Sunan Ibn Majah
Sunan Ibn Majah 3475
حَدَّثَنَا أَبُو سَلَمَةَ، يَحْيَى بْنُ خَلَفٍ حَدَّثَنَا عَبْدُ الأَعْلَى، عَنْ سَعِيدٍ، عَنْ قَتَادَةَ، عَنِ الْحَسَنِ، عَنْ أَبِي هُرَيْرَةَ، أَنَّ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ ـ صلى الله عليه وسلم ـ قَالَ " الْحُمَّى كِيرٌ مِنْ كِيرِ جَهَنَّمَ فَنَحُّوهَا عَنْكُمْ بِالْمَاءِ الْبَارِدِ " .
Unreviewed translation. All hadiths in this collection are available in five languages. Titles and introductions may remain in Arabic.
Abū Salamah—Yaḥyā ibn Khalaf—narrated to us: ʿAbd al-Aʿlā narrated to us, from Saʿīd, from Qatādah, from al-Ḥasan, from Abū Hurayrah, that the Messenger of Allah said: ‘Fever is a bellows from the bellows of Hell, so drive it away from yourselves with cold water.’
Notes and open questions — unreviewed
كِير is a blacksmith’s bellows or furnace; the image of a bellows is retained in the translation.
أَنَّ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ ـ صلى الله عليه وسلم ـ قَالَ " الْحُمَّى كِيرٌ مِنْ كِيرِ جَهَنَّمَ فَنَحُّوهَا عَنْكُمْ بِالْمَاءِ الْبَارِدِ " .
كِير evokes a blacksmith’s bellows/furnace; the report’s metaphorical relation between fever and Hell’s bellows is preserved literally.
Should the image be rendered as ‘a bellows from the bellows of Hell’ or smoothed to ‘a blast from Hell’s furnace’?