jinn's fingers in an infant prophet's mouth can pass a major hadith master's scrutiny, and the doubts come from other masters rather than from any principle that rules such stories out, the hadith sciences look less like a filter on legend than a long argument over which legends to keep.

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'Whoever reviles the prophets is killed; whoever reviles my Companions is flogged' Hudud Apostasy & Blasphemy Governance Moderate al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Saghir 659
"Whoever reviles the prophets is to be killed, and whoever reviles my Companions is to be flogged."

What the hadith says

In this short report the Prophet sets two penalties: death for insulting a prophet and flogging for insulting his Companions. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Saghir (659) through a line of Ali's descendants, Musa b. Ja'far from his forefathers back to Ali, and remarks that it is narrated from Ali by this chain only, with Isma'il b. Abi Uways its sole transmitter. The weak link is al-Tabarani's own teacher, Ubayd Allah b. Muhammad al-Umari, whom al-Nasa'i accused of lying (al-Haythami, Majma' al-Zawa'id 10568). Ibn Hajar lists it among al-Umari's munkar reports, and al-Albani grades it fabricated (Da'if al-Jami' 5616).

Why this is a problem

The weakness of this hadith decides nothing, because the ruling it states does not rest on it. Ibn al-Qayyim quotes it in Ahkam Ahl al-Dhimma, in his section on reviling the Prophet or the Companions, and says that if it is sound it proves the death penalty (Ahkam Ahl al-Dhimma). An Islamweb fatwa states that killing whoever reviles the Prophet is the view of many scholars, and quotes Ibn al-Mundhir's report of agreement that whoever reviles him explicitly must be killed (fatwa 77625).

If al-Albani is right that the report is fabricated, then someone put into the Prophet's mouth the two-line formula classical law had already reached: speech against prophets is a capital crime, and speech against the first generation of Muslims is a punishable offence. That is a legal order in which criticism of religious figures, including figures long dead, is a matter for the executioner and the judge.

The Muslim response

Muslim writers reply that the hadith is weak and that no ruling is built on it. They also separate the two clauses: insulting a Companion, the fatwas say, is answered with a discretionary penalty (ta'zir) set by the judge, not with a fixed flogging (fatwa 56164). The death penalty for insulting the Prophet, they say, is established on other grounds, set out at length by Ibn Taymiyya in al-Sarim al-Maslul.

Why it fails

That reply concedes the point. Showing the hadith to be weak removes one proof text, not the law: by the fatwas' own account the death penalty for reviling the Prophet is the view of many scholars, with a reported consensus for explicit reviling, and reviling the Companions remains punishable. The weak report and the scholarly consensus say the same thing; the only dispute is over which source carries it.

Answering this hadith by pointing out that it is fabricated, while affirming that its content is the law, is not a defence of free speech. It is a footnote on sourcing.

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'Hang the whip where the household can see it, for it is discipline for them' Women Moral Problems Moderate al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 4382
"Hang up the whip where the people of the house can see it, for it is discipline for them."

What the hadith says

Ibn Abbas reports this instruction in al-Tabarani's al-Mu'jam al-Awsat (4382). Al-Mu'jam al-Kabir has shorter forms (10669-10672), one of them addressed to a single man: 'Hang your whip where your family can see it.' A short form also appears in al-Bukhari's al-Adab al-Mufrad (1229). The word for discipline is adab, and the commentaries take 'the people of the house' to include the wife, the children and the servants (dorar commentary). Al-Haythami grades al-Tabarani's chain hasan, and al-Albani graded it hasan in al-Silsila al-Sahiha (1447; under 1446 he grades a shorter version from Ibn Umar isnaduhu hasan); al-Zurqani and Muhammad Jar Allah al-Sa'di call it weak. The text does not tell anyone to use the whip. It tells them to display it.

Why this is a problem

A whip on the wall works only as a promise. It disciplines the household only because they know it can be used on them; otherwise it would discipline no one. The instruction makes visible intimidation a recommended part of family life, and those it is aimed at are the wife, the children and the servants. Al-Haythami's own chapter heading in Majma' al-Zawa'id files it under disciplining children and the household (Majma' al-Zawa'id).

It sits beside the Quran's permission to strike a disobedient wife (Q 4:34). Read together, the two texts describe a household in which the man holds the instrument and everyone else is reminded of it daily. A hadith graded hasan by two of the most cited graders does not need to order a beating to normalise the threat of one.

The Muslim response

Muslim commentators stress that the hadith speaks of hanging the whip, not using it. It is a threat meant to deter wrongdoing and is 'not meant for striking all the time' (dorar commentary). The Hanafi SeekersGuidance service quotes Ibn al-Anbari that the intent of the hadith is not beating with the whip, and calls the whip a reminder (SeekersGuidance).

Why it fails

The deterrence argument is accurate about the wording and fails on the logic. A deterrent deters only if it is credible; a whip that will never be used is a decoration. Ibn al-Anbari's gloss tells the reader how the whip should be understood, not why it should be on the wall. And the deterrent is aimed not at intruders but at the household itself, which the commentaries define to include the wife.

Restraint in using a weapon is a virtue only where keeping a weapon over one's family is accepted in the first place. That is the norm this hadith sets.

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'Leave me out of the blacks: the black man is only for his belly and his genitals' Moral Problems Strange / Obscure Basic al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir 11463
"Leave me out of [dealing with] the blacks; the black man is only for his belly and his genitals."

What the hadith says

Ibn Abbas reports that black people (al-sudan) were mentioned in the Prophet's presence and that he said these words. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Kabir (11463); his printed text reads 'by his belly' (bi-batnihi) where other sources have 'for his belly' (li-batnihi). The critics treat it as fabricated. Al-Haythami says its chain contains Muhammad b. Zakariyya al-Ghalabi, who is very weak; Ibn al-Jawzi lists it in his book of fabricated reports, and al-Dhahabi keeps it in his abridgement of that book; Ibn al-Qayyim says the reports condemning Abyssinians and blacks are all lies; and al-Albani writes, 'as for the text, I do not doubt it is fabricated'. Al-Suyuti dissented, contesting Ibn al-Jawzi's verdict and pointing to al-Tabarani's route.

Why this is a problem

This is racial contempt placed in the Prophet's mouth: a whole people reduced to appetite and sex. By the critics' verdicts it is fabricated, and this entry does not present it as authentic. What it shows is that such a saying could be attributed to Muhammad, carried by a chain of transmitters, and recorded by al-Tabarani in one of the largest hadith collections.

Nor was it an isolated forgery. Ibn al-Qayyim's verdict is plural: all the hadiths condemning Abyssinians and blacks are lies (al-Manar al-Munif). There was, in other words, a body of anti-black sayings attributed to the Prophet, large enough that a critic had to dismiss it as a category. And al-Suyuti, one of the most prolific scholars of the later tradition, defended this one against the charge of fabrication (al-La'ali' al-Masnu'a).

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that the report is a forgery and contrary to Islam. The Quran says that the noblest of people in God's sight is the most pious (Q 49:13), not any race, and the critics who exposed this report are the tradition's own defence against it. Muslim discussions of it cite al-Albani's verdict that it is fabricated (alukah forum; al-Silsila al-Da'ifa 727).

Why it fails

On authenticity the response is correct, and the site agrees: this is not a saying of Muhammad. But 'the critics caught it' is only half the record. The forgery reached al-Tabarani with a full chain, found a defender in al-Suyuti, and belonged to a wider body of anti-black traditions that Ibn al-Qayyim had to reject wholesale.

The question it leaves is not whether Muhammad said it, but why the community that transmitted his sayings produced and preserved so many of this kind.

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Sa'd b. Ubada killed by the jinn: 'We killed the chief of the Khazraj' Magic & Occult Strange / Obscure Basic al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir 5359
"We killed the chief of the Khazraj, Sa'd b. Ubada; we shot him with two arrows and did not miss his heart."

What the hadith says

This is not a saying of the Prophet but a report about the death of Sa'd b. Ubada, chief of the Medinan tribe of Khazraj and a leading Companion. In Ibn Sirin's version (al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir 5359), Sa'd was urinating standing up when he slumped and died: 'the jinn killed him', and they spoke a couplet claiming it. In Qatada's version (5360, taken from Musannaf Abd al-Razzaq 6778), Sa'd came back from urinating saying 'I feel something in my back', died soon after, and the jinn lamented him with the same verse. Al-Hakim records both in al-Mustadrak (5102-5103). Neither Ibn Sirin nor Qatada met Sa'd, as al-Haythami points out, so both chains are broken, and al-Dhahabi left both out of his abridgement of al-Mustadrak because they are weak.

Why this is a problem

The story presents it as a fact of history that unseen beings shot a leading Companion through the heart with arrows while he relieved himself, and then boasted of it in verse. It was not left to storytellers: Abd al-Razzaq, al-Tabarani and al-Hakim all record it, and Muslim fatwas still describe it as famous among historians.

This is the worldview the hadith literature carries. The jinn are not metaphors but agents who can kill, and a sudden death with no visible cause is explained by them. The early transmitters did not treat the account as absurd; they treated it as the story of how Sa'd died.

The Muslim response

Muslim scholars answer that the report is not a hadith and is not established by hadith standards. Islamweb's fatwas describe it as famous among historians but unproven, something that may be told as history only with its weakness noted (fatwa 102920; fatwa 283117). Belief in the jinn is part of Islam; belief in this particular story is not required.

Why it fails

That is a fair answer about this report, and the entry rates it accordingly. But the objection, as stated, is to the chain, not to the idea that jinn kill people with arrows. A story the scholars may tell as history, with a note on its sources, is a story they find credible in kind.

The weakness concerns who heard the jinn's couplet and passed it on, not whether such a thing could happen. That is what the report shows about the tradition: a jinn assassination was judged by the same tools as any other historical claim, and lost only on the technicalities.

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Adam 'created in the image of the Merciful (al-Rahman)' Allah's Character Logical Inconsistency Moderate al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir 13580
"Do not say 'May Allah make [this] face ugly', for the son of Adam was created in the image of the Merciful, exalted is He."

What the hadith says

Ibn Umar reports the Prophet forbidding people to curse a face as ugly, because 'the son of Adam was created in the image of the Merciful'. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Kabir (13580), and Ibn Abi Asim in al-Sunna (517). The canonical collections have the shorter 'Allah created Adam in his image' (Bukhari 6227, Muslim 2841), where 'his' could refer either to Adam or to Allah. This version names the Merciful, a name of Allah, and settles the question. The grading is disputed. Al-Haythami says its narrators are those of the Sahih except Ishaq b. Isma'il al-Taliqani, who is trustworthy with some weakness, and Ibn Hajar says its men are trustworthy. Al-Albani grades it weak (al-Silsila al-Da'ifa 1176), citing the concealment (tadlis) of two narrators, Habib b. Abi Thabit and al-A'mash, a version by al-Thawri that stops short of a Companion, and the late poor memory of Jarir; the first three defects he takes from Ibn Khuzayma.

Why this is a problem

Islamic creed insists that 'there is nothing like Him' (Q 42:11). Yet a report whose men Ibn Hajar, the foremost commentator on al-Bukhari, calls trustworthy says that human beings bear the image of Allah. That is the language of Genesis 1:27, and it raises the question that language always raises: if man is made in God's image, in what sense does God have an image that a human face can share?

The canonical wording let Muslims escape by reading 'his image' as Adam's own. This version closes that exit, and it was not buried: Ibn Hajar cites it in Fath al-Bari, his commentary on al-Bukhari (Fath al-Bari 5/183). A creed that denies any likeness between Allah and His creation has, in its own sources, a report with trustworthy narrators asserting one.

The Muslim response

Muslim scholars take two routes. Those who accept the report affirm that Allah has an 'image' (sura) in a sense that involves no likeness to creatures, without asking how. Others weaken this wording, as al-Albani does, and read the pronoun in the canonical hadith as referring to Adam, a reading islamweb accepts as one held by scholars (islamweb fatwa 199975). IslamQA takes the first route and quotes al-Ghunayman that Ahmad and Ishaq b. Rahawayh graded the report authentic (IslamQA 20652).

Why it fails

Neither route removes the problem. To affirm an 'image of the Merciful' while denying any likeness keeps the words and empties them: a face cannot bear an image that it resembles in no respect. The weakening route rests on technical defects, concealment and a variant without a Companion, against al-Haythami's and Ibn Hajar's judgement that the men are reliable.

Both answers exist because the plain sense of the text cannot be accepted by later creed as it stands. That is the clearest sign of what the report says.

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'The Fire was created for the foolish, and it is for women, except the one who obeys her guardian' Women Hell Moderate al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir 7874
"Lo, the Fire was created for the foolish, and it is for the women, except the one who obeys her guardian."

What the hadith says

Abu Umama al-Bahili reports that the Messenger of Allah said these words. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Kabir (7874) through al-Walid b. Muslim, 'Uthman b. Abi al-'Atika, 'Ali b. Yazid and al-Qasim. The guardian is her qayyim, the man who stands over her affairs. Al-Haythami quotes the report in Majma' al-Zawa'id (7673) with slightly different wording: 'and they are the women, except the one who obeys her husband (ba'laha)'. This entry follows al-Tabarani's printed text. Al-Haythami's verdict is that 'Ali b. Yazid al-Alhani is in the chain and is matruk (abandoned), 'though it was also said that he is salih (fair)', and that the rest of its narrators are trustworthy. No other critic's verdict on this wording was located. The six canonical books do not contain it.

Why this is a problem

The canonical collections already say that women are the majority of the people of the Fire, because they curse often and are ungrateful to their husbands (Bukhari 304). This report goes further. It does not count women in Hell; it says what Hell was created for, names the occupants 'the foolish' (al-sufaha'), and then identifies them as the women. The one way out it offers is obedience to the man placed over her. The word qayyim comes from the same root as the Quran's description of men as qawwamun over women (Q 4:34).

Nor is the report out of place where it was collected. Al-Haythami files it in his chapter on 'the husband's right over the wife', where the report just before it, from al-Tabarani's al-Awsat, says that 'women are the companions of the Fire' and explains this by their ingratitude to the husband's right. Of that report al-Haythami says its narrators are trustworthy. The idea of women and the Fire as linked through the husband is not an oddity of one weak chain.

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that the report is weak. Al-Haythami names an abandoned narrator in the chain, so the wording cannot be attributed to the Prophet and cannot establish doctrine. The sound reports speak of many women in the Fire because of particular deeds, such as cursing and ingratitude, not of the Fire being made for women. And even this report does not damn all women, since it explicitly exempts the obedient one.

Why it fails

On the chain the response is right, and this entry claims only that al-Tabarani preserved the report. But the weakness rests on one narrator about whom, as al-Haythami himself notes, opinion was divided. And the 'particular deeds' of the sound reports point in the same direction: in Bukhari 304 the deeds are cursing and ingratitude to husbands. In both the sound and the weak texts, a woman's standing before the Fire is measured by her conduct towards her husband.

The exemption is not a defence; it is the problem stated plainly. The text offers women salvation on one condition, obedience to the man who stands over her, and calls the rest foolish.

Check it yourself

Wife who leaves home against her husband's wish: 'every angel in heaven' curses her until she returns Women Moderate al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 513
"When a woman goes out of her house while her husband dislikes it, every angel in heaven curses her, and everything she passes by except jinn and humans, until she returns."

What the hadith says

Ibn 'Umar says he heard the Messenger of Allah say this. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Awsat (513) through Suwayd b. 'Abd al-'Aziz, Muhammad b. Zayd and 'Amr b. Dinar, and notes that only Muhammad b. Zayd narrates it from 'Amr and that Suwayd is alone with it. Al-Haythami (Majma' al-Zawa'id 7669) says Suwayd is matruk (abandoned), 'though Duhaym and others called him reliable', and that the rest of the narrators are trustworthy. Al-Albani grades it da'if jiddan, very weak (al-Silsila al-Da'ifa 1102). It is not in the six canonical books.

Why this is a problem

The canonical curse falls on the wife who refuses her husband's bed: the angels curse her till morning (Bukhari 3237). This report moves the curse from the bedroom to the front door. The trigger is not a sin named in the text but the husband's dislike: if he does not want her to go out and she goes, every angel in heaven and everything she passes curses her until she comes home. No reason for her going out, and no reason for his objection, is considered.

The rule behind the curse is not confined to this weak chain. On the same page al-Haythami records a report from Mu'adh b. Jabal that 'it is not lawful for a woman to admit anyone into her husband's house while he dislikes it, nor to go out while he dislikes it', and says al-Tabarani narrates it with two chains, the narrators of one of them trustworthy. Next to it is a report in which a husband orders his wife not to leave the house; her father falls ill and dies downstairs, the Prophet twice tells her 'obey your husband', and then sends word that Allah has forgiven her father because of her obedience (al-Haythami: one narrator, 'Isma b. al-Mutawakkil, is weak).

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that this wording is very weak. Its chain rests on Suwayd b. 'Abd al-'Aziz, whom al-Haythami calls abandoned and al-Albani grades very weak, so it is not evidence for anything. A wife may go out for her needs, and with her husband's permission there is no blame on her at all.

Why it fails

The response is right about the chain, and this entry presents the report only as something al-Tabarani recorded. But the answer 'with her husband's permission' concedes the substance. What is weak here is the cosmic curse; what is not weak is the principle that her leaving the house depends on his consent, which the same chapter states in a report al-Haythami rates far better.

The tradition kept both: the rule, in a better-rated form, and the escalation, in which the whole of heaven takes the husband's side against a woman who walks out of her own door.

Check it yourself

'Allah has cursed the women who say "later"': the wife who puts off her husband until he falls asleep Women Sexual Issues Moderate al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 4393
"Allah has cursed the musawwifat. It was said: Prophet of Allah, who are the musawwifat? He said: The woman whose husband calls her to his bed and she says, 'Later', until his eyes overcome him [with sleep]."

What the hadith says

Ibn 'Umar reports this saying of the Prophet. The musawwifat are, literally, the women who say sawfa, 'later'. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Awsat (4393) through Ghassan b. al-Rabi', Ja'far b. Maysara al-Ashja'i and Ja'far's father, and notes that it is narrated from Ibn 'Umar by this chain only. Al-Haythami (Majma' al-Zawa'id 7571) says it is in the Awsat and Kabir by this route, that 'Maysara is weak', and that he found no evidence that Ja'far's father heard from Ibn 'Umar. Ibn al-Jawzi says it is not sound (al-'Ilal al-Mutanahiya 2/629), and al-Albani grades it da'if, weak (al-Silsila al-Da'ifa 4312). It is not in the six canonical books.

Why this is a problem

The canonical texts curse the wife who refuses: 'if a husband calls his wife to his bed and she refuses, and he spends the night angry with her, the angels curse her till morning' (Bukhari 3237; compare Muslim 1436). This report reaches past refusal to delay. The wife who answers 'later' is given a name, made a category, and cursed not by the angels but by Allah.

Nor is the curse on a wife who refuses her husband confined to the canonical collections. On the same page al-Haythami records, from al-Tabarani's Awsat, Ibn 'Umar's report that no woman refuses her husband what he asks and leaves him to spend the night angry 'but the angels spend the night cursing her until morning', and says its narrators are trustworthy. Al-Haythami's own chapter heading frames the subject as 'the woman whose husband calls her and she makes excuses'.

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that the report is weak, as al-Haythami, Ibn al-Jawzi and al-Albani all say, so the term musawwifat and Allah's curse on them cannot be attributed to the Prophet. The sound texts on answering the husband's call are understood to apply only where the wife has no valid excuse, such as illness.

Why it fails

On the chain the response is right, and this entry is rated accordingly. But the sound texts it falls back on say the same thing in other words: a wife who will not come when called is cursed until morning. The exception for a valid excuse is supplied by the interpreters; neither Bukhari 3237 nor the report whose narrators al-Haythami calls trustworthy states it.

What the weak report adds is a vocabulary. It turns 'not now' into a type of woman with its own name, and shows how naturally the tradition extended the canonical curse to cover a wife who keeps saying 'later' until her husband falls asleep.

Check it yourself

Woman's sexual pleasure and the man's: 'like the trace of a needle in clay', but Allah veils women with shyness Sexual Issues Women Strange / Obscure Basic al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 7378
"The difference between the woman's pleasure and the man's pleasure is like the trace of the needle in clay, except that Allah veils them [women] with modesty."

What the hadith says

'Abd Allah b. 'Amr b. al-'As reports this as a saying of the Prophet. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Awsat (7378) through Ahmad b. 'Ali b. Shawdhab, Abu al-Musayyib Salm b. Sallam, al-Layth b. Sa'd and 'Ata' b. Yasar, and notes that only Abu al-Musayyib narrates it from al-Layth. The word for pleasure is ladhdha; the text gives no ratio, only the image. Al-Haythami (Majma' al-Zawa'id 7556) says Ahmad b. 'Ali b. Shawdhab is in it and he could find no biography of him; the rest of the narrators are trustworthy. Al-Albani grades it da'if jiddan, very weak (al-Silsila al-Da'ifa 4004). It is not in the six canonical books.

Why this is a problem

The image is a comparison of male and female sexual pleasure, and the clause that follows tells us which way it runs: 'except that Allah veils them with modesty' most naturally reads as saying the woman's share is the larger one, needing to be hidden. Female desire is presented as something greater than the man's, held in check not by the woman's own choice but by a shyness Allah has laid over her.

Al-Haythami places the saying in his chapter on intercourse directly after another report from al-Tabarani's Awsat, also from 'Abd Allah b. 'Amr, which states the idea outright: desire was made in ten parts, nine of them in women and one in men, 'and were it not for the modesty cast upon them along with their desires, every man would have nine women in heat' (mughtalimat). Al-Haythami says al-Mughira b. Qays, who is weak, is in that chain. Together the two reports give modesty a function: it is the lid on women's appetite.

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that the report is very weak. Its chain contains a man for whom al-Haythami could find no biography, and al-Albani grades it very weak, so nothing is built on it. It says nothing binding about women's nature or about modesty.

Why it fails

The response is correct on authenticity, and this entry is rated Basic for that reason. Its interest is what it shows about the material al-Tabarani gathered and al-Haythami arranged. Two separate chains, both ending with the same Companion, attribute to the Prophet a picture in which women's desire exceeds men's and only divinely imposed shyness keeps it from overwhelming them.

That picture is the logic of seclusion in its plainest form. If women's modesty is a restraint placed on a stronger appetite, then guarding women is a matter of keeping the restraint in place.

Check it yourself

Sex during menstruation: if the child conceived gets leprosy, 'let him blame only himself' Sexual Issues Science Gross / Vile Moderate al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 3300
"Whoever has intercourse with his wife while she is menstruating, and a child is decreed between them and is struck by leprosy, let him blame no one but himself."

What the hadith says

Abu Hurayra reports this saying of the Prophet. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Awsat (3300) from his teacher Bakr b. Sahl, through al-Hasan b. al-Salt, al-Zuhri and Sa'id b. al-Musayyib, and notes that only al-Hasan b. al-Salt, 'a shaykh from the people of Syria', narrates it from al-Zuhri. The disease is judham, leprosy. Al-Haythami (Majma' al-Zawa'id 7597) comments only on Bakr b. Sahl: al-Nasa'i weakened him, al-Dhahabi said people transmitted from him, and he is muqarib al-hadith, fairly close to acceptable. Al-Albani grades the report da'if, weak (al-Silsila al-Da'ifa 757). It is not in the six canonical books.

Why this is a problem

The Quran forbids intercourse during menstruation, calling menstruation a harm (Q 2:222). This report attaches a medical consequence to breaking the rule: a child conceived then may be struck by leprosy, and the father has only himself to blame. Leprosy is an infectious disease caused by a bacterium; it is not produced by the timing of conception. The report puts a false biological claim in the Prophet's mouth and places the penalty for the father's act on the child.

Al-Haythami's chapter 'On whoever has intercourse with a menstruating woman' shows the same reasoning at work in other reports. The next one, also weak (al-Haythami: 'Abd al-Rahman b. Yazid b. Tamim is weak), has a man confess that he had intercourse with his wife during her period and the Prophet order him to free a slave, worth a dinar at the time. These weak reports answer the act with expiation through a slave and with a threat of disease in the child.

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that the report is weak, as al-Albani says, so no medical claim rests on it. The prohibition of intercourse during menstruation stands on the Quran itself, which gives no such consequence.

Why it fails

The response is right that the wording is weak, and the prohibition indeed rests on the Quran. But the verdict on this report is milder than the response implies. Al-Haythami, whose task was to assess these additional reports, raised no objection to the content and found nothing worse to say of the chain than that al-Tabarani's own teacher was weakened by al-Nasa'i yet 'fairly close' to acceptable.

So the leprosy claim passed through al-Tabarani and al-Haythami without any objection to its content. That is the point: a claim of this kind about disease and conception did not strike the classical compilers as something the Prophet could not have said.

Check it yourself

'Take concubines, for they have blessed wombs' Slavery & Captives Sexual Issues Women Basic al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 8353
"Take concubines (sarari), for they are blessed in their wombs."

What the hadith says

Abu al-Darda' reports this as a saying of the Prophet. The sarari are slave women kept for sex. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Awsat (8353) through 'Amr b. al-Husayn, Muhammad b. 'Abd Allah b. 'Ulatha, 'Uthman b. 'Ata' al-Khurasani, his father and Malik b. Yukhamir, and notes that it is narrated from Abu al-Darda' by this chain only and that 'Amr b. al-Husayn is alone with it. Al-Haythami records it under the heading 'Taking concubines' (Majma' al-Zawa'id 7344) and says: ''Amr b. Muhammad al-'Uqayli is in it, and he is matruk' (abandoned). The name differs from the 'Amr b. al-Husayn of al-Tabarani's chain. Ibn al-Jawzi lists it among forgeries in al-Mawdu'at (3/46): not sound. It is not in the six canonical books.

Why this is a problem

Sex with slave women is not an invention of this report. The Quran exempts 'what their right hands possess' from the duty to guard one's private parts (Q 23:5-6), and offers them as the alternative for a man who fears he cannot treat several wives justly (Q 4:3). What the report adds is a recommendation and a reason. Concubinage moves from something permitted to something urged, and the woman is valued for one organ: her womb, which is 'blessed'.

The compilers treated the subject as a normal heading in the law of marriage. Al-Haythami gives taking concubines its own chapter among his chapters on marriage, and this report is the only one he puts in it.

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that the report is a forgery: Ibn al-Jawzi counted it among fabricated hadiths, and al-Haythami names an abandoned narrator in its chain. It cannot be used to say the Prophet encouraged concubinage. Islam inherited slavery and regulated it, and its rules pointed towards freeing slaves rather than multiplying them.

Why it fails

The response is right about the report, and the entry is rated Basic because of it. On the verdicts cited here, the exhortation and the 'blessed wombs' cannot be attributed to the Prophet. But the forgery only adds enthusiasm to an institution the Quran itself allows. The permission to have sex with women one owns stands in the text of the Quran (Q 23:6; 70:30), and it says nothing of the women's consent.

'Regulation towards manumission' does not answer that. A rule that encouraged freeing slaves while leaving the owner's sexual access to his slave women in place still left those women's bodies at the owner's disposal. The forgery shows only how comfortably someone could put praise of it in the Prophet's mouth.

Check it yourself

Wickedness has seventy parts: sixty-nine are in the Berbers Slavery & Captives Moral Problems Strange / Obscure Moderate al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 8672
"Wickedness is seventy parts: one part is in the jinn and humans, and sixty-nine are in the Berbers."

What the hadith says

'Uthman b. 'Affan says he heard the Messenger of Allah say this. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Awsat (8672) through al-Layth, Yazid b. Abi Habib and Abu Qays, the client of 'Amr b. al-'As. The next report (8673), by a second chain, has: 'Allah divided wickedness into seventy parts; He put sixty-nine parts in the Berbers and one part in the two weighty races [jinn and humans]'; al-Tabarani notes it is narrated from 'Uthman by that chain only. The word is khubth, wickedness or foulness. Al-Haythami (Majma' al-Zawa'id 7201-7202) says the first chain contains 'Abd Allah b. Salih, al-Layth's scribe, 'whom a group weakened and others declared reliable', with the rest trustworthy, and also al-Muttalib b. Shu'ayb, in whom Ibn 'Adi saw no objectionable report but one. Al-Albani grades it da'if, weak (al-Silsila al-Da'ifa 2535). It is not in the six canonical books.

Why this is a problem

This is an ethnic verdict placed in the Prophet's mouth and given a number. All the wickedness in creation is divided into seventy shares; the whole of humanity and the jinn together receive one, and a single people of North Africa receives the other sixty-nine. Al-Haythami's objection to the chain is moderate: a disputed narrator whom others accepted, and a second of whom Ibn 'Adi knew only one objectionable report.

It is also not alone. Al-Haythami opens his Book of Manumission with a chapter on 'what is disliked in keeping slaves', and it begins with Berbers. In the first report, from Ahmad's Musnad (al-Haythami: 'Abd Allah b. Nafi' is abandoned), the Prophet asks a man where he is from, hears 'Berber', tells him 'get up and away from me', and then says of them that 'faith does not pass beyond their throats'. The second, also from Ahmad, says: 'Whoever takes out alms and finds no one but a Berber, let him take it back', and of this one al-Haythami says Ibn Lahi'a's hadith is hasan and the rest are trustworthy. Next comes a Companion who, sent a Berber slave girl as a gift, says she is of 'the Magians whom the Prophet forbade' (al-Haythami: an unnamed narrator and Ibn Lahi'a are in its chain). Only then come al-Tabarani's seventy parts.

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that the report is weak, as al-Albani says, and that such ethnic rankings contradict the Quran: the noblest in Allah's sight is the most pious (Q 49:13). Muslims also cite the Prophet's teaching, from his Farewell Sermon, that an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab except by piety.

Why it fails

The weakness al-Haythami identifies is limited to a disputed narrator, and he grades the 'take back your alms' report, which treats Berbers as unfit even to receive charity, with a hasan verdict on its key narrator. The response's verses state a principle; the collections show a cluster of anti-Berber sayings that circulated under the Prophet's name and were arranged by al-Haythami as the opening of his chapter on keeping slaves.

That arrangement matters. The reports that disparaged Berbers were not scattered curiosities: al-Haythami gathered them together at the head of the chapter on keeping slaves, where a buyer or owner would meet them.

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Salman the Persian: 'The Messenger of Allah forbade us to marry the women of the Arabs' Women Governance Moral Problems Moderate al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 7298
"The Messenger of Allah forbade us to marry the women of the Arabs."

What the hadith says

Salman al-Farisi, the Persian Companion, says this of the Prophet; 'us' means Persians like himself. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Awsat (7298) through al-Haytham b. Mahfuz, Abu Isra'il, al-Sari b. Isma'il, al-Sha'bi and 'Abd al-Rahman b. Abi Layla, and notes that each link of the chain is the only one to narrate it from the one before. Al-Haythami records it in his chapter on kafa'a, suitability in marriage (Majma' al-Zawa'id 7447-7448), and adds that al-Tabarani's al-Kabir has a different version, in Salman's own words, addressed to the Arabs: 'We give you precedence because of the Messenger of Allah: we do not marry your women.' Al-Haythami's verdict separates the two. The Prophet's prohibition (al-Awsat) has al-Sari b. Isma'il in its chain, who is matruk (abandoned); al-Albani grades it da'if jiddan, very weak (al-Silsila al-Da'ifa 1116). Salman's own statement (al-Kabir) has trustworthy narrators, according to al-Haythami. Neither is in the six canonical books.

Why this is a problem

The prophetic ban is very weak, and this entry does not claim the Prophet issued it. The version with trustworthy narrators is the more revealing one. It is not a rule imposed on Salman but his own deference: a Persian Companion of acknowledged merit, tells the Arabs that non-Arabs like him do not marry their women, out of regard for the Prophet, who was one of them. The hierarchy is not forced on him; he has accepted it.

The next report on al-Haythami's page shows the hierarchy applied to Salman himself. Abu al-Darda' goes with Salman to ask a family of Banu Layth for a woman's hand on his behalf, praising Salman's precedence and his Islam. The family answers: 'As for Salman, we will not marry her to him, but we will marry her to you', and Abu al-Darda' marries her. Al-Haythami says its narrators are trustworthy, though the Successor who tells it, Thabit, did not hear from Salman or Abu al-Darda'.

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that the prophetic wording is very weak and cannot be used to claim the Prophet barred non-Arabs from marrying Arab women. The Quran says the noblest of people in Allah's sight is the most pious (Q 49:13), and Muslims point to the Prophet arranging the marriage of his cousin Zaynab to his freed slave Zayd as proof that lineage was not a barrier.

Why it fails

The response answers the weak version. It does not touch the stronger one, in which a leading non-Arab Companion states the rule as his own practice, or the report in which a Muslim family turns down that same Companion for an Arab one. Q 49:13 states the ideal; these reports show what some of the first generation did, and al-Haythami collected them under 'suitability in marriage' as material on who is a fit match.

So the problem does not depend on the very weak prohibition. The preference for Arab lineage in marriage is recorded in the words and choices of the Companions themselves, by narrators al-Haythami found trustworthy, though the chain of the Banu Layth report is broken.

Check it yourself

'A black woman who bears children is better than a beautiful one who does not' Women Moral Problems Basic al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir vol. 19 no. 1004
"A black woman who bears children is better than a beautiful woman who does not bear. I will vie with the nations through your numbers, even through the miscarried child."

What the hadith says

Mu'awiya b. Hayda reports this through his son Hakim and grandson Bahz. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Kabir (vol. 19 no. 1004) through 'Ali b. al-Rabi'. The full saying continues: the miscarried child stays sulking at the gate of Paradise; told 'Enter Paradise', he says 'My Lord, and my parents?', and is told, 'Enter Paradise, you and your parents.' The black woman is sawda', the beautiful one hasna'. Al-Haythami (Majma' al-Zawa'id 7341) says ''Ali b. al-Rabi' is in it, and he is weak.' Al-Albani grades it da'if, weak (al-Silsila al-Da'ifa 3267). It is not in the six canonical books.

Why this is a problem

Unlike the published entry 'Leave me out of the blacks', this report does not insult black people directly. Its offence is in the contrast it takes for granted. The two women are set against each other as 'black' and 'beautiful', as though the words were opposites, and the black woman wins only because she is fertile. Her blackness is the handicap that her womb overcomes.

The fertility principle itself is canonical. When a man asked about a woman 'of rank and beauty' who could not bear children, the Prophet forbade the marriage three times and said, 'Marry women who are loving and very prolific, for I shall outnumber the peoples by you' (Abu Dawud 2050; Nasa'i 3227). On the same page as this report al-Haythami records another, also weak (Mu'awiya b. Yahya al-Sadafi): 'O 'Iyad, do not marry an old woman, nor a barren one, for I will vie with the nations through you.' What al-Tabarani's version adds is the colour.

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that the report is weak, because of 'Ali b. al-Rabi', and cannot be attributed to the Prophet. Even taken at face value, they add, it praises a black woman over a beautiful one, which is the opposite of colour prejudice.

Why it fails

The response is right about the chain, which is why this entry is Basic. But the face-value reading does not rescue it. The praise is conditional: the black woman is 'better' only than a beautiful woman who is barren, and only because she bears children. The saying works by assuming that, other things being equal, the beautiful woman is the more desirable, and it names her opposite 'black'.

Both women are measured as means to an end, beauty against fertility, and the end is the size of the Prophet's community on Judgement Day. The weak report sharpens a canonical one; it does not contradict it.

Check it yourself

'Better to be stabbed in the head with an iron needle than to touch a woman not lawful to you' Women Moral Problems Basic al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir vol. 20 no. 486
"For one of you to be stabbed in the head with an iron needle is better for him than to touch a woman who is not lawful for him."

What the hadith says

Ma'qil b. Yasar reports this saying of the Prophet. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Kabir (vol. 20 no. 486) through Shaddad b. Sa'id al-Rasibi and Yazid b. 'Abd Allah b. al-Shikhkhir, and again by a second chain through Shaddad (no. 487), with 'the head of a man'. This one is graded sound. Al-Haythami (Majma' al-Zawa'id 7718) says 'its narrators are the narrators of the Sahih', and al-Albani grades it sahih (Sahih al-Jami' 5045). It is not in the six canonical books.

Why this is a problem

The saying weighs a stab wound to the head against touching a woman who is not one's wife or close relative, and finds the wound the lesser harm. It is used as proof that a Muslim man may not shake a woman's hand: Islam Q&A says that 'this Hadith alone is sufficient to deter', and cites it, with al-Albani's grade, to rule that a man may not shake hands with a non-mahram woman, not even through a barrier such as a garment, and not even with old women. Contact between unrelated men and women is treated as a road to temptation and immorality.

Al-Haythami places it in his chapter on the prohibition of being alone with a woman, right after a weaker report (al-Haythami: 'Ali b. Yazid al-Alhani is very weak, though some declared him reliable) that pushes the comparison further: for a man to jostle a pig smeared with mud is better for him than for his shoulder to jostle the shoulder of a woman not lawful to him.

The Muslim response

Islam Q&A presents the saying as a deterrent: 'This Hadith alone is sufficient to deter', because touching women 'may lead to temptation and immorality' (Islam Q&A 21183). The rule binds men as much as women, and it does not deny a woman's dignity; it guards both from what touch can lead to. The verb yamass, 'touch', can also mean intercourse, as in the Quran's 'before you have touched them' (Q 2:237), so the warning may be against unlawful sex, not handshakes.

Why it fails

The alternative reading would limit the saying to sex, but the Muslim answer quoted here does not take it; Islam Q&A applies it to a handshake. On that reading, the response confirms the problem rather than answering it: a woman's hand is treated as a source of temptation so dangerous that a wound to the head is preferable.

The rule is formally mutual, but the saying is not. It is addressed to men, and what it names as worse than a wound is touching a woman: the danger is located in her.

Check it yourself

'Sihaq between women is fornication between them' LGBTQ / Gender Sexual Issues Hudud Moderate al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir vol. 22 no. 153
"Sihaq between women is zina between them."

What the hadith says

Wathila b. al-Asqa' reports this saying of the Prophet. Sihaq is sex between women; zina is fornication or adultery. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Kabir (vol. 22 no. 153) through Suwayd b. Sa'id, Baqiyya b. al-Walid, 'Uthman b. 'Abd al-Rahman, 'Anbasa b. Sa'id and Makhul. The critics disagree sharply. Al-Haythami, in his chapter on 'the fornication of the limbs' (Majma' al-Zawa'id 10548), says 'its narrators are trustworthy'. Al-Albani grades it da'if, weak (al-Silsila al-Da'ifa 1601), and very weak elsewhere (Da'if al-Jami' 3262); Ibn 'Adi says 'Uthman b. 'Abd al-Rahman narrates oddities from unknown people; and al-Dhahabi calls one chain of it mawdu', fabricated (Mizan al-I'tidal 1/321). It is not in the six canonical books, which nowhere name sihaq.

Why this is a problem

The report classifies sex between women as zina. The canonical collections come closest in a rule of decency, 'a woman should not lie with another woman under one covering' (Muslim 338); they never name sex between women. This saying does, and its verdict is total: it is zina.

It does not, however, prescribe the punishment for zina, and it should not be read as an order to stone or flog lesbians. Al-Haythami files it beside reports in which the eyes, the embrace and the kiss also 'commit zina'; the label is moral. The problem is the moral verdict itself, and that a specialist critic of al-Haythami's standing found its narrators trustworthy.

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that the report is weak or worse, as al-Albani, Ibn 'Adi and al-Dhahabi indicate, so it cannot define the status of sex between women. That status rests instead on the general Quranic command to guard the private parts except with spouses and slaves (Q 23:5-7). Classical jurists treated sihaq as a sin punished at the judge's discretion, not with the fixed penalty for zina.

Why it fails

The response disputes the wording but accepts the verdict. If sex between women is a sin under Q 23:5-7 and punishable at a judge's discretion, the weak hadith has only given that position a name. Whether the Prophet said 'it is zina between them' or not, the tradition the response appeals to still treats two women in a sexual relationship as offenders against God and liable to punishment.

And the grading is less settled than the response suggests. Al-Haythami, whose work was to judge exactly these reports, called the narrators trustworthy; al-Albani called it weak; al-Dhahabi called a chain fabricated. A report on which the experts divide this widely cannot simply be set aside as obviously spurious.

Check it yourself

'Three whose "There is no god but Allah" is not accepted: the rider and the ridden, the female rider and the female ridden, and the unjust imam' LGBTQ / Gender Sexual Issues Governance Basic al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 3104
"Three whose testimony 'There is no god but Allah' is not accepted: the rider and the ridden, the female rider and the female ridden, and the unjust imam."

What the hadith says

Abu Hurayra reports this as a saying of the Prophet. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Awsat (3104) through Abu 'Ata' Bilal b. 'Amr, Salih b. Abi Salih, 'Umar b. Rashid, 'Abd al-Rahman b. Harmala and Sa'id b. al-Musayyib, and notes that only 'Umar b. Rashid narrates it from Ibn Harmala. The text does not name the act. It is read as referring to male and female same-sex partners because al-Haythami files it under the heading 'What has come on sodomy' (liwat). His verdict (Majma' al-Zawa'id 10635) is that ''Umar b. Rashid is in it, and he is a liar' (kadhdhab). Al-Albani grades it mawdu', fabricated (al-Silsila al-Da'ifa 5363). It is not in the six canonical books.

Why this is a problem

Read as al-Haythami's heading reads it, the saying declares that the confession of faith itself is void for men who have sex with men and women who have sex with women. They are not sinners within Islam but people whose Islam is not accepted, ranked with the tyrant. It is an extreme statement, and it comes through a man the critics call a liar.

What the forgery shows is the climate it came from. Someone thought it worth inventing; a chain carried it; al-Tabarani recorded it; and al-Haythami, while exposing the liar, filed it with the other sodomy reports. The report right after it on his page, from the same Awsat, curses 'whoever does the deed of the people of Lot' three times among seven accursed kinds of people. Of that chain al-Haythami says the majority weakened Muhriz b. Harun, though al-Tirmidhi graded his hadith hasan, and the rest are narrators of the Sahih.

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that the report is fabricated: al-Haythami names a liar in its chain and al-Albani grades it mawdu'. A forged hadith has no standing in Islamic belief or law, and nothing can be built on it.

Why it fails

The response is correct, and this entry claims no more than that the forgery was produced and preserved; it is rated Basic. A report that excommunicates same-sex partners could be fabricated in the Prophet's name, could travel with a full chain, and could be placed in a major collection, where it sat until critics checked the transmitters.

The critics rejected the liar, not the attitude. The neighbouring report that curses the deed of Lot's people three times was kept, with a chain al-Haythami treats far more gently.

Check it yourself

'The child of fornication will not enter Paradise, nor any of his offspring down to seven generations' Hudud Paradise Moral Problems Moderate al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 858
"The child of zina will not enter Paradise, nor anything of his offspring down to seven forefathers."

What the hadith says

Abu Hurayra reports this as a saying of the Prophet. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Awsat (858) through al-Husayn b. Idris al-Hulwani, Sulayman b. Abi Hawdha, 'Amr b. Abi Qays, Ibrahim b. Abi al-Muhajir, Mujahid and 'Abd al-Rahman b. Abi Dhubab, and notes that only 'Amr narrates it from Ibrahim. 'Seven forefathers' means seven generations. Al-Haythami (Majma' al-Zawa'id 10553) says 'al-Husayn b. Idris is in it, and he is weak.' Ibn al-Jawzi lists it in al-Mawdu'at (3/329) as not sound, and al-Albani calls it batil, false (al-Silsila al-Da'ifa 1287). It is not in the six canonical books.

Why this is a problem

The report damns a person for the circumstances of his conception and extends the sentence to his descendants for seven generations. Not one of them has committed the sin; they are excluded from Paradise for something done before they existed. It contradicts the Quran's principle that 'no bearer of burdens bears another's burden' (Q 6:164).

The seven generations are this report's own addition. The exclusion itself is not confined to this report. In the same chapter, 'On children of zina', al-Haythami records a report from Ahmad and al-Tabarani that four will not enter Paradise: the undutiful son, the habitual drinker, the man who reminds people of his favours, 'and the child of zina'. He notes that al-Nasa'i has it without that last phrase, and says of the chain that Jaban is in it, whom Ibn Hibban declared reliable, and the rest of Ahmad's narrators are those of the Sahih. And in the canonical Abu Dawud 3963, graded sahih by al-Albani on sunnah.com, the Prophet says 'the child of adultery is the worst of the three', and Abu Hurayra adds that giving a whip for use in Allah's path is dearer to him than freeing a child of adultery.

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that the report is false, as Ibn al-Jawzi and al-Albani judged, and contrary to Q 6:164: a child is not punished for the sin of his parents. Al-Tabarani himself records A'isha's report that 'the child of zina bears nothing of his parents' sin', after which the Prophet recited that verse.

Why it fails

The forgery of the seven generations is not in dispute. But the corrective report the response relies on is the weaker one: al-Haythami says he does not know its narrator Ja'far b. Muhammad b. Ja'far al-Mada'ini. Meanwhile the report that bars the child of zina from Paradise in Ahmad's version has a chain in which al-Haythami's only remark is that Jaban was declared reliable by Ibn Hibban, and the canonical Abu Dawud 3963 calls such a child 'the worst of the three'.

The tradition preserved both attitudes. Q 6:164 states the principle, but the better-rated hadiths are the ones that hold the child's birth against him, and the most extreme of them reached al-Tabarani's collection with a full chain.

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'The black man, when hungry, steals, and when full, fornicates' Slavery & Captives Moral Problems Moderate al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 4061
"The black man, when he is hungry, steals, and when he is full, he fornicates. But they have two traits: true generosity and gallantry."

What the hadith says

A'isha says she heard the Messenger of Allah say this. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Awsat (4061) through Sulayman b. 'Umar b. Khalid al-Raqqi, Yahya b. Sa'id al-Umawi, Muhammad b. Ishaq, 'Uthman b. 'Urwa and 'Urwa, and notes that only Ibn Ishaq narrates it from 'Uthman. The 'two traits' are sidq al-samaha, true generosity, and al-najda, gallantry or readiness to help. Al-Haythami (Majma' al-Zawa'id 7208) raises only two points: Ibn Ishaq is reliable but conceals his sources (mudallis), and al-Daraqutni said of 'Ali b. Sa'id al-Razi that he is 'not that good'; the rest are narrators of the Sahih. Al-Albani grades a variant of this saying, with 'the Zanji' in place of 'the black man', mawdu', fabricated (al-Silsila al-Da'ifa 729), and Ibn al-Jawzi says that variant is not sound. It is not in the six canonical books.

Why this is a problem

The published entry 'Leave me out of the blacks' covers a report from Ibn 'Abbas that most critics treat as fabricated. This one is different in two ways. It is told by A'isha, through a chain al-Haythami finds only mildly flawed, and its formula is not unique. In the report just before it on the same page, Ibn 'Abbas has the Prophet asked why the Abyssinians of Banu al-Mughira do not come to him, and answer: 'There is no good in the Abyssinians. When they are hungry they steal, and if they are full they fornicate; but they have two good traits: feeding people and courage in battle.' Al-Tabarani and al-Bazzar both record it. Of al-Bazzar's version (which lacks the stealing clause) al-Haythami says its narrators are trustworthy, and the dispute over 'Awsaja al-Makki 'does no harm'.

So the stereotype of the black man ruled by stomach and loins appears in more than one chain and more than one wording, and its best-rated form passed al-Haythami's review. The two compliments do not cancel the charge. They complete the type: a people of appetite, made useful by generosity and courage.

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that the saying is fabricated, as al-Albani and Ibn al-Jawzi judged. It contradicts the honour Islam gave to black Companions such as Bilal, and the Prophet's teaching in his Farewell Sermon that an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab, nor a white over a black, except by piety. Al-Haythami himself follows these reports with a chapter on 'the merit of the blacks'.

Why it fails

The verdicts of fabrication the response cites attach to the 'Zanji' wording. Al-Haythami found nothing in A'isha's chain worse than a mudallis and a teacher 'not that good', and for the Abyssinian version he called al-Bazzar's narrators trustworthy. 'Fabricated' does not dispose of this family of texts.

Nor does the chapter that follows. Its first report tells Muslims to 'take blacks' because three of them are among the lords of Paradise. That the tradition holds praise and contempt side by side shows that both were attributed to the Prophet and both were transmitted; it does not show that the contempt was rejected.

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Muhammad divorces Sawda; she waits in his path and gives up her nights to be taken back Prophetic Character Women Moderate al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir vol. 24 no. 87
"The Prophet divorced Sawda with one pronouncement. She sat in his path, and when he passed she asked him to take her back, and [offered] to give her share of him to whichever of his wives he wished, hoping to be raised on the Day of Resurrection as his wife. So he took her back and accepted that."

What the hadith says

Al-Tabarani records this in al-Mu'jam al-Kabir (vol. 24 no. 87) through Ishaq b. Ibrahim, 'Abd al-Razzaq and Abu Hanifa, from a narrator named al-Haytham or Abu al-Haytham: a transmitter could not remember which. The report names no Companion as its source, so it is mursal; it does not name an eyewitness. Al-Haythami (Majma' al-Zawa'id 15343) says: 'al-Tabarani narrated it, and there is weakness in its chain.' Just before it he records a second mursal report, from 'Abd al-Rahman b. Sabit: the Prophet wanted to part with Sawda and called Abu Bakr and 'Umar to witness her divorce, and she said she had no wish in this world except to be gathered among his wives on the Day of Resurrection. Al-Haythami notes that Jabir al-Ju'fi, who is weak, is in that chain. Neither is in the six canonical books.

Why this is a problem

The canonical collections tell the story gently: Sawda gave her turn to A'isha, so the Prophet spent two days with A'isha (Bukhari 5212). But the canonical Abu Dawud 2135 already supplies the motive: when Sawda grew old 'and feared that the Messenger of Allah would divorce her', she gave her day to A'isha.

Al-Tabarani's report takes the step that Abu Dawud's leaves implied. The divorce is not feared; it happens. Sawda then waits in the road for him and buys back her place as his wife with her share of his nights, and he accepts the exchange. Ibn Sabit's report, independently, has him summoning witnesses to the divorce. Two separate weak chains agree that he moved to put her away; al-Tabarani's adds that she kept her marriage by surrendering her share of his nights.

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that both reports are mursal and weak, and that the sound account is that Sawda gave her day voluntarily. The Quran approves such an arrangement: if a wife fears ill-treatment or desertion from her husband, there is no blame if they reach a settlement, and settlement is best (Q 4:128). It was her free choice, made to remain the Prophet's wife in the hereafter.

Why it fails

The response is right that the divorce itself rests on weak mursal reports. But its 'sound account' is not the voluntary gift it describes. Abu Dawud 2135 says Sawda acted because she feared divorce, and Q 4:128 itself addresses a wife who fears desertion and buys peace by giving something up. The 'free choice' was the choice between losing her nights and losing her marriage.

The weak reports add only what that fear was about. They show the tradition recording, with no sense of embarrassment, a Prophet who put away his ageing wife and took her back on terms that suited him.

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Muhammad finds Zayd's wife Zaynab without a head-cover and leaves murmuring 'Blessed is the Turner of hearts' Prophetic Character Women Prophetic Privileges Moderate al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir vol. 24 no. 121
"Zaynab gave him leave to enter while she had no head-cover on, and she threw the sleeve of her gown over her head ... The Messenger of Allah stood up, murmuring. Zaynab said: I followed him and heard him say, 'Blessed is the Turner of hearts', and he kept saying it until he was out of sight."

What the hadith says

Abu Bakr b. Sulayman b. Abi Hathma, a Successor who did not witness the event, tells the story; the report is therefore mursal. The Prophet came to the house of his adopted son Zayd b. Haritha and asked permission to enter. Zayd's wife Zaynab let him in with no head-cover (khimar) on, threw the sleeve of her gown over her head, and, when he asked about Zayd, said he had just gone out. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Kabir (vol. 24 no. 121) through Muhammad b. Khalid b. 'Athma, Musa b. Ya'qub and 'Abd al-Rahman b. al-Munib. In al-Tabarani's printed text it is Zaynab who says 'I followed him'; in al-Haythami's quotation (Majma' al-Zawa'id 15348) it is Umm Salama. This entry follows the print. Al-Haythami's verdict: 'al-Tabarani narrated it mursal, and part of it from Umm Salama as you see; its narrators were declared reliable, and some of them have weakness.' It is not in the six canonical books.

Why this is a problem

The text does not say that Muhammad desired Zaynab, and this entry does not claim it does. It records a scene: the Prophet sees his adopted son's wife without her head-cover, leaves without waiting, murmuring, and repeats on the road a phrase about Allah turning hearts. 'Turner of hearts' is a phrase about a change of heart, and he says it as he walks away from her door.

The scene matters because of what followed. Zayd divorced Zaynab and the Prophet married her, and the Quran addressed him: 'you hid in yourself what Allah would bring to light, and you feared the people' (Q 33:37). A'isha said that if the Prophet had concealed anything of revelation, he would have concealed this verse (Bukhari 7420). Al-Tabarani's report supplies, from inside the tradition, a scene in which the Prophet, having seen his son's wife without her head-cover, walks away repeating a phrase about Allah turning hearts, and so invites the reading that this is what he 'hid'.

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that the report is mursal and partly weak, as al-Haythami says, so it cannot establish what happened. The sound account is Bukhari 7420: Zayd came to complain about his wife and the Prophet kept telling him, 'Fear Allah and keep your wife.' The usual Muslim explanation is that what the Prophet hid was Allah's command that he would marry Zaynab, to abolish the taboo on marrying an adopted son's former wife, and that he feared people's talk, not that he felt desire.

Why it fails

The response is right that the scene rests on a mursal chain, though al-Haythami describes its narrators as declared reliable, with weakness only in some. What it cannot say is that the report comes from the Prophet's critics. It was transmitted by Muslim narrators and preserved by al-Tabarani, and al-Haythami included it in his chapter on Zaynab without objecting to its content.

Bukhari 7420 does not contradict it. That the Prophet told Zayd to keep his wife is consistent with a man hiding a feeling he was ashamed of, and A'isha's remark shows that the verse was embarrassing even to those closest to him. The explanation that what he hid was a divine command is an interpretation; the report of the uncovered Zaynab and the 'Turner of hearts' is a text.

Check it yourself

Safiyya: 'No one was more hateful to me than the Messenger of Allah: he killed my father and my husband' Prophetic Character Women Slavery & Captives Warfare & Jihad Strong al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir vol. 24 no. 177
"There was no one more hateful to me than the Messenger of Allah: he killed my father and my husband. He kept apologising to me and saying, 'Safiyya, your father incited the Arabs against me, and did this and that,' until that went out of my heart."

What the hadith says

Ibn 'Umar reports that there was a green mark (khudra) in Safiyya's eyes and the Prophet asked her about it. She said she had told her husband she had dreamt that a moon fell into her lap, and he slapped her, saying, 'Do you want the king of Yathrib?' Then she adds the words quoted above. The slap was her former husband's, not the Prophet's. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Kabir (vol. 24 no. 177) through 'Affan, Hammad b. Salama, 'Ubayd Allah b. 'Umar and Nafi'. Al-Haythami (Majma' al-Zawa'id 15373) says: 'al-Tabarani narrated it, and its narrators are the narrators of the Sahih.' The six canonical books do not contain it.

Why this is a problem

The canonical account gives the facts without Safiyya's voice. After the conquest of Khaybar, Dihya asked for a slave girl from the captives and took Safiyya; when a man told the Prophet she was 'the chief mistress' of Qurayza and al-Nadir and 'befits none but you', the Prophet had her brought, told Dihya to take another, freed her and married her, and the wedding was held on the way back (Bukhari 371).

Al-Tabarani's report, with narrators al-Haythami identifies as those of the Sahih, adds what she felt. The man who took her from the captives was, in her own words, the most hateful person to her, because he had killed her father and her husband. His answer was not to deny it but to justify it: her father had incited the Arabs against him. A captive woman, married to the man who had killed her family, is reported to have been talked out of her hatred by his account of what her father had done.

The Muslim response

Muslim writers cite this very report as evidence that Safiyya married willingly. Al Hakam argues that it shows her initial opposition giving way once she understood why the Prophet acted against the Banu al-Nadir and Khaybar, who had plotted against the Muslims, and that her dream shows she saw the marriage as destined. On this reading the report records a reconciliation, not coercion.

Why it fails

The report does not say when her hatred left her. It says he 'kept apologising' until it went, which describes a process, not a decision made before the wedding. Bukhari 371 puts the wedding on the road back from Khaybar, and has her first handed to Dihya as a slave girl from the captives. Whatever she came to feel later, the woman he married had just lost her father and husband to him, and had been handed out as a captive of his army.

Al Hakam's own translation softens the key words, rendering them 'he had my father and husband killed'; the Arabic says qatala, he killed. And the reconciliation is achieved by the killer's own account of why the killing was justified, given to a captive in his household. Its narrators are those of the Sahih by al-Haythami's account, and it is the clearest statement in the sources of how Safiyya saw the man she married.

Check it yourself

'A woman has two coverings, the husband and the grave.' Which covers better? 'The grave' Women Moral Problems Basic al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 8240, al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Saghir 1078
"A woman has two coverings. It was said: What are they? He said: The husband and the grave. It was said: Which of them covers better? He said: The grave."

What the hadith says

Ibn 'Abbas reports this as a saying of the Prophet. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Awsat (8240) and al-Mu'jam al-Saghir (1078), both through Hisham b. Khalid al-Azraq, Khalid b. Yazid al-Qasri, Abu Rawq and al-Dahhak, and notes that Khalid is alone with it. In the Awsat the last question is 'Which of them is better?'; in the Saghir, 'Which of them covers better?' A 'covering' (sitr) is what shields a woman's honour. Al-Haythami (Majma' al-Zawa'id 7661) says al-Tabarani has it in all three of his Mu'jams and that Khalid b. Yazid al-Qasri is in it, of whom Abu Hatim said 'not strong'. Other critics are harsher: Ibn al-Jawzi calls it mawdu', fabricated, and accuses Khalid (al-Mawdu'at 3/551); al-Dhahabi calls it batil, false; al-Albani calls it fabricated (al-Silsila al-Da'ifa 1396). It is not in the six canonical books.

Why this is a problem

The saying ranks death above marriage as the protection of a woman. The husband covers her, but the grave covers her better. Its premise is that a woman is something to be hidden, and that the most complete hiding is burial.

The premise does not depend on this forgery. In the same chapter, 'the husband's right over the wife', al-Haythami records from al-Tabarani's Awsat the report: 'The woman is 'awra [a thing to be concealed]; when she goes out of her house, Satan looks up at her, and she is never nearer to Allah than in the depths of her house.' Of this one al-Haythami says its narrators are the narrators of the Sahih. The forged report takes the logic of that one to its end: if a woman is closest to God in the innermost part of her house, she is safest of all in the grave.

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that the report is fabricated, as Ibn al-Jawzi, al-Dhahabi and al-Albani judged, and that it therefore says nothing about Islam's view of women. Islam honours women as mothers, wives and believers, and no sound text prefers a woman's death to her life.

Why it fails

The response is right about this report, and the entry is rated Basic accordingly. But it shows something about the tradition that recorded it: al-Tabarani placed it in all three of his collections, and al-Haythami's only objection was that one narrator was 'not strong'.

And while no sound text prefers a woman's death to her life, the idea behind the forgery has better support than the response allows. The view that a woman is 'awra, a thing to be concealed, best kept in the depths of her house, survives in a report al-Haythami rates with narrators of the Sahih. The forger did not invent the idea; he only finished the sentence.

Check it yourself

A slave who dies as a runaway 'enters the Fire, even if he is killed in the path of Allah' Slavery & Captives Hell Strong al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 9232
"Any slave who dies while a runaway enters the Fire, even if he is killed in the path of Allah."

What the hadith says

Jabir b. 'Abd Allah reports this saying of the Prophet. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Awsat (9232) by the same chain as the report before it (9231), through al-Walid b. Muslim, Zuhayr b. Muhammad and 'Abd Allah b. Muhammad b. 'Aqil, and notes that only Zuhayr narrates the two from Ibn 'Aqil, that al-Walid is alone with them, and that they come from Jabir by this chain only. The report before it says the prayer of the runaway slave is not accepted 'until he returns and puts his hand in his masters' hand'. Al-Haythami (Majma' al-Zawa'id 7241), in his chapter on the runaway slave, says Ibn 'Aqil is in it, 'and his hadith is hasan, but there is weakness in him', and the rest are trustworthy. Al-Albani graded it twice and differently: hasan, good (Sahih al-Jami' 2736), and da'if, weak (Da'if al-Targhib 1190). It is not in the six canonical books.

Why this is a problem

The canonical collections already treat flight from a master as a grave sin. In Sahih Muslim, the slave who runs away from his masters 'has committed an act of disbelief' (kafara) until he returns (Muslim 68), and his prayer is not accepted (Muslim 70). Al-Tabarani's report states the consequence: if he dies a runaway, he goes to the Fire.

And it closes the one door that might have been open. The report itself picks death fighting in the path of Allah as the exception that might be expected to save him, and rules it out. His duty to remain his master's property outweighs his faith, his prayers and his death as a martyr, and the punishment for seeking his freedom is the Fire.

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that the chain is disputed: al-Albani graded it weak in one of his works, so it cannot be relied on. Where such texts apply, they concern a breach of trust, a slave abandoning obligations he owed, and Islamic law also laid duties on masters and encouraged the freeing of slaves.

Why it fails

The response picks one of al-Albani's two verdicts. In the other he graded it hasan, and al-Haythami describes the key narrator's hadith as hasan with some weakness. This is not a forgery; it is a report the critics place on the border between good and weak. And its premise is canonical: Muslim 68 and 70, in the most respected collection after al-Bukhari, already say that the runaway 'has disbelieved' until he returns and that his prayer is not accepted.

Calling flight a 'breach of trust' assumes what is in question: that a human being owes another his continued presence as property. The duties laid on masters do not change the verdict on the slave who leaves; the slave is still damned for leaving.

Check it yourself

'Buy slaves, but beware of the Zanj: they are short-lived and scant of provision' Slavery & Captives Moral Problems Basic al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 1013
"Buy slaves, but beware of the Zanj, for they are short of life and scant of provision."

What the hadith says

'Abd Allah b. 'Abbas reports this saying of the Prophet through his son 'Ali and grandson Sulayman b. 'Ali. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Awsat (1013) through Hafs b. 'Umar al-Mazini and Hajjaj b. Harb al-Shaqari. The Zanj are the black peoples of the East African coast. Al-Haythami (Majma' al-Zawa'id 7204) quotes it with an extra clause, 'buy slaves and share with them in their provision', which al-Tabarani's printed text does not have, and says it contains 'someone I do not know'. Al-Albani grades it mawdu', fabricated (al-Silsila al-Da'ifa 725). It is not in the six canonical books.

Why this is a problem

This is shopping advice about human beings, attributed to the Prophet. Buying slaves is taken for granted; the only question is which ones are worth the price, and one people is singled out as a bad purchase because they die young and bring in little.

Al-Haythami's page shows where the saying belongs. It sits in the Book of Manumission, in a run of reports about Berbers and blacks: the Berbers with sixty-nine parts of wickedness, the published 'Leave me out of the blacks', 'the black man is only for his genitals and his belly' (al-Haythami: Khalid b. Muhammad is weak), and the Abyssinians who steal when hungry and fornicate when full. Advice on which Africans to buy fits easily into that company.

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that the report is fabricated, as al-Albani judged, and that the Prophet never taught Muslims to rank people by race. The critics who exposed it are the tradition's own protection against such material.

Why it fails

The response is correct, and this entry claims only that the saying was attributed to the Prophet and preserved; it is rated Basic. What the forgery shows is the market it was made for. Someone found it useful to give a buyer's preference among slaves the Prophet's authority, a chain carried it, and al-Tabarani recorded it.

The critics rejected the chain. The trade the saying assumes, in which some peoples are judged by how long they last and how much they earn for an owner, is not something the response addresses.

Check it yourself

Nine angels pelt the sun with snow every day, or it would burn everything (fabricated) Science Strange / Obscure Basic al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir 7705
"Nine angels are put in charge of the sun; they pelt it with snow every day. Were it not for that, it would not come upon anything without burning it."

What the hadith says

Abu Umama al-Bahili reports the Prophet saying that nine angels are assigned to the sun and throw snow at it every day; without that, it would burn whatever it came upon. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Kabir (7705) with a single chain, which two of his teachers carry back to 'Ufayr b. Ma'dan, from Sulaym b. 'Amir, from Abu Umama. Al-Haythami files it in his chapter on "the wonders of creation" and says: "It contains 'Ufayr b. Ma'dan, who is very weak" (Majma' al-Zawa'id 8/131). Al-Suyuti listed it as weak (da'if) in al-Jami' al-Saghir, and al-Albani grades it fabricated (mawdu') in al-Silsila al-Da'ifa 293 (both on dorar).

Why this is a problem

The report explains why the sun does not scorch the earth: angels keep cooling it by pelting it with snow. It treats the sun as a fire close enough to burn whatever it reaches and small enough to be damped with snow thrown at it, a picture of the sky that belongs to the people who first told it, not to the sun as it is. It is not presented as a parable. It opens "The Messenger of Allah said" and gives a number of angels and a daily routine.

Al-Tabarani recorded it without comment in the largest of his three dictionaries, and al-Haythami copied it into his collection of extra reports beside other cosmic "wonders". The critics' objection, as al-Haythami states it, is to the man in the chain, not to the idea of angels throwing snow at the sun.

The Muslim response

Muslim hadith critics reject the report themselves. Al-Haythami calls its narrator very weak and al-Albani grades it fabricated, so it has no place in what Muslims believe about the sun (dorar). No version is found in the six canonical books.

Why it fails

That answer is right, and this entry is rated Basic accordingly. What the report shows is how such material travelled. It was attached to a Companion with a full chain, kept by one of the great tenth-century collectors, and passed on by later scholars who classed it as weak rather than impossible: al-Suyuti, writing around AD 1500, still listed it simply as weak.

The hadith sciences judged it by its narrators. A report that made the sun a fire held in check by snow-throwing angels was not ruled out for what it said about the sun. In al-Haythami's verdict, what condemns it is the man in its chain.

Check it yourself

The Milky Way is 'the sweat of the viper beneath the Throne' Science Strange / Obscure Moderate al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir vol. 20 no. 123
"The Milky Way that is in the sky is the sweat of the viper that is beneath the Throne."

What the hadith says

Mu'adh b. Jabal reports the Prophet saying that the Milky Way (al-majarra) is the sweat of the viper that lies beneath God's Throne. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Kabir (vol. 20 no. 123), and with the same chain in al-Mu'jam al-Awsat (6760), where the creature is "the snake" and he notes that only this chain has it and only Hisham b. 'Ammar transmits it. Under the heading "strange reports of Jabir" he adds a second version (al-Kabir 1754): the Prophet tells Mu'adh, "I am sending you to a people of scripture. If you are asked about the Milky Way in the sky, say: it is the slaver of a snake beneath the Throne." Al-Haythami quotes the Mu'adh text as 'irq hayya (his print vowels it 'irq, "vein", of a snake) and says that 'Abd al-A'la b. Abi 'Amra is unknown to him and the rest of the narrators are reliable. Of the Jabir version he says al-Fadl b. al-Mukhtar is weak (Majma' al-Zawa'id 8/135). Ibn al-Qayyim lists the "sweat of the viper" wording as fabricated, and al-Albani and Ibn Kathir reject the Jabir version as fabricated or very objectionable (dorar).

Why this is a problem

The band of light across the night sky is explained as a bodily fluid of a giant serpent coiled under God's Throne. The Jabir version is the more revealing one. There the answer is not a passing remark: the Prophet supplies it in advance as the reply Mu'adh should give to Jews or Christians who ask him. The report presents serpent-sweat cosmology as a piece of prophetic knowledge to be used in debate with the People of the Book.

Al-Haythami's verdict on the Mu'adh chain is notably mild: one narrator he did not know, the rest trustworthy. He did not call the content impossible or the chain forged. Two separate chains, through two different Companions, carry a snake beneath the Throne that produces the Milky Way, and al-Tabarani recorded both.

The Muslim response

Muslim scholars do not accept it as the Prophet's teaching on astronomy. Ibn al-Qayyim lists the "sweat of the viper" wording among fabricated reports, and al-Albani grades the Jabir version fabricated (dorar). Al-Tabarani himself flagged the Mu'adh report as resting on a single chain.

Why it fails

The critics who reject it are right to do so, but the tradition did not speak with one voice. The verdict closest to the text, al-Haythami's, treats the Mu'adh report as having only an unknown narrator, the kind of weakness that other reports can make up for. Al-Tabarani's note records that only one chain had it, which is not the same as saying it is false.

The idea was also not a single forger's oddity. It appears in two forms, sweat and slaver, under two Companions' names, in two of al-Tabarani's books. A serpent under the Throne explaining the night sky was material that hadith transmitters were prepared to pass on as the Prophet's words, and one of the men who judged it, al-Haythami, found little wrong with its chain.

Check it yourself

At night the sun drops under the earth; at dawn 70,000 angels rush at it while it holds back Science Strange / Obscure Basic al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 7731
"As for the darkness of night and the light of day: when the sun sets it drops beneath the earth, so the night grows dark. When the morning lights up, seventy thousand angels rush at it, while it holds back, loath to be worshipped besides Allah, until it rises and gives light."

What the hadith says

Jabir b. 'Abd Allah tells of Khuzayma b. Thabit ("not the Ansari"), who had travelled with Muhammad in one of Khadija's caravans, told him then that he believed in him, and finally came to him on the day Mecca was conquered. He asks about the light of day and the dark of night, why water is warm in winter and cold in summer, where clouds come from, where locusts come from, thunder and lightning, and what a child receives from each parent. The Prophet answers that the sun drops beneath the earth at sunset and is rushed by seventy thousand angels at dawn, as above. Its longer stay beneath the earth on long nights warms the water, and its short stay in summer cools it. Locusts are the sneeze of a fish in the sea called al-Iwan; thunder is an angel holding a whip; the man gives the child its bones, veins and sinews, the woman its flesh, blood and hair (al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 7731, continued). Al-Tabarani notes that only Abu 'Imran al-Harrani has it from Ibn Jurayj. Al-Haythami gives no verdict: he names Abu 'Imran, says al-Dhahabi listed this hadith in his biography without citing anyone who weakened him (Majma' al-Zawa'id 8/133). Al-Albani grades it batil (false) (dorar).

Why this is a problem

Each answer quoted here is a natural-history claim, and each is wrong. Night is not the sun dropping beneath the earth; warm water in winter is not the sun's longer stay underground; locusts do not come from a fish's sneeze; a child does not take its bones from the father and its flesh from the mother. The sun itself is given a will. It resists rising because it does not want to be worshipped, and seventy thousand angels rush at it every morning until it rises.

Some of this is not confined to a weak report. The thunder-angel who drives the clouds is in Tirmidhi 3117, and locusts "sneezed out by the fish in the sea" are in Ibn Majah 3221, itself graded weak. The canonical collections have their own nightly journey of the sun as well: in Bukhari 3199 it goes and prostrates beneath the Throne and asks permission to rise.

The Muslim response

Al-Albani grades this report false, so it carries no weight in Islamic teaching about the heavens (dorar). It has a single chain, which al-Tabarani himself points out, and the details it shares with Tirmidhi and Ibn Majah stand or fall on those reports' own chains.

Why it fails

For this report the answer is fair, and the entry is rated Basic. But al-Haythami, who read the whole thing, raised no objection to its content and found nothing against its narrator except that al-Dhahabi had listed this very hadith under his name. He gives no sign that a reluctant sun pushed up by angels was a reason to reject it.

The overlap with the canonical books also matters. The sun as a creature that goes beneath the Throne and asks leave to rise, thunder as an angel driving clouds, locusts from a fish: these belong to a shared stock of explanations that the hadith literature attached to the Prophet. Removing this one report leaves that stock in place.

Check it yourself

'I cannot forget him at 'Ukaz': Muhammad recalls the sermon of Quss b. Sa'ida (fabricated) Pre-Islamic Borrowings Prophetic Character Basic al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir 12561
"I cannot forget him at 'Ukaz in the sacred month, on a red camel, addressing the people ... "Quss swears a true oath: if there is good pleasure on the earth, there will surely be anger after it. Allah has a religion dearer to Him than the religion you follow.""

What the hadith says

Ibn 'Abbas says that when the delegation of 'Abd al-Qays came, the Prophet asked which of them knew Quss b. Sa'ida al-Iyadi. "All of us," they said, and told him Quss had died. He replied that he could not forget him at the fair of 'Ukaz, on a red camel, preaching: "O people, gather, listen and take heed. Whoever lives dies, whoever dies is gone, and everything that is coming will come. In the sky there is news, and on the earth there are lessons: a bed laid out, a roof raised up, stars that move, seas that do not sink away." The sermon continues with the oath quoted above and ends: "Why do I see people go and not return?" The Prophet then asks whether anyone can recite Quss's poetry, and one of them recites verses on death (al-Mu'jam al-Kabir 12561). The chain runs through Muhammad b. al-Hajjaj al-Lakhmi, and al-Haythami says of it: "It contains Muhammad b. al-Hajjaj al-Lakhmi, who is a liar" (Majma' al-Zawa'id 9/419). Ibn al-Jawzi calls it false (batil) and al-Albani fabricated (dorar).

Why this is a problem

The story has Muhammad, before his mission, standing in the crowd at a pagan fair and memorising a monotheist preacher who told the Arabs that God has a religion dearer to Him than theirs. Quss speaks in short rhymed lines about the raised roof of the sky and the earth spread out as a bed, images the Qur'an itself uses ("the roof raised high", Qur'an 52:5; "Have We not made the earth a bed?", Qur'an 78:6). In the story the Prophet still remembers him years later and asks to hear his poetry.

The report is forged, so it is not evidence of what happened at 'Ukaz. It is evidence of what Muslim storytellers found natural to tell. Someone in the tradition imagined Arabian monotheist preaching that already sounded like the Qur'an, and imagined Muhammad as one of its hearers. Told as a tribute to Quss, it also, on this entry's reading, gives Muhammad a source.

The Muslim response

Muslim hadith critics reject it outright as the work of a known liar: al-Haythami names Muhammad b. al-Hajjaj al-Lakhmi as a liar (kadhdhab), Ibn al-Jawzi calls the report false and al-Albani fabricated (dorar). Nothing about Quss is found in the canonical books.

Why it fails

This is correct, and the entry is rated Basic. The narrower point stands. A known forger chose this story because it was plausible to his audience, and al-Tabarani gave it a full chain in his largest collection. The same Muhammad b. al-Hajjaj is the only one who transmits from 'Abd al-Malik b. 'Umayr the report that "Gabriel fed me harisa" (al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 6596), and al-Tabarani's only comment there is that no one else had it from 'Abd al-Malik.

The verdicts quoted here are about the chain: al-Haythami names the liar in it. None of them objects to a Muhammad who heard a pre-Islamic preacher, and Ibn Kathir, as quoted in al-Salihi's Subul al-Huda on the same dorar page, held that the story's several weak routes together support its basis.

Check it yourself

A lizard speaks 'in clear Arabic' and calls Muhammad 'the Seal of the Prophets' (false) Prophetic Character Animals Strange / Obscure Basic al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Saghir 948
"The lizard spoke in clear Arabic that all the people understood: "At your service, Messenger of the Lord of the worlds." ... "Who am I, lizard?" It said: "You are the Messenger of the Lord of the worlds and the Seal of the Prophets.""

What the hadith says

'Umar b. al-Khattab tells of a Bedouin of Banu Sulaym who had caught a lizard (dabb) and was carrying it in his sleeve. He pushed through the crowd and told Muhammad that no woman had ever borne anyone more lying or more hateful to him. 'Umar asked leave to kill him; Muhammad answered, "Do you not know that the forbearing man is almost a prophet?" The Bedouin swore by al-Lat and al-'Uzza that he would not believe unless the lizard believed. Called by name, the lizard answered in clear Arabic, said it worshipped the One "whose Throne is in the sky, whose authority is on the earth, whose way is in the sea, whose mercy is in Paradise and whose punishment is in Hell", and named Muhammad the Seal of the Prophets. The Bedouin converted, then persuaded a thousand armed men of his tribe, who were riding out to fight Muhammad, to convert as well (al-Mu'jam al-Saghir 948; same chain in al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 5996). Al-Haythami notes that al-Tabarani had it from his own teacher, Muhammad b. 'Ali b. al-Walid al-Basri, quotes al-Bayhaqi, "the blame for this hadith lies with him", and adds that the rest are men of the Sahih (Majma' al-Zawa'id 8/294). Al-Dhahabi calls it false (batil), and Ibn Taymiyya, as quoted by al-Salihi, says some Basran storytellers forged it (dorar).

Why this is a problem

In the Qur'an, when Muhammad's opponents demand a sign before they will believe, he is told to answer: "Exalted is my Lord! Am I anything but a human messenger?" (Qur'an 17:90-93). This story gives the doubter exactly what he demands. An animal speaks Arabic on cue, recites a creed and confirms Muhammad's prophetic title, and a thousand armed men convert on hearing of it.

The story is long and polished. It includes a saying on forbearance, a lesson that reciting Qul huwa Allahu ahad three times equals the whole Qur'an, and a promise to 'Abd al-Rahman b. 'Awf of a she-camel made of pearl in Paradise. Al-Tabarani heard it from his own teacher and recorded it in two of his books. It is a fully formed piece of miracle literature that reached the hadith collections through a hadith teacher.

The Muslim response

Muslim scholars reject the story as false. Al-Bayhaqi blamed al-Tabarani's teacher, al-Dhahabi called it false, and Ibn Taymiyya, as quoted by al-Salihi, said Basran storytellers made it up (dorar). The six canonical books have reports about eating lizards but no talking lizard, and the story is not counted among the Prophet's established miracles.

Why it fails

The critics are right, and the entry is rated Basic. But their verdict cuts both ways. If storytellers in Basra could produce a hadith this long and detailed and get it into the teaching of a hadith transmitter, and from there into al-Tabarani's books, then a plausible chain was not much protection against invention. Al-Haythami's own comment is that every narrator except one is a man of the Sahih.

The demand for signs that the Qur'an turned away came back in the next generations as stories of animals bearing witness. This report is one of them, and it was kept and copied by the scholars who also judged it.

Check it yourself

A tethered gazelle asks leave to suckle her fawns, comes back, and recites the shahada Prophetic Character Animals Strange / Obscure Basic al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir vol. 23 no. 763
"She said: "I have two fawns on that mountain; untie me so that I can go and suckle them, then come back to you." ... She went off running, saying: "I bear witness that there is no god but Allah and that you are the Messenger of Allah.""

What the hadith says

Umm Salama says the Prophet was in the desert when a voice called out to him; he turned and found a tethered gazelle. She asked him to untie her so that she could suckle her two fawns on the mountain, and when he asked whether she would really return, she swore: "May Allah punish me with the punishment of the tithe-collectors if I do not." He freed her, she suckled her fawns and came back, and he tied her up again. When the Bedouin who had caught her woke, the Prophet asked him to release her, and she ran off reciting the shahada (al-Mu'jam al-Kabir vol. 23 no. 763). The chain runs through Hibban b. Aghlab b. Tamim from his father, and al-Haythami says: "It contains Aghlab b. Tamim, who is weak" (Majma' al-Zawa'id 8/295). Al-Albani grades it very weak in one book and weak in another, while al-Suyuti held that, although Aghlab is weak, the story's many routes show it has a basis (dorar).

Why this is a problem

A wild animal speaks, bargains, swears an oath and pronounces the Islamic confession of faith. Its oath is not an animal's concern at all: it invokes the punishment of the tithe-collectors, a category from the human world of taxation. The story has put a human speaker's religious vocabulary into a gazelle's mouth.

Al-Suyuti's judgement shows how such stories were kept. He accepted that the narrator is weak, but held that the story's many routes show it has a basis. By that method a miracle story that no single chain can carry is still kept as having a basis.

The Muslim response

Muslim critics do not rely on it: al-Haythami calls a narrator weak and al-Albani grades it weak to very weak (dorar). It is not in the canonical collections, and the Prophet's standing does not depend on animal-miracle stories of this kind.

Why it fails

The weakness is real, and the entry is rated Basic. But the Muslim side is not unanimous, and the dissent comes from a major authority. Al-Suyuti collected such reports in a book devoted to the Prophet's special characteristics and defended this one from its number of routes. The story's defenders include one of the best-known scholars of the later tradition.

The story was recorded by al-Tabarani, collected by al-Haythami under its own chapter heading, "The hadith of the gazelle", and defended by al-Suyuti. The tradition's judgement on it is divided, not dismissive.

Check it yourself

Ibn Mas'ud: 'Umar wrestled a jinni with forearms 'like a dog's' and threw him three times Strange / Obscure Magic & Occult Moderate al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir 8826
"I see you are puny and gaunt, as if your two little forearms were a dog's forearms. ... Who could it be but 'Umar?"

What the hadith says

This is Ibn Mas'ud's own account, not a saying of the Prophet. He says a man from the Prophet's Companions met a man of the jinn and wrestled him, and the human threw him. "Again," said the jinni, and was thrown again. The man remarked that the jinni looked puny and gaunt, with forearms like a dog's, and asked whether all jinn were like that. "No, by Allah," the jinni said, "among them I am sturdy. Wrestle me a third time, and if you throw me I will teach you something useful." Thrown a third time, he taught him that whenever Ayat al-Kursi is recited in a house, Satan leaves it with a noise like a donkey's (khabaj) and does not come back until morning. Asked who the Companion was, Ibn Mas'ud frowned and said: "Who could it be but 'Umar?" (al-Mu'jam al-Kabir 8826). Al-Haythami gives it together with another version, through Abu Wa'il, in which the opponent is Satan himself, under the heading "His throwing of Satan". He says al-Tabarani has the two by two chains. The men of this one (al-Sha'bi's, which he places second) are men of the Sahih, except that al-Sha'bi did not hear from Ibn Mas'ud, though he lived in his time. The Satan version contains al-Mas'udi, who was reliable but became confused, and al-Haythami says al-Sha'bi's report shows that al-Mas'udi's report is sound (Majma' al-Zawa'id 9/71).

Why this is a problem

A senior Companion reports as fact that 'Umar fought a jinni hand to hand and won three falls, and the jinni paid with a protective verse. The jinn here are bodies that can be pinned to the ground and that have thin, dog-like forearms. Satan, driven out of a house by a recitation, leaves making a donkey's noise.

This is not a fringe report that the critics threw out. Al-Haythami found the second chain's men all reliable apart from a gap between al-Sha'bi and Ibn Mas'ud, and concluded that al-Sha'bi's route shows al-Mas'udi's report to be sound. He filed the story among 'Umar's merits.

The Muslim response

Muslims accept jinn as real, since the Qur'an has a whole chapter named after them (Qur'an 72), and they accept that Ayat al-Kursi protects against devils on the strength of Bukhari 2311. The wrestling story is a Companion's report with a broken chain, they say, and is not a basis for belief.

Why it fails

The canonical version is not far from this one. In Bukhari 2311 Abu Hurayra catches a thief stealing from the charity food on three nights. The thief buys his release by teaching him Ayat al-Kursi, and the Prophet tells him it was Satan: "He spoke the truth, although he is a liar." There is no wrestling and no 'Umar, but the pattern is the same: a devil physically seized on three occasions bargains with a verse to go free.

The broken chain is a fair point. Even so, al-Haythami concluded that al-Sha'bi's route shows al-Mas'udi's report to be sound, and the narrator is Ibn Mas'ud speaking for himself. Calling it "just a Companion's report" concedes that one of the most senior Companions told the story as a true account of 'Umar.

Check it yourself

On the evening of 'Arafa Allah boasts of the pilgrims generally, 'and of 'Umar specially' Prophetic Privileges Allah's Character Strange / Obscure Basic al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 1251
"Allah, Mighty and Majestic, boasted to His angels of His servants on the evening of 'Arafa generally, and boasted of 'Umar b. al-Khattab specially."

What the hadith says

Abu Hurayra reports the Prophet's words above. Al-Tabarani gives the text in al-Mu'jam al-Awsat (1251) "with the same chain" as the report before it (1250): 'Abd Allah, son of 'Abd al-Rahman b. Ibrahim, from his father, from al-'Ala' b. 'Abd al-Rahman, from his father, from Abu Hurayra. He notes that only 'Abd al-Rahman has these two reports from al-'Ala', and only his son has them from him. Al-Haythami says the chain contains 'Abd al-Rahman b. Ibrahim al-Qass, "whom Ahmad called reliable and the majority called weak". Next on the same page he quotes a version from Ibn 'Abbas: the Prophet smiled at 'Umar one day and told him, "Allah boasted of the people of 'Arafa generally, and boasted of you specially"; its chain contains Rishdin b. Sa'd, "about whom there is disagreement whether he can be relied on" (Majma' al-Zawa'id 9/70). Al-Albani grades an Ibn 'Abbas wording ("Allah boasted of the people on the day of 'Arafa generally, and of 'Umar b. al-Khattab specially") false (batil) (dorar).

Why this is a problem

The canonical report is about all the pilgrims. In Muslim 1348 there is no day on which God frees more people from Hell than the Day of 'Arafa; He draws near and boasts of them to the angels. This version keeps that scene and adds a second, private boast for one man. God's pride in the crowd at 'Arafa is the general grade; 'Umar receives a special one.

The same formula appears for Abu Bakr in al-Hakim's al-Mustadrak: "Allah will manifest Himself to His servants in the Hereafter generally, and to Abu Bakr specially" (al-Mustadrak 4463). The general-then-special pattern could be applied to any hero. Here it gives 'Umar a place in God's address to the angels on the evening of 'Arafa.

The Muslim response

Hadith critics reject the 'Umar clause. Al-Haythami flags the weak narrator, al-Albani grades the Ibn 'Abbas wording false, and the sound report, Muslim 1348, praises all the pilgrims without singling anyone out (dorar).

Why it fails

That is a fair answer, and the entry is rated Basic. What remains is how the clause was carried. It comes by two separate chains, through Abu Hurayra and Ibn 'Abbas, and al-Haythami describes the weak man in each as disputed rather than as a forger. According to al-Haythami, Ahmad b. Hanbal called 'Abd al-Rahman al-Qass reliable.

The sound core, God boasting of the pilgrims, was available to anyone who wanted to honour a Companion, and two transmission lines carry its extension to 'Umar. Critics later sorted out the result, but the private divine praise had already entered al-Tabarani's books under the Prophet's name.

Check it yourself

'Hair growing in the nose is a protection against leprosy' (fabricated) Science Strange / Obscure Basic al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 672
"The growth of hair in the nose is a safeguard against leprosy."

What the hadith says

'A'isha reports the Prophet saying that hair growing in the nose is a safeguard (aman) against leprosy (judham). Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Awsat (672), from Hisham b. 'Urwa, from his father, from 'A'isha, and notes that only Abu al-Rabi' al-Samman has it from Hisham. Al-Haythami says: "It contains Abu al-Rabi' al-Samman, who is weak" (Majma' al-Zawa'id 5/100). Ibn Hibban calls it false and baseless (batil la asla lahu), and Ibn al-Qayyim and al-Albani call it fabricated. Al-Suyuti dissents: he thought it more likely weak than fabricated (dorar).

Why this is a problem

This is a medical claim in the Prophet's name: a feature that almost every adult has is said to protect against one of the most feared diseases of the ancient world. Leprosy is a bacterial infection, and nose hair offers no known protection against it. The saying is folk reassurance turned into prophecy.

It came with a first-class chain: Hisham b. 'Urwa from his father from 'A'isha, a family chain that carries many reports in the canonical books. In al-Tabarani's chain one weak transmitter attached the saying to that line, and the result was copied by al-Tabarani and by later collectors.

The Muslim response

Muslim critics reject it as baseless or fabricated: Ibn Hibban, Ibn al-Qayyim and al-Albani all say so (dorar). It is not found in the canonical books and is not part of prophetic medicine.

Why it fails

The critics are right, and the entry is rated Basic. The point is what got through. In al-Tabarani's chain a single weak narrator attached a piece of folk medicine to one of the most trusted family chains in the tradition, and it passed into a major collection with only al-Tabarani's note that one man had it.

Even after the critics ruled on it, al-Suyuti, one of the most prolific scholars of the later tradition, judged it merely weak, not fabricated. His verdict, as dorar quotes it, says nothing against its content.

Check it yourself

'The stomach is the basin of the body': a medical maxim under the Prophet's name Science Basic al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 4343
"The stomach is the basin of the body, and the veins come down to it. When the stomach is sound, the veins go out with soundness; when the stomach is corrupt, the veins go out with sickness."

What the hadith says

Abu Hurayra reports the Prophet describing the stomach as the body's watering basin (hawd), to which the veins come down. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Awsat (4343), through Yahya b. 'Abd Allah al-Babaltti from Ibrahim b. Jurayj al-Ruhawi, from Zayd b. Abi Unaysa, from al-Zuhri, from Abu Salama, and notes that only Zayd has it from al-Zuhri and only Ibrahim b. Jurayj transmits it. Al-Haythami says: "It contains Yahya b. 'Abd Allah al-Babaltti, who is weak" (Majma' al-Zawa'id 5/86). Al-Albani grades it munkar (rejected), and al-Daraqutni remarks that only Ibrahim b. Jurayj al-Ruhawi has it, "and he was a physician" (dorar).

Why this is a problem

This is physiology, not revelation. The image of the stomach as a pool from which the veins draw health or disease reads like a physician's maxim, and the only man who transmitted it was, by al-Daraqutni's account, a physician himself. Critics note the coincidence. The report does not prove where the saying came from, but the one man its chain depends on was a doctor.

The saying entered the collections with a chain of famous names (al-Zuhri, Abu Salama, Abu Hurayra), and the only warning al-Tabarani gives is that one man transmitted it. A maxim of a doctor's trade, given that kind of chain, was copied as a saying of the Prophet.

The Muslim response

Muslim critics reject it. Al-Albani calls it munkar, al-'Uqayli baseless, and Ibn al-Jawzi says these are not the words of the Messenger (dorar). It has no basis in the canonical books and forms no part of prophetic medicine.

Why it fails

That is correct, and the entry is rated Basic. The value of the report is what it shows about the process. Medical lore could be given a Companion and a full chain of famous transmitters, and it reached al-Tabarani's dictionary. A later critic had to point out that the sole source was a doctor.

Once a chain was attached, the line between a doctor's advice and a prophet's became thin. The critics' tools could catch a weak transmitter, and most of the verdicts quoted here stop at the chain.

Check it yourself

'Gabriel fed me harisa, to strengthen my back for the night prayer' (fabricated) Prophetic Character Prophetic Privileges Strange / Obscure Basic al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 6596
"Gabriel fed me harisa, by which my back is strengthened for standing [in prayer] at night."

What the hadith says

Hudhayfa b. al-Yaman reports the Prophet saying that Gabriel fed him harisa, a dish of wheat and meat, to strengthen his back for the night prayer. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Awsat (6596) through Muhammad b. al-Hajjaj al-Lakhmi, from 'Abd al-Malik b. 'Umayr, from Rib'i b. Hirash, and notes that only Muhammad b. al-Hajjaj has it from 'Abd al-Malik. Al-Haythami gives it a chapter of its own, "On harisa", and says that Muhammad b. al-Hajjaj "is the one who forged the hadith". His print calls the man al-Jumahi, but the chain in al-Tabarani has al-Lakhmi (Majma' al-Zawa'id 5/38). Abu Hatim al-Razi called it "a lie", and al-Albani grades it fabricated (dorar).

Why this is a problem

The report makes the angel of revelation a cook who serves the Prophet a strengthening dish. In this text the strength is for standing in prayer at night, and nothing more is said. Other reports covered in this catalog's entry on the Prophet's strength in intercourse have Gabriel bring food that gave the strength of forty men. This one keeps the same motif of food from heaven and gives it a pious purpose.

The forger is known by name, and he was productive. The same Muhammad b. al-Hajjaj al-Lakhmi is the transmitter, in al-Tabarani's chain, of the story in which the Prophet recalls the sermon of Quss b. Sa'ida at 'Ukaz (al-Mu'jam al-Kabir 12561). Al-Tabarani recorded both, and on the harisa report his only comment is that no one but this man had it from 'Abd al-Malik b. 'Umayr, not that he was a liar.

The Muslim response

Muslim critics agree that it is a lie. Abu Hatim called it so, al-Haythami named the man who forged it, and al-Albani grades it fabricated (dorar). No version is in the canonical books.

Why it fails

That is correct, and the entry is rated Basic. What the report shows is how much a single known liar could place in the major collections. Al-Tabarani transmitted two of his reports without calling him a liar. Al-Haythami still filed this one under a heading of its own, so that a reader looking up harisa in the standard reference work finds a forged saying of the Prophet about it.

Its interest is also as a source. Muslim answers that call harisa reports fabricated are responding to material like this, preserved with a chain in al-Tabarani's dictionary. It was not invented by critics of Islam.

Check it yourself

'If someone tells something and there is a sneeze at it, it is true' (fabricated) Strange / Obscure Ritual Absurdities Basic al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 6509
"Whoever relates something and there is a sneeze at it, it is true."

What the hadith says

Abu Hurayra reports the Prophet saying that if a man relates something and there is a sneeze while he says it, what he said is true. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Awsat (6509), through Baqiyya b. al-Walid from Mu'awiya b. Yahya, from Abu al-Zinad, from al-A'raj, and notes that only Mu'awiya has it from Abu al-Zinad, Baqiyya alone transmits it, and "it is not reported from the Messenger of Allah except by this chain". Al-Tabarani's print vowels the verb as active ("[someone] sneezed at it"), al-Haythami's as passive ("a sneeze occurred at it"); neither says who sneezes. Al-Haythami gives it a chapter of its own, "On one who relates something and a sneeze occurs at it", and says: "It contains Mu'awiya b. Yahya al-Sadafi, who is weak" (Majma' al-Zawa'id 8/59). Abu Hatim al-Razi called it "a lie", and al-Albani grades it fabricated (dorar).

Why this is a problem

The saying turns a sneeze into a test of truth. Whether a report is reliable is settled by an involuntary reflex that happens to coincide with it. It is an omen of the kind found in popular belief everywhere, and here it is given the Prophet's authority.

The sound sneezing hadiths are about manners and praise: "Allah likes sneezing and dislikes yawning", and whoever sneezes and praises Allah is to be answered with a prayer for mercy (Bukhari 6223). This report goes further and gives the sneeze a power to confirm a statement. Al-Haythami's chapter heading treats it as a topic in its own right.

The Muslim response

Abu Hatim called it a lie and al-Albani graded it fabricated (dorar). The authentic hadiths on sneezing teach saying al-hamdu lillah and replying to it, not treating a sneeze as a sign that something is true.

Why it fails

The response is right, and the entry is rated Basic. What survives is the record of how it was handled. Al-Tabarani transmitted it while noting it had only one chain, al-Haythami also names Abu Ya'la as a source, and al-Haythami gave it a heading in his reference work. Al-Haythami's own judgement was only that one narrator was weak.

A superstition about sneezes passed through these hands with a chain back to Abu Hurayra. Most critics rejected it in the end, though al-Nawawi called its chain good, and al-Haythami's verdict rests on a narrator, not on what the saying claims.

Check it yourself

'The Qur'an is a million and twenty-seven thousand letters', with a houri for every letter Scripture Integrity Paradise Basic al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 6616
"The Qur'an is a thousand thousand letters and twenty-seven thousand letters. Whoever recites it patiently, seeking [the] reward, has for every letter a wife from the wide-eyed houris."

What the hadith says

Umar b. al-Khattab reports the Prophet giving a precise size for the Qur'an, 1,027,000 letters, and promising a houri wife for every letter to whoever recites it patiently, hoping for the reward. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 6616 from his shaykh Muhammad b. Ubayd b. Adam b. Abi Iyas, from his father, from his grandfather Adam b. Abi Iyas, from Hafs b. Maysara, Zayd b. Aslam and Aslam. He adds that it is narrated from Umar only by this chain and that Hafs b. Maysara alone has it. Al-Haythami (Majma' al-Zawa'id 7/163, no. 11653) says al-Dhahabi listed the shaykh in al-Mizan because of this very hadith, that he found no one else commenting on him, and that the rest of the narrators are trustworthy. Al-Dhahabi calls the report batil (false); al-Albani calls it batil in one book and mawdu' (fabricated) in another; al-Suyuti marks it weak (dorar.net cards).

Why this is a problem

The number is impossible. The early Muslim counts of the Qur'an's letters that al-Qurtubi gathers in the introduction to his commentary give 340,740 (the figure al-Hajjaj's reciters agreed on), 323,015 (attributed to Ata b. Yasar) and 321,180 (Mujahid) (al-Qurtubi, al-Jami' li-Ahkam al-Qur'an, introduction). The report's total is roughly three times any of them. The report says nothing about lost text, and this entry does not claim it does: it simply gives the size of the scripture wrongly, and puts the wrong size in the Prophet's mouth.

The reward is just as revealing. A sound hadith already promises a reward for every letter recited; this one turns each letter into a wife from among the houris, so that a single patient recitation would earn more than a million of them. Paradise is pictured as a tally of women, counted out by the letter.

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that the report is false and proves nothing. Al-Dhahabi and al-Albani reject it, and the sound version of the letter-reward hadith (Tirmidhi 2910: 'whoever recites a letter of Allah's Book has a good deed for it, and a good deed is worth ten like it') gives no total and promises no wives. The careful letter counts recorded by al-Qurtubi show that Muslims knew exactly how long their Qur'an was.

Why it fails

On the chain the response is right, which is why this entry is rated Basic. But the report did not survive by accident. Al-Tabarani recorded it in a major collection, and al-Haythami, whose job was to judge chains, found only one doubtful man in it and called the rest trustworthy. His comment says nothing about the figure itself.

What the report shows is how freely the tradition could attach numbers to the Prophet. A total that no copy of the Qur'an has ever matched, and a reward measured in houris, travelled under the Prophet's name through a chain of mostly trustworthy men until a critic of al-Dhahabi's standing declared it false.

Check it yourself

Abu Bakr's deathbed regrets: 'I wish I had not opened Fatima's house' and 'had not burned al-Fuja'a' Governance Warfare & Jihad Moderate al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir vol. 1 no. 43
"I wish I had not uncovered the house of Fatima, but had left it, even if [it] had been shut against me for war ... and I wish that on the day al-Fuja'a al-Sulami was brought to me I had not burned him, but had killed him swiftly or set him free outright."

What the hadith says

Abd al-Rahman b. Awf visits Abu Bakr in his final illness. These are Abu Bakr's own words, not the Prophet's. He complains that each of them 'swelled his nose' at his choice of successor, then lists nine things: three he did and wished he had not, three he did not do and wished he had, and three he wished he had asked the Prophet. The first regret is that he 'uncovered' (kashaftu) Fatima's house. Others are that at the Saqifa he did not thrust the rule onto Abu Ubayda or Umar, that he did not execute al-Ash'ath when he was brought in captive, and that he burned al-Fuja'a al-Sulami (the print spells him al-Fujat). He also wished he had asked the Prophet who should hold the rule, so that no one would dispute it, and whether the Ansar had any share in it. The report is al-Mu'jam al-Kabir vol. 1 no. 43, through Ulwan b. Dawud al-Bajali. Al-Haythami says Ulwan is weak and 'this report is among those held against him' (Majma' 5/202-203, no. 9030); al-Uqayli calls its chain mudtarib (inconsistent); al-Diya' al-Maqdisi calls it 'a hasan report from Abu Bakr, though nothing in it is the Prophet's words' (dorar.net).

Why this is a problem

The text does not say Abu Bakr burned Fatima's house or harmed her, and this entry claims neither. What it does say is that the first caliph, at the end of his life, named among his regrets that he had 'uncovered' the house of the Prophet's daughter instead of leaving it alone, even if it had been shut against him for war. The succession was contested hard enough to reach her door.

The same speech has Abu Bakr wishing he had asked the Prophet who should rule and whether the Ansar had a share, which is an admission that he had no clear instruction to settle the question. It also records that he burned a man alive. In Bukhari 3017, Ibn Abbas objects when Ali burns people, citing the Prophet: 'Do not punish with Allah's punishment.' Here the first caliph had done exactly that, and regretted it only as something he would do differently.

The Muslim response

Sunni scholars answer that the report is weak and munkar (rejected) because of Ulwan b. Dawud, as al-Haythami says (he lists it among the reports held against Ulwan), and that al-Uqayli found its chain inconsistent. A report like this cannot establish wrongdoing by Abu Bakr. Even read as it stands, 'uncovering' a house need mean no more than opening or searching it, and the text describes no harm to Fatima (dorar.net gradings).

Why it fails

The chain is disputed, not dead. Al-Diya' al-Maqdisi, a careful critic, called it a hasan report from Abu Bakr and included it in al-Mukhtara, his selection of reports he held sound, so the graders genuinely disagree. The mild reading of kashaftu is fair, and this entry adopts it. Even so, a house that might have been shut against the caliph 'for war', during a disputed succession, is not a neutral scene.

On this report, the man who succeeded the Prophet died regretting that he had uncovered Fatima's house, regretting that he had burned a man alive, and wishing he had asked who should rule. A Sunni critic who accepts it as Abu Bakr's own words has accepted all three.

Check it yourself

'The world is seven thousand years, and I am in its last thousand' Eschatology Basic al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir 8146
"As for the pulpit you saw with seven steps, with me on the highest step: the world is seven thousand years, and I am in its last thousand."

What the hadith says

After the dawn prayer the Prophet asks whether anyone has seen a dream. Ibn Zaml al-Juhani describes a broad road, a lush meadow, and the Prophet on a seven-step pulpit with three men around him and a lean old she-camel ahead, from which the Prophet seemed to shy away. Interpreting the dream, the Prophet says the meadow is this world, the three men are Moses, Jesus and Abraham, the seven steps mean 'the world is seven thousand years, and I am in its last thousand', and the she-camel is the Hour, which 'will rise upon us: there is no prophet after me and no community after my community'. Al-Tabarani gives it in al-Mu'jam al-Kabir 8146 (text continued). Every critic cited rejects the chain: al-Haythami names Sulayman b. Ata al-Qurashi as weak (Majma' 7/184), Ibn Hajar calls its chain very weak, and al-Albani calls it fabricated (dorar.net).

Why this is a problem

The Qur'an says the time of the Hour is known only to Allah: 'Its knowledge is only with my Lord. None will reveal its time except Him' (Q7:187). This report has the Prophet doing what the verse says he cannot do, giving the world a fixed length and placing himself near its end.

The figure can be checked. If the Prophet, who died in AD 632, stood in the world's last thousand years, the end was due within a thousand years of him, by about AD 1632 at the latest. That date is our inference, not the report's, but it follows from the report's own words, and it has passed. The canonical saying 'I have been sent and the Hour like these two' (Bukhari 6504) expresses the same nearness without a number that could fail.

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that the report is fabricated or very weak by the judgement of every critic who discusses it, so no failed date can be charged to the Prophet. Islam teaches that the time of the Hour is hidden (Q7:187), and the sound reports speak only of its nearness.

Why it fails

The chain criticism is decisive, which is why this entry is rated Basic. What remains is the history of the report. Al-Tabarani placed it in his largest collection, and centuries later Ibn Hajar was still discussing it in Fath al-Bari, his commentary on al-Bukhari, where he judged its chain very weak.

The report shows that a dated end of the world, put in the Prophet's mouth, circulated in mainstream hadith literature. The critics rejected it on the chain; the deadline it sets has since passed.

Check it yourself

Two men wake unable to recite a surah: 'It was abrogated and caused to be forgotten, so pay it no heed' Scripture Integrity Abrogation Moderate al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir 13141
"It is among what was abrogated and caused to be forgotten, so put it out of your minds."

What the hadith says

Abd Allah b. Umar reports that two men of the Ansar had learned a surah from the Prophet and used to recite it. One night they stood to pray with it and could not manage a single letter. In the morning they went to the Prophet and told him, and he said: 'It is among what was abrogated and caused to be forgotten, so put it out of your minds.' The narrator al-Zuhri used to read Q2:106 as nunsiha, 'or We cause it to be forgotten'. Al-Tabarani gives the story twice with the same chain, in al-Mu'jam al-Kabir 13141 and al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 4637, and notes that only Sulayman b. Arqam has it from al-Zuhri. Al-Haythami quotes it twice and both times calls Sulayman matruk (abandoned) (Majma' 6/315; 7/154, no. 11592); Ibn Kathir also calls him weak. In the first place al-Haythami names the Companion as Umar and words the ruling 'abrogated, or forgotten'; al-Tabarani's printed text has Ibn Umar and 'abrogated and caused to be forgotten'.

Why this is a problem

Forgotten Qur'an is not a fringe idea. The Qur'an speaks of verses Allah 'causes to be forgotten' (Q2:106) and tells the Prophet 'you will not forget, except what Allah wills' (Q87:6-7). In Muslim 1050, Abu Musa says the Companions used to recite a surah as long and severe as Bara'a, and that he has forgotten all of it but one line. What al-Tabarani's report adds is the mechanism: a whole surah vanishes overnight from the memories of the two men who knew it, and the Prophet declares the loss to be divine abrogation.

That ruling settles the question in a way nothing could contradict. The two men reported only that they had forgotten. The Prophet's answer turned forgetting into revelation, so any text that dropped out of memory could be counted as something God had withdrawn, and no loss could ever count as corruption.

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that abrogation of recitation (naskh al-tilawa) is an accepted category: Allah may withdraw a passage from the Qur'an, as Q2:106 says, and that is His choice, not a corruption of the text. This particular story, in any case, rests on a narrator al-Haythami calls abandoned and Ibn Kathir calls weak (dorar.net).

Why it fails

The chain criticism is fair, and this entry does not rest on the overnight story being true. But the response defends the story's theology in full. On the mainstream view, surahs that the Companions learned and recited are missing from the Qur'an, Abu Musa forgot one of them in a sound report, and the explanation for their absence is that God took them back.

That is exactly the reasoning of al-Tabarani's report: whatever is gone was meant to go. The weak story only dramatizes an accepted doctrine. On that doctrine, the Qur'an Muslims recite today is not everything that was revealed and recited, and the claim that nothing has been lost from it depends on calling every loss abrogation.

Check it yourself

'Go raiding and you will take the daughters of al-Asfar as spoil' Warfare & Jihad Slavery & Captives Moderate al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir 11052
"Go raiding, and you will take the daughters of al-Asfar as spoil."

What the hadith says

Ibn Abbas reports that the Prophet said, 'Go raiding, and you will take the daughters of al-Asfar as spoil.' Al-Asfar, 'the Yellow One', is the Arabs' name for the Byzantines. Some of the hypocrites said, 'He is tempting you with women', and Allah revealed Q9:49: 'Among them is he who says: Permit me [to stay behind] and do not put me to trial.' The report is al-Mu'jam al-Kabir 11052. Al-Haythami places it under Q9:49 and says its narrator Abu Shayba Ibrahim b. Uthman is weak (Majma' 7/30, no. 11044). Al-Albani calls this chain very weak, but still includes the hadith in al-Silsila al-Sahiha on the strength of a report from the Successor Mujahid, which he grades 'a sound chain, mursal' (Mujahid quotes the Prophet without naming a Companion): 'Raid Tabuk: you will take as spoil the daughters of al-Asfar and the women of the Romans' (al-Albani on the Ibn Abbas chain; on the Mujahid report).

Why this is a problem

The verb is taghnamu, 'you will take as ghanima', the word for war booty. Applied to women, it means taking them captive as part of the spoils. The text says nothing more than that, and this entry claims nothing more. But that is enough: the incentive offered for the campaign is the enemy's women as booty.

The Qur'anic answer does not touch the inducement. The hypocrites object that the Prophet is tempting them with women, and the verse that comes down rebukes the man who asks to stay behind for fear of temptation: 'Unquestionably, into trial they have fallen' (Q9:49). The promise of captive women stands; the objection to it is what revelation condemns.

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that the Ibn Abbas chain is weak, as al-Haythami says. They add that taking captives was the norm of warfare at the time, and that the verse condemns a hypocrite's excuse for avoiding a campaign, not anything the Prophet said (dorar.net).

Why it fails

The chain objection does not settle the matter, because al-Albani, the most widely cited modern grader, accepts the hadith and places it in his collection of sound hadith through Mujahid's report, whose chain he calls sound. Mujahid's wording is even plainer: 'the daughters of al-Asfar and the women of the Romans' (al-Albani, al-Silsila al-Sahiha 6/1228).

The 'norm of the time' answer concedes the content. The question is not whether seventh-century armies took captives, but whether a prophet whose example is meant for all times used captive women as a reason to join a raid. On al-Albani's grading he did, and the verse revealed in reply aimed its criticism at the doubter.

Check it yourself

After creation Allah 'lay back and put one leg over the other': 'No creature of Mine should do this' Allah's Character Contradictions Basic al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir vol. 19 no. 18
"When Allah had finished His creation, He lay back and placed one of His legs on the other, and said: It is not fitting for any of My creation to do this."

What the hadith says

Ubayd b. Hunayn says that Qatada b. al-Nu'man took him to visit Abu Sa'id al-Khudri, who was ill. They found him lying on his back with his right leg raised over his left. Qatada reached out and pinched the leg hard. 'Glory be to Allah,' said Abu Sa'id, 'you have hurt me!' Qatada answered, 'That is what I wanted', and quoted the Prophet: when Allah finished His creation He lay back, put one of His legs on the other, and said that no one of His creation should do this. Abu Sa'id swore never to do it again. Al-Tabarani heard it from three teachers (al-Mu'jam al-Kabir vol. 19 no. 18). Al-Haythami says one of them, Ahmad b. Rishdin, is weak, the other two are unknown to him, and the rest of the chain are men of the Sahih (Majma' 8/100, no. 13182). Al-Albani calls the hadith munkar jiddan (very strongly rejected) (dorar.net).

Why this is a problem

The report pictures God resting after creation, lying back with His legs crossed, like a man after work. That is close to the picture of Genesis 2:2, where God 'rested on the seventh day from all his work', and it sits uneasily with Q50:38: 'We created the heavens and earth and what is between them in six days, and there touched Us no weariness.'

It also contradicts the canonical record of the Prophet's own habits. In Bukhari 475, a Companion saw the Prophet 'lying on his back in the mosque, placing one of his legs on the other', and Sa'id b. al-Musayyib adds that Umar and Uthman used to do the same. Here God forbids the posture to every creature, and a Companion inflicts pain on another to enforce the ban.

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that the report is rejected: al-Albani calls it very strongly munkar, and its text clashes with the Qur'an's statement that no weariness touched Allah (Q50:38) and with the sound report of the Prophet lying in this very way. A report that contradicts both cannot be attributed to him.

Why it fails

The response is right that the report cannot stand beside Bukhari 475, which is why this entry is rated Basic. What it shows is how the story got as far as it did. Al-Haythami found its core chain to be men of the Sahih, with the weakness only at al-Tabarani's level, where three teachers relayed the same text.

The episode is told as a scene with named Companions, a pinch and an oath, and it reached a major collection carrying an image of God reclining after His labour. The critics rejected it on its text, but it is one of several reports, canonical ones among them, that give Allah a foot or a shin in a physical scene.

Check it yourself

'Allah created Pharaoh an unbeliever in his mother's womb' Allah's Character Moral Problems Moderate al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir 10543
"Allah created Yahya son of Zakariyya a believer in his mother's womb, and created Pharaoh an unbeliever in his mother's womb."

What the hadith says

Abd Allah b. Mas'ud reports the Prophet saying that Allah created John the Baptist (Yahya son of Zakariyya) a believer in his mother's womb, and created Pharaoh an unbeliever (kafir) in his mother's womb. Al-Tabarani gives it in al-Mu'jam al-Kabir 10543, through Abu Hilal from Qatada. Al-Haythami calls its chain jayyid (good) and places it among reports that misery and happiness are fixed in the womb (Majma' 7/193, no. 11811); al-Albani grades it hasan (Sahih al-Jami' 3237). Shu'ayb al-Arna'ut disagrees: Abu Hilal al-Rasibi is weak, especially when he narrates from Qatada (dorar.net).

Why this is a problem

The Qur'an makes Pharaoh its standing example of the unbeliever who defies God, and drowns him for it. This report says his unbelief was not something he arrived at: Allah created him an unbeliever before he was born, just as He created John a believer.

It is not an isolated idea. In Muslim 2662a, the boy al-Khidr killed 'was stamped an unbeliever, and had he lived he would have burdened his parents with transgression and unbelief'. In Bukhari 3208, an angel writes in the womb whether a person will be wretched or blessed. Al-Tabarani's report applies that doctrine to the Qur'an's best-known villain, by name. If Pharaoh was made a kafir in the womb, it is hard to see on what moral basis he is then condemned for being one.

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that 'created an unbeliever' expresses Allah's prior knowledge and decree: He knew what Pharaoh would freely choose and wrote it, and His knowledge does not force anyone's choice. Al-Albani, who calls its chains flimsy, accepts it on the strength of a supporting report in Sahih Muslim (al-Silsila al-Sahiha 1831), and Muslim's al-Khidr hadith is read in the same way (dorar.net). Some critics also question the chain, as al-Arna'ut does.

Why it fails

The text does not say Allah knew Pharaoh would disbelieve. It says Allah created him an unbeliever, in the womb, and it pairs him with a prophet created a believer in the same way. The foreknowledge reading is a theologian's gloss on a verb that says something stronger.

The supporting hadith does not help. In Muslim 2662a the boy's killing is explained by the unbelief he was 'stamped' with and the harm he would have done if he had lived, not by anything he had done. The two leading graders accept the hadith as good: al-Haythami calls this chain jayyid, and al-Albani grades the hadith hasan through a supporting report, though he calls its own chains flimsy. On their grading, the Prophet taught that belief and unbelief are put into a person before birth, and the Qur'an still holds that person to account.

Check it yourself

'Allah never revealed anything to a prophet except in Arabic'; the prophet then translated it Scripture Integrity Contradictions Basic al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 4635
"By Him in whose hand is my soul, Allah never sent down revelation to a prophet, between Him and that prophet, except in Arabic; then the prophet afterwards conveys it to his people in his own tongue."

What the hadith says

Abu Hurayra reports the Prophet swearing that every revelation Allah ever sent to any prophet passed between Allah and that prophet in Arabic; the prophet then conveyed it to his people in their own language. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 4635 and notes that only Sulayman b. Arqam has it from al-Zuhri. Al-Haythami calls Sulayman weak here (Majma' 10/53, no. 16603) and matruk (abandoned) elsewhere (Majma' 6/315); al-Iraqi says its chain is not sound (dorar.net).

Why this is a problem

On this report, the Torah, the Psalms and the Gospel were all first spoken by God in Arabic, and Moses, David and Jesus received them in Arabic and translated them for their people. Every earlier scripture becomes a translation, and Arabic becomes the one language in which God has ever addressed a prophet.

The Qur'an says the opposite: 'We did not send any messenger except [speaking] in the language of his people, to state clearly for them' (Q14:4). The report keeps the people's language for the preaching but moves revelation itself into Arabic, which makes the Qur'an's language the only original word of God.

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that the report is weak, as al-Haythami and al-Iraqi say, and that Q14:4 governs: each messenger received revelation in the tongue of his own people. No Muslim doctrine rests on this hadith.

Why it fails

The response is right on the chain and on Q14:4, which is why this entry is rated Basic. What the report shows is the direction in which the tradition pushed. Al-Haythami filed it in his chapter on the merit of the Arabs, beside reports such as 'I am an Arab, the Qur'an is Arabic, and the tongue of the people of Paradise is Arabic' (Majma' 10/53).

That is the context in which a report making Arabic the language of all revelation was transmitted: as one of a group of sayings that raise Arabic above every other language, against the plain sense of the Qur'an's own verse.

Check it yourself

'Love the Arabs for three reasons: I am an Arab, the Qur'an is Arabic, and the speech of Paradise is Arabic' Paradise Strange / Obscure Basic al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir 11441
"Love the Arabs for three reasons: because I am an Arab, the Qur'an is Arabic, and the speech of the people of Paradise is Arabic."

What the hadith says

Ibn Abbas reports the Prophet commanding love of the Arabs for three reasons: the Prophet is an Arab, the Qur'an is Arabic, and the people of Paradise speak Arabic. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Kabir 11441 through al-Ala' b. Amr al-Hanafi. Al-Haythami says al-Ala' is weak by general agreement (Majma' 10/52, no. 16600). Al-Dhahabi and al-Albani call the hadith fabricated, and al-Uqayli calls it munkar with no basis (dorar.net card). Not everyone agreed: al-Hakim graded it sahih in al-Mustadrak (dorar.net card), and al-Suyuti marked it sahih in al-Jami' al-Saghir (card) but called it weak, 'neither sound nor fabricated', in another work (card).

Why this is a problem

The command is to love a people because of their ethnicity: because the Prophet belongs to them, because their language is the language of the Qur'an, and because it will be the language of Paradise. The Qur'an itself says that 'the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you' (Q49:13). This report makes birth and language a reason for preference.

It also settles a question the Qur'an never raises, the language spoken in Paradise, in favour of the Arabs. Believers of every other nation are told that the speech of the afterlife will be someone else's mother tongue.

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that the report is fabricated, as al-Dhahabi and al-Albani say, and al-Uqayli says it has no basis. No ethnic doctrine rests on it, and Q49:13 makes righteousness, not ancestry, the measure of honour.

Why it fails

The response reflects the majority of critics, which is why this entry is rated Basic. But the verdict was not unanimous. Al-Hakim declared it sound in al-Mustadrak, and al-Suyuti listed it as sound in al-Jami' al-Saghir, one of the most widely used hadith handbooks, though he called it weak elsewhere.

So a command to love the Arabs for their ethnicity and language was accepted as the Prophet's words by at least two well-known scholars and transmitted in major collections. Al-Haythami filed it in his chapter on the merit of the Arabs, among similar reports.

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'No people abandon jihad but Allah engulfs them in punishment' Warfare & Jihad Moderate al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 3839
"No people abandon jihad but Allah engulfs them all in punishment."

What the hadith says

Abu Bakr al-Siddiq quotes the Prophet: 'No people abandon jihad but Allah engulfs them all in punishment.' Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 3839 and notes that three successive links of the chain (Isma'il to Malik b. Mighwal to Qabisa to Uqba) each rest on a single narrator. Al-Haythami puts it in his jihad chapter on 'whoever does not raid or equip a raider', and comments only on al-Tabarani's teacher Ali b. Sa'id al-Razi, of whom al-Daraqutni said 'not that [good]' and al-Dhahabi 'people narrated from him' (Majma' 5/284, no. 9468). Al-Mundhiri calls its chain hasan, and al-Albani grades it hasan (dorar.net).

Why this is a problem

The report threatens collective divine punishment, falling on a whole people, for one thing: giving up jihad. It does not say giving up defence, or giving up jihad against an attacker. It says any people that stops waging jihad.

The canonical collections say the same in milder words. In Abu Dawud 2503, whoever does not go raiding, equip a raider or look after a raider's family is struck by Allah with a calamity. In Abu Dawud 3462, when Muslims deal in 'ina sales, take to farming and 'give up jihad', Allah imposes a humiliation on them that He will not lift until they return to their religion. Al-Tabarani's report, graded hasan, states the rule most broadly: stopping war brings punishment.

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that the hadith urges the community to defend itself, and that the 'punishment' is the humiliation and domination by enemies that follow when a community neglects its defence, as in the hadith about 'ina sales that al-Albani cites in support (compare Abu Dawud 3462). Jihad also has a wider sense of striving, and the report need not mean offensive war.

Why it fails

The text gives no defensive limit, and its setting does not suggest one. Al-Haythami filed it under 'whoever does not raid or equip a raider', and the canonical parallels speak of raiding (ghazw), equipping raiders and supporting their families. A raid is something an army does in enemy territory, not at home.

Reading the punishment as humiliation by enemies does not soften the claim; it repeats it. On either reading, a people that stops fighting is punished by God, and the community's honour depends on continuing to fight. With a hasan grading from al-Mundhiri and al-Albani, this is not a fringe report.

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'Overturn it on him too': a man who never sinned is destroyed because his face never darkened at sin Allah's Character Moral Problems Basic al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 7661
"Overturn it upon him and upon them, for his face never once changed colour for My sake."

What the hadith says

Jabir reports the Prophet saying that Allah told an angel to overturn a certain city on its people. The angel answered that a servant of Allah lived there who had never disobeyed Him for the blink of an eye. Allah replied: 'Overturn it upon him and upon them, for his face never once changed colour for My sake', meaning that he never showed anger at the sins around him. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 7661 and notes that only Ammar b. Sayf has it from al-A'mash. Al-Haythami calls both Ammar and Ubayd b. Ishaq al-Attar weak, while noting that Ibn al-Mubarak and others called Ammar reliable and Abu Hatim approved of Ubayd (Majma' 7/270, no. 12156). Al-Albani calls it very weak, and Ibn al-Nahhas says the reliably preserved version is a saying of Malik b. Dinar, not of the Prophet (dorar.net).

Why this is a problem

The angel testifies that the man never sinned, and God does not dispute it. He is destroyed with the guilty anyway, for a failure of feeling: his face never darkened at their sins. The Qur'an says 'no bearer of burdens will bear the burden of another' (Q6:164). Here an innocent man is buried under a city for other people's sins.

The idea that the righteous perish with the wicked is not confined to this report. In Bukhari 3346, Zaynab bint Jahsh asks, 'Shall we be destroyed while the righteous are among us?' and the Prophet answers, 'Yes, when wickedness abounds.'

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that the report is very weak and probably not the Prophet's words at all: Ibn al-Nahhas identifies it as a saying of Malik b. Dinar that a weak chain attached to the Prophet. The sound teaching is Q6:164, and Bukhari 3346 describes a general calamity, not God singling out a sinless man.

Why it fails

The response is right about the chain and the attribution, which is why this entry is rated Basic. The tradition still preserved the story, as a pious saying of Malik b. Dinar and under the Prophet's name. Al-Haythami gave it a chapter of its own, 'On whoever does not become angry for Allah's sake', with this report as its only entry.

The canonical answer in Bukhari 3346 is not far from it: the righteous are destroyed along with everyone else when wickedness abounds. The weak report only adds the reason, that the righteous man was not angry enough. Both sit uneasily with Q6:164.

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'Whoever met me will surely live to meet the Dajjal, or he will come close to my death' Eschatology Moderate al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 6494
"Whoever has met me will surely live to meet the Dajjal, or he will surely come close to my death."

What the hadith says

Abd Allah b. Busr al-Sulami says he heard the Prophet say that the Dajjal would surely be met by those who had met the Prophet, or would come close to the Prophet's death. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 6494 and notes that only Ma'n b. Isa has it from Mu'awiya b. Salih. Al-Haythami's only objection is to al-Tabarani's teacher Muhammad b. Isa (whom he calls Ibn Shu'ayb; the print has Ibn Shayba), whom he could not identify: 'the rest of its men are trustworthy' (Majma' 7/350, no. 12548). Al-Albani calls the hadith munkar jiddan (very strongly rejected) (dorar.net).

Why this is a problem

Taken at its word, this is a prediction with a deadline. The Dajjal, the great deceiver whose appearance is one of the major signs before the Hour, would be seen by the Prophet's own contemporaries, or would appear close to the time of his death. The Prophet's generation died long ago, and the Dajjal has not come.

The sound reports show the same expectation in a gentler form. In Muslim 2937a, the Prophet says, 'If he comes out while I am among you, I will contend with him on your behalf', and tells his listeners that 'whoever of you lives to see him' should recite the opening verses of Surat al-Kahf over him. Al-Tabarani's report turns that possibility into a certainty.

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that the report is munkar jiddan, as al-Albani says, so no prophecy failed. The sound hadiths about the Dajjal are conditional ('if he comes out while I am among you'), and they leave the time of his appearance open.

Why it fails

The conditional reports do not remove the problem; they show where it came from. In Muslim 2937a the Prophet addresses his listeners as people who may see the Dajjal themselves and tells them what to do if they do. An appearance within their lifetime was a real possibility in the canonical text.

Al-Tabarani's report states that expectation as a promise. Al-Haythami's only complaint about its chain was one teacher he could not identify, and al-Albani rejected the text as munkar jiddan. On its face, the report was transmitted as the Prophet's words and the prediction has not come true.

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On Resurrection Day 'the Compeller comes and bends His leg on the Bridge' Allah's Character Basic al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir 1421
"The Compeller, exalted is He, will come forward on the Day of Resurrection and bend His leg upon the Bridge, and say: By My might and My majesty, no wrongdoer shall pass Me."

What the hadith says

Thawban reports the Prophet saying that on the Day of Resurrection the Compeller (al-Jabbar, a name of Allah) will come forward, bend His leg on the Bridge over Hell, and swear by His might and majesty that no wrongdoer will get past Him. He will then settle the claims of His creatures against one another, down to the hornless sheep's claim against the horned one that butted it. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Kabir 1421. Al-Haythami says its narrator Yazid b. Rabi'a was weakened by a group of critics, though Ibn Adi said 'I hope there is no harm in him', and that the rest are trustworthy (Majma' 10/353, no. 18414). His quotation reads 'no wrong of a wrongdoer shall pass Me'; the print has 'no wrongdoer'. Al-Suyuti calls the chain hasan (dorar.net).

Why this is a problem

God's foot and shin are already in the canonical collections. In Bukhari 4850, Hell is not filled until Allah puts His foot on it, and in Bukhari 4919, 'our Lord will lay bare His shin' and the believers prostrate. Al-Tabarani's report adds only one detail, but it is a concrete one: God takes up a bodily posture, bending His leg, at a particular place, the Bridge that people must cross on the Day of Judgement.

This is a small point, and the entry keeps it small. It shows how far the tradition was prepared to go in giving God a body that stands, bends and occupies a place.

The Muslim response

Athari (traditionalist) Muslims affirm the attributes named in sound texts, such as the foot and the shin, 'without likening and without asking how', and would treat this report the same way if it were sound. Others answer simply that the chain is weak, since al-Haythami notes that a group of critics weakened Yazid b. Rabi'a.

Why it fails

The response is reasonable for a report with a disputed chain, which is why this entry is rated Basic. But al-Suyuti called its chain hasan, and on this report al-Haythami recorded only a split opinion on one narrator, though elsewhere he calls the same man matruk (abandoned) (Majma' 7/201, no. 11848).

The 'without asking how' answer accepts the leg and declines to say what it means. Once a foot on Hell and a bared shin are accepted, a leg bent on the Bridge is a difference of detail, not of kind.

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'The wives of Paradise sing to their husbands in the most beautiful voices ever heard' Paradise Women Moderate al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 4917
"The wives of the people of Paradise will sing to their husbands in the most beautiful voices anyone has ever heard. Among what they sing is: 'We are the good and beautiful, wives of a noble people, who look [on them] with delighted eyes.' And among what they sing is: 'We are the everlasting, we do not die; we are the safe, we do not fear; we are the abiding, we do not depart.'"

What the hadith says

Abd Allah b. Umar reports the Prophet describing the wives of the people of Paradise singing to their husbands, and quotes the lines of their song. The verb is yughannina, 'they sing'; no instruments are mentioned. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 4917 and notes that only Muhammad b. Ja'far has it from Zayd b. Aslam. Al-Haythami says it is also in al-Tabarani's al-Saghir and that its narrators are the men of the Sahih (Majma' 10/419, no. 18760), and al-Albani grades it sahih (dorar.net). IslamQA calls it 'perhaps the most sahih' of the reports on singing in Paradise (IslamQA 139871).

Why this is a problem

The women's song is about themselves and their husbands: they are good and beautiful, wives of noble men, a delight to the eye, and they will never die, fear or leave. In this report the wives of Paradise sing about being wives, and they sing to their husbands. The report does not mention husbands singing to wives.

The same mainstream sources hold that music is forbidden in this life. IslamQA, answering whether people who listen to music now will be denied it in Paradise, cites this very hadith for the pleasure of beautiful singing in Paradise and states that 'listening to music in this world is haraam', on the authority of the four schools of law (IslamQA 139871). A pleasure forbidden to believers on earth is promised to men in Paradise, performed by their wives.

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that Paradise contains pleasures forbidden in this world, such as wine and, for men, silk, and that its delights are not judged by worldly rules. IslamQA quotes Ibn al-Qayyim on this principle: whoever indulges in something forbidden here may lose its counterpart there (IslamQA 139871). Singing in Paradise is a reward for having given it up on earth, and the hadith speaks only of voices, not of instruments.

Why it fails

The comparison with wine and silk concedes the point. The singing is not forbidden on earth because it is bad in itself; it is withheld and then given back as a reward. The report is graded sahih, so this picture of Paradise has the support of mainstream graders.

The picture is also one-sided. The one who sings is the wife and the one who listens is the husband. The canonical collections have a weaker version in which the houris 'raise their voices' at a gathering (Tirmidhi 2564, which al-Tirmidhi calls gharib and which is graded weak), but al-Tabarani's report, the sound one, is explicit that the women sing for their husbands.

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'Allah created the houris from saffron' Paradise Strange / Obscure Basic al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir 7813
"Allah created the wide-eyed houris from saffron."

What the hadith says

Abu Umama al-Bahili reports the Prophet saying that Allah created the wide-eyed houris (al-hur al-'in) from saffron. Al-Tabarani records it in al-Mu'jam al-Kabir 7813, through Ubayd Allah b. Zahr from Ali b. Yazid from al-Qasim. Al-Haythami says it is in al-Kabir and al-Awsat and that 'there are weak narrators in both chains' (Majma' 10/419, no. 18763). Al-Albani grades it weak (dorar.net).

Why this is a problem

The Qur'an mentions the houris but says nothing about what they are made of. This report gives them a material, saffron, the costly yellow spice and dye. It is a minor detail, and the report is not sexual. But it shows the tradition filling in the physical make-up of the women of Paradise, a subject on which the Qur'an is silent, and attaching the result to the Prophet.

It does not stand alone. On the same page of al-Haythami's collection is a report he grades hasan, from Ahmad and Abu Ya'la, in which a man in Paradise looks at his wife, who wears seventy garments, and his sight passes through them until he sees the marrow of her shin (Majma' 10/419, no. 18762).

The Muslim response

Muslims answer that the report is weak, as al-Haythami and al-Albani say, and that details of the unseen are accepted only from sound reports. Nothing in Islamic belief depends on what the houris are made of.

Why it fails

The response is right, which is why this entry is rated Basic. The report matters only as part of a pattern. Al-Haythami collected it in his chapter on the women of Paradise beside reports he judged good, which describe those women just as physically.

The weak report adds saffron to a literature whose accepted core already measures the women of Paradise by their beauty and visible bodies. Rejecting the saffron leaves that core untouched.

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