Bulugh al-Maram 546

Ibn ‘Umar reported: ‘When ‘Abd Allah ibn Ubayy died, his son came to the Messenger of Allah and said, “Give me your shirt so I may shroud him in it.” He gave it to him.’ Agreed upon. 1

1 — Sound. Reported by al-Bukhari (1269) and Muslim (2400). Other hadiths have also been reported whose apparent meanings conflict with the hadith of Ibn ‘Umar; the answer to this is discussed at length in Subul al-Salam and other works, such as Fath al-Bari.

Note: Some, including al-Isma‘ili, Ibn Hajar, and others, have taken this hadith to show that it is permissible to seek the relics of righteous people for blessing. I say: No. Seeking blessing in this way is permissible only through the relics of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, and not those of other righteous and virtuous people. Our evidence is that fundamental principle which we proclaim day and night and teach to everyone: ‘according to the understanding of the righteous early generations.’ This is what distinguishes the Salafi movement from other movements, whether juristic and school-based, intellectual and ideological, or partisan and methodological.

This example clearly shows that without this qualification a person enters innovation through its widest door—Allah protect us. In the Sunnah, we find that the Companions, may Allah be pleased with them, sought blessing through the Prophet’s ablution water, his sweat, and other traces of his, as reported in the two Sahih collections and elsewhere. But do we find that the Companions or the righteous early generations in the three preferred centuries did this with the relics of anyone other than the Prophet? Every fair-minded person will surely say: ‘No, we do not find that.’ We say: ‘Had it been good, they would have preceded us to it.’ Since they did not do it, and treated it as something specific to the Prophet, we must not go beyond their understanding. Otherwise, we fall into the innovations and misguidance of many people who discard this qualification, ‘according to the understanding of the righteous early generations.’ Many of them—if not all—despite their misguidance, say that following the Qur’an and Sunnah is obligatory.

Finally, I remind some of those who lead gatherings and seminars today that this principle has evidence from the Book of Allah, Mighty and Majestic, and from the hadith of the Prophet—not as one of them said in a lesson: that throughout his scholarly life he knew only the Qur’an and Sunnah and learned this from his teachers, until the Salafis invented this statement. In any case, all of this is discussed in detail in my treatise The Salafis Maligned. Praise be to Allah, first and last.