Things Nobody Wants to Accept about Islam

Zayd ibn Thabit in Sahih al-Bukhari 4986 (Book 66, Hadith 8), tr. M. Muhsin Khan · Read the report

فَتَتَبَّعْتُ الْقُرْآنَ أَجْمَعُهُ مِنَ الْعُسُبِ وَاللِّخَافِ وَصُدُورِ الرِّجَالِ حَتَّى وَجَدْتُ آخِرَ سُورَةِ التَّوْبَةِ مَعَ أَبِي خُزَيْمَةَ الأَنْصَارِيِّ لَمْ أَجِدْهَا مَعَ أَحَدٍ غَيْرَهُ

So I started looking for the Qur’an and collecting it from (what was written on) palme stalks, thin white stones and also from the men who knew it by heart, till I found the last Verse of Surat at-Tauba (Repentance) with Abi Khuzaima Al-Ansari, and I did not find it with anybody other than him.

The Claim Examined

Muslim teaching presents the Qur’an as a finished book from the Prophet’s lifetime. Bukhari 4986 places its first gathering after his death, when Umar feared after Yamama that a large part of the Qur’an may be lost. Zayd met the order with a question: How can you do something which Allah’s Apostle did not do?^[4]

The Temple’s Answer

The report shows the single book beginning as a ruler’s decision, against the scribe’s hesitation, out of fear of loss, from palm stalks, stones and memories. The guardianship promised in 15:9 arrived through a caliph’s order and a scribe’s search.^[5]

For Your Decision

Ask who decided what your copy contains, then read the order that decided it again: I2.

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Anas ibn Malik in Sahih al-Bukhari 4987 (Book 66, Hadith 9), tr. M. Muhsin Khan · Read the report

فَاكْتُبُوهُ بِلِسَانِ قُرَيْشٍ فَإِنَّمَا نَزَلَ بِلِسَانِهِمْ فَفَعَلُوا حَتَّى إِذَا نَسَخُوا الصُّحُفَ فِي الْمَصَاحِفِ رَدَّ عُثْمَانُ الصُّحُفَ إِلَى حَفْصَةَ وَأَرْسَلَ إِلَى كُلِّ أُفُقٍ بِمُصْحَفٍ مِمَّا نَسَخُوا وَأَمَرَ بِمَا سِوَاهُ مِنَ الْقُرْآنِ فِي كُلِّ صَحِيفَةٍ أَوْ مُصْحَفٍ أَنْ يُحْرَقَ

“In case you disagree with Zaid bin Thabit on any point in the Qur’an, then write it in the dialect of Quraish” … ‘Uthman sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied, and ordered that all the other Qur’anic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt.

The Claim Examined

The Qur’an is taught as a text no human hand shaped. In Bukhari 4987 Hudhayfa, alarmed that the armies of Sham and Iraq recited differently, urges Uthman to Save this nation before they differ about the Book. Uthman has copies made, sets a rule for disputes among the scribes, sends one copy to each province and orders the rest burnt.^[6]

The Temple’s Answer

The report names the problem plainly: Muslims recited differently. Its remedy was an edition by appointed men, a ruling on whose dialect wins when they disagree, and fire for every competing copy. That is a political settlement of the text. A book delivered without human choice needs no tie-break rule and no burning.

For Your Decision

An authority that settles scripture by fire has no claim on your soul. See what one of the named teachers did with his copy: I3.

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Abdullah ibn Mas’ud in Sahih al-Bukhari 5000 (Book 66, Hadith 22), tr. M. Muhsin Khan · Read the report

وَاللَّهِ لَقَدْ أَخَذْتُ مِنْ فِي رَسُولِ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم بِضْعًا وَسَبْعِينَ سُورَةً، وَاللَّهِ لَقَدْ عَلِمَ أَصْحَابُ النَّبِيِّ صلى الله عليه وسلم أَنِّي مِنْ أَعْلَمِهِمْ بِكِتَابِ اللَّهِ وَمَا أَنَا بِخَيْرِهِمْ

By Allah, I learnt over seventy Suras direct from Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ). By Allah, the companions of the Prophet (ﷺ) came to know that I am one of those who know Allah’s Book best of all of them, yet I am not the best of them.

The Claim Examined

The Uthmanic text is presented as the companions’ common possession. In Bukhari 4999 the Prophet says Take (learn) the Qur’an from four, naming Ibn Mas’ud first;^[7] in Bukhari 5000 Ibn Mas’ud claims over 70 suras from the Prophet’s own mouth.^[8] Jeffery, editing Ibn Abi Dawud’s Kitab al-Masahif, reports Kufa long divided over Ibn Mas’ud, who had refused to give up his Codex for burning.^[9]

The Temple’s Answer

A teacher the Prophet himself named first still refused the state edition. In Bukhari 4977 Zirr asks Ubayy what Ibn Mas’ud said; the Arabic gives only كَذَا وَكَذَا, “so-and-so”, and the translator’s bracket naming the 2 closing suras comes from reports outside Bukhari.^[10] Consensus followed the burning.

For Your Decision

A canon closed over a recommended teacher’s objection is a human verdict. Weigh it as one, then read I4.

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Umar ibn al-Khattab from the pulpit, in Sahih al-Bukhari 6830 (Book 86, Hadith 56), tr. M. Muhsin Khan · Read the report

فَكَانَ مِمَّا أَنْزَلَ اللَّهُ آيَةُ الرَّجْمِ، فَقَرَأْنَاهَا وَعَقَلْنَاهَا وَوَعَيْنَاهَا، رَجَمَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم وَرَجَمْنَا بَعْدَهُ، فَأَخْشَى إِنْ طَالَ بِالنَّاسِ زَمَانٌ أَنْ يَقُولَ قَائِلٌ وَاللَّهِ مَا نَجِدُ آيَةَ الرَّجْمِ فِي كِتَابِ اللَّهِ

… and among what Allah revealed, was the Verse of the Rajam (the stoning of married person (male & female) who commits illegal sexual intercourse, and we did recite this Verse and understood and memorized it. Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) did carry out the punishment of stoning and so did we after him. I am afraid that after a long time has passed, somebody will say, ‘By Allah, we do not find the Verse of the Rajam in Allah’s Book,’ …

The Claim Examined

The Qur’an is said to hold all revealed scripture. Umar, as caliph, declared from the pulpit that a verse of stoning was revealed and recited, and feared people would one day not find it in the book.^[11] Sahih Muslim 1691a keeps the same sermon.^[12] Verse 24:2 orders 100 lashes; its Arabic, الزَّانِيَةُ وَالزَّانِي فَاجْلِدُوا كُلَّ وَاحِدٍ مِنْهُمَا مِائَةَ جَلْدَةٍ, has no word for “unmarried”, which Sahih International supplies in brackets.^[13]

The Temple’s Answer

By Umar’s own account a revealed, recited verse is absent from the book, and a death penalty rests on words no reader can find. His fear came true. The translator’s bracket shows the rest: the plain text must be completed from hadith before the law stands.

For Your Decision

Law built on a missing verse is law made by its interpreters. Zevism grounds justice in Ma’at: see what that means for a life.

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Sahih Muslim 1452a (Book 17, Hadith 30), tr. Abdul Hamid Siddiqui · Read the report

كَانَ فِيمَا أُنْزِلَ مِنَ الْقُرْآنِ عَشْرُ رَضَعَاتٍ مَعْلُومَاتٍ يُحَرِّمْنَ . ثُمَّ نُسِخْنَ بِخَمْسٍ مَعْلُومَاتٍ فَتُوُفِّيَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم وَهُنَّ فِيمَا يُقْرَأُ مِنَ الْقُرْآنِ

A’isha (Allah be pleased with, her) reported that it had been revealed in the Holy Qur’an that ten clear sucklings make the marriage unlawful, then it was abrogated (and substituted) by five sucklings and Allah’s Apostle (ﷺ) died and it was before that time (found) in the Holy Qur’an (and recited by the Muslims).

The Claim Examined

Aisha states that the Qur’an once held a rule of 10 sucklings, replaced by 5.^[14] The Arabic closes وَهُنَّ فِيمَا يُقْرَأُ مِنَ الْقُرْآنِ: the Prophet died while those words were still among what was recited as Qur’an. Neither number stands in the Qur’an printed today.

The Temple’s Answer

Aisha’s report leaves 2 readings, and each has a cost. Either words recited at the Prophet’s death were later dropped, or the community didn’t know its final text when he died.

On both readings, people after him finished deciding what counts as Qur’an. The jurists still differ over the ruling, so the text alone never settled it.

For Your Decision

A scripture finished by its survivors raises the question I7 puts to abrogation itself.

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Abu Musa al-Ash’ari to the 300 reciters of Basra, in Sahih Muslim 1050 (Book 12, Hadith 156), tr. Abdul Hamid Siddiqui · Read the report

وَإِنَّا كُنَّا نَقْرَأُ سُورَةً كُنَّا نُشَبِّهُهَا فِي الطُّولِ وَالشِّدَّةِ بِبَرَاءَةَ فَأُنْسِيتُهَا

We used to recite a surah which resembled in length and severity to (Surah) Bara’at. I have, however, forgotten it …

The Claim Examined

Abu Musa, companion and governor, told the reciters of Basra that they once recited a sura like Bara’a in length and severity, now forgotten save one line: If there were two valleys full of riches, for the son of Adam, he would long for a third valley. He named a second forgotten sura too.^[15]

The Temple’s Answer

In Muslim 1050 a companion and governor lost a sura comparable to Bara’a, and the Qur’an provides for such losses: the Prophet won’t forget, Except what Allāh should will.^[16] The line about valleys, remembered as Qur’an, isn’t in the book. The reader holds a selection drawn by memory.

For Your Decision

Measure an exclusive claim by what it admits about itself. The doctrine that covers these gaps is next: I7.

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The Qur’an 2:106, tr. Sahih International · Read the verse

مَا نَنْسَخْ مِنْ آيَةٍ أَوْ نُنْسِهَا نَأْتِ بِخَيْرٍ مِنْهَا أَوْ مِثْلِهَا

We do not abrogate a verse or cause it to be forgotten except that We bring forth [one] better than it or similar to it.

The Claim Examined

Muslims are taught that God’s word is eternal and unchanging. The Qur’an provides for verses to be abrogated or forgotten and replaced,^[17] and at 16:101 records what hearers said when verses changed: You, [O Muḥammad], are but an inventor [of lies].^[18]

The Temple’s Answer

Abrogation leaves each ruling provisional until scholars decide which verse came later, and that chronology comes from reports and commentators; the verses carry no dates. The first hearers called the changes invention. A revelation whose law waits on later dating hands final authority to its interpreters.

For Your Decision

The Gods do not revise the order of the cosmos. Ma’at stands: discover the life ordered by it.

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The Prophet to Umar and Hisham ibn Hakim, in Sahih al-Bukhari 4992 (Book 66, Hadith 14), tr. M. Muhsin Khan · Read the report

إِنَّ هَذَا الْقُرْآنَ أُنْزِلَ عَلَى سَبْعَةِ أَحْرُفٍ فَاقْرَءُوا مَا تَيَسَّرَ مِنْهُ

This Qur’an has been revealed to be recited in seven different ways, so recite of it whichever (way) is easier for you.

The Claim Examined

Many Muslims believe every Qur’an is identical to the letter. In Bukhari 4992 Umar seizes Hisham for reciting Surat al-Furqan differently, and the Prophet approves both under 7 ahruf.^[19] The canonical readings are a separate, later category: Ibn Mujahid (d. 324 AH, 936 CE) selected 7.^[20] At 57:24 Hafs reads فَإِنَّ اللَّهَ هُوَ الْغَنِيُّ الْحَمِيدُ; the King Fahd Complex’s Warsh mushaf prints the same clause without هُوَ, huwa.^[21]

The Temple’s Answer

The factual question is settled: 2 authorised printings differ by a whole word. “One Qur’an” means a family of approved texts, whose number a scholar of the 4th century AH first fixed at 7.

For Your Decision

Hold the book to the claim made for it. The Gods ask no oath to a single letter: see what Zevism asks instead.

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International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2016, on the lower writing of Ṣanʿāʾ 1 (DAM 01-27.1), announcing the new edition by Asma Hilali · Read the notice

… the only extant witness to a non-‘Uthmanic textual tradition of the Qur’an.

The Claim Examined

Muslim teaching holds that no other Qur’an ever existed. In 1972 workers in the Great Mosque of Sana’a found a parchment whose lower text, erased and overwritten with the standard one, differs in words and phrases and follows a sura order matching no known order.^[22] Sadeghi and Goudarzi published it in 2012.^[23] Nicolai Sinai finds that it exhibits frequent divergences from the canonical rasm, on parchment radiocarbon dated to 578 to 669 at 95% probability.^[24]

The Temple’s Answer

The lower text shows a Qur’an of another textual tradition, copied in the 7th century and then scraped away for the standard one. The parchment holds the order of Bukhari 4987 in visible form.

For Your Decision

An erased text still speaks. Let it ask whether the standard was given or chosen, then see I10.

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University of Birmingham, announcement of 22 July 2015 on the Birmingham Qur’an, Mingana Collection, Cadbury Research Library · Read the announcement

Radiocarbon analysis has dated the parchment on which the text is written to the period between AD 568 and 645 with 95.4% accuracy.

The Claim Examined

Codices have been revered as Uthman’s own copies. Topkapı H.S. 32 bears that attribution; Tayyar Altıkulaç dated it to the later 1st or earlier 2nd century AH.^[25] The Tashkent codex, said to bear Uthman’s blood, gave a radiocarbon range of 775 to 995, and its script points to the 8th or 9th century.^[26] The Birmingham leaves are early, and their test dated the parchment, not the ink.^[27]

The Temple’s Answer

The Birmingham leaves come from an animal that died between 568 and 645, and the text was written on its skin some time after. The relics tell another story.

Objects revered as Uthman’s own copies, one said to bear his blood, belong to later generations. Piety built a history the parchment refuses.

For Your Decision

Ask what else was attributed upward to earn your trust. The language of the book is next: I11.

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The Qur’an 12:2, tr. Sahih International · Read the verse

إِنَّا أَنْزَلْنَاهُ قُرْآنًا عَرَبِيًّا لَعَلَّكُمْ تَعْقِلُونَ

Indeed, We have sent it down as an Arabic Qur’ān that you might understand.

The Claim Examined

The Qur’an calls itself Arabic.^[28] Arthur Jeffery records that al-Shafi’i, al-Tabari and Abu ‘Ubaida denied it held foreign words, while the earliest exegetes admitted many; al-Suyuti’s al-Mutawakkili sorted them into 11 groups by language, from Ethiopic to Berber.^[29] Paradise at 23:11 is الْفِرْدَوْسَ,^[30] a word traced through Greek paradeisos to Iranian pairidaeza, “enclosure, park”.^[31]

The Temple’s Answer

The borrowings carry their origin. The book’s word for the garden of the blessed is an Iranian word for an enclosed park, named in an older world. Islam’s great scholars quarrelled over admitting this, because it shows the revelation speaking the inherited vocabulary of its neighbours.

For Your Decision

The older world you were taught to forget speaks through your scripture’s own words. Enter it: a life with the Gods.

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The Qur’an 16:103, tr. Sahih International · Read the verse

وَلَقَدْ نَعْلَمُ أَنَّهُمْ يَقُولُونَ إِنَّمَا يُعَلِّمُهُ بَشَرٌ ۗ لِسَانُ الَّذِي يُلْحِدُونَ إِلَيْهِ أَعْجَمِيٌّ وَهَٰذَا لِسَانٌ عَرَبِيٌّ مُبِينٌ

And We certainly know that they say, “It is only a human being who teaches him [i.e., the Prophet (ﷺ)].” The tongue of the one they refer to is foreign, and this [recitation, i.e., Qur’ān] is [in] a clear Arabic language.

The Claim Examined

The Qur’an is presented as knowledge no Meccan could supply. It reports that Meccans named a human teacher, and answers that his tongue was foreign.^[32] At 25:5 it records a sharper charge: Legends of the former peoples which he has written down, and they are dictated to him morning and afternoon.^[33] Ibn Kathir describes the man only as a foreign servant of Quraysh who sold goods near al-Safa.^[34]

The Temple’s Answer

Those who heard the recitation recognised its stories as legends of earlier peoples, material already circulating. Stories need no single teacher; they travel through trade, neighbours and sermons. The next group traces them to their earlier texts.

For Your Decision

Read the Meccans’ charge as a clue, then follow it into the narratives: I14.

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Ibn Abbas to Bushayr ibn Ka’b, in Sahih Muslim, Introduction 19 (Introduction, Narration 18) · Read the report

فَلَمَّا رَكِبَ النَّاسُ الصَّعْبَ وَالذَّلُولَ

Indeed we would be narrated to on authority of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah upon him, at a time when one would not lie upon him, however when the people took the difficult [Munkar] and the docile [Sahīh], we abandoned listening to Ḥadīth from them.

The Claim Examined

Sunni law rests on hadith as a second source of revelation. Muslim’s own Introduction preserves Ibn Abbas saying that he and others once received reports when no one lied about the Prophet, and stopped listening once people took in every kind of report.^[35] The collection opens with a companion’s testimony that reports about the Prophet stopped being trustworthy within his own lifetime.

The Temple’s Answer

Exclusion doesn’t prove a report forged, and inclusion doesn’t prove it true; both are judgments by compilers in the 3rd century of Islam about chains of men. Shia Muslims set those judgments aside for their own collections. Authority that differs by sect is confessional authority.

For Your Decision

Every hadith in these dossiers stands on that method. Weigh each as human testimony, beginning with I14.

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The Qur’an 18:25, tr. Sahih International · Read the verse

وَلَبِثُوا فِي كَهْفِهِمْ ثَلَاثَ مِائَةٍ سِنِينَ وَازْدَادُوا تِسْعًا

And they remained in their cave for three hundred years and exceeded by nine.

The Claim Examined

Sura 18 tells of youths asleep in a cave and calls their number disputed: They [i.e., people] will say there were three, the fourth of them being their dog.^[36] The Syriac legend of the Sleepers of Ephesus is first attested in a manuscript that M. van Esbroeck dates to the 5th century, and Jacob of Serugh wrote a homily on it early in the 6th: youths hidden under Decius (249 to 251) wake under Theodosius II, 195 years later.^[37] Gregory of Tours abridged it in Gaul with a Syrian’s help.^[38]

The Temple’s Answer

The Qur’an’s own text shows a story already circulating, with rival counts. Christian tellers set it between Decius and Theodosius; the Qur’an gives 300 years and 9. A legend of Christian martyrs, written in Syriac a century earlier, became an Arabic scripture’s sign. That is the reception of a narrative.

For Your Decision

Sacred stories travel between peoples. Read the next parallel: I15.

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The Qur’an 18:96, tr. Sahih International · Read the verse

آتُونِي زُبَرَ الْحَدِيدِ ۖ حَتَّىٰ إِذَا سَاوَىٰ بَيْنَ الصَّدَفَيْنِ قَالَ انْفُخُوا ۖ حَتَّىٰ إِذَا جَعَلَهُ نَارًا قَالَ آتُونِي أُفْرِغْ عَلَيْهِ قِطْرًا

“Bring me bars of iron” - until, when he had leveled [them] between the two mountain walls, he said, “Blow [with bellows],” until when he had made it [like] fire, he said, “Bring me, that I may pour over it molten copper.”

The Claim Examined

Sura 18 tells of ذِي الْقَرْنَيْنِ, “the one with 2 horns”, who reaches the sun’s setting and builds a barrier of iron and copper against Gog and Magog.^[39] In the Syriac Alexander Legend God says I caused horns of iron to grow on your head; Alexander reaches the Fetid Sea and orders a gate of iron and bronze against Gog and Magog. Nöldeke dated it to about 629 to 630, later scholars place its core in the 6th century, and its link to Dhu l-Qarnayn, revived by Kevin van Bladel, is disputed.^[40]

The Temple’s Answer

The cluster is the same: a horned conqueror, the world’s edge, Gog and Magog, a metal gate. Christian Syria told it of Alexander around the time of the Qur’an’s formation.

For Your Decision

Your scripture’s hero wears an older king’s horns. Follow the older world: The Inversion Was Politics.

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The Qur’an 19:28, tr. Sahih International · Read the verse

يَا أُخْتَ هَارُونَ مَا كَانَ أَبُوكِ امْرَأَ سَوْءٍ وَمَا كَانَتْ أُمُّكِ بَغِيًّا

O sister [i.e., descendant] of Aaron, your father was not a man of evil, nor was your mother unchaste.

The Claim Examined

The Qur’an calls Mary, mother of Isa, sister of Aaron^[41] and the daughter of ʿImrān.^[42] In the Torah, Amram’s wife bore to Amram: Aaron, Moses, and their sister Miriam.^[43] In Sahih Muslim 2135 Christians of Najran press this objection, and the Prophet answers that people used to give names (to their persons) after the names of Apostles and pious persons.^[44]

The Temple’s Answer

The Prophet’s answer in Muslim 2135 explains one title. The Qur’an joins 2: sister of Aaron and daughter of Imran, exactly Miriam’s relations in Numbers 26:59.

Sahih International’s bracket [i.e., descendant] shows its translators still hear the plain words pointing to Moses’ sister. Najran’s Christians heard them that way in the Prophet’s lifetime.

For Your Decision

When a translation adds words to protect its text, read the text. Then read I17.

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The Qur’an 28:38, tr. Sahih International · Read the verse

فَأَوْقِدْ لِي يَا هَامَانُ عَلَى الطِّينِ فَاجْعَلْ لِي صَرْحًا لَعَلِّي أَطَّلِعُ إِلَىٰ إِلَٰهِ مُوسَىٰ

Then ignite for me, O Hāmān, [a fire] upon the clay and make for me a tower that I may look at the God of Moses.

The Claim Examined

The Qur’an places Haman beside Pharaoh in the time of Moses, firing clay for a tower.^[45] The earlier scriptures know one Haman: King Ahasuerus promoted Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, at the Persian court of the Book of Esther.^[46]

The Temple’s Answer

The book of Exodus names no Haman. The only Haman the earlier scriptures offer is a Persian minister, and the Qur’an’s figure carries that name into Egypt with no Egyptian witness produced for it.

For Your Decision

An exclusive revelation shouldn’t need its readers to supply its evidence. Compare the next tradition: I18.

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The Qur’an 21:68-69, tr. Sahih International · Read the verses

قَالُوا حَرِّقُوهُ وَانْصُرُوا آلِهَتَكُمْ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ فَاعِلِينَ قُلْنَا يَا نَارُ كُونِي بَرْدًا وَسَلَامًا عَلَىٰ إِبْرَاهِيمَ

They said, “Burn him and support your gods - if you are to act.” We [i.e., Allāh] said, “O fire, be coolness and safety upon Abraham.”

The Claim Examined

The Qur’an tells how Abraham’s people tried to burn him for breaking their idols and how God cooled the fire.^[47] Genesis has no such fire. Genesis Rabbah 38:13 has it: Nimrod tells Abraham I will cast you into it, and let that God to whom you bow down come and rescue you from it; Abraham comes out of the furnace, and his brother Haran dies of his burns.^[48]

The Temple’s Answer

The parallel holds in its essentials: idols, a king’s fire, a rescuing God. The furnace belongs to rabbinic commentary on Genesis, a tradition of interpreters, and in the Qur’an a midrash became divine speech.

For Your Decision

Notice whose gods are burned in the story. The Temple restores what the iconoclast broke: The Inversion Was Politics.

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The Qur’an 5:32, tr. Sahih International · Read the verse

مِنْ أَجْلِ ذَٰلِكَ كَتَبْنَا عَلَىٰ بَنِي إِسْرَائِيلَ أَنَّهُ مَنْ قَتَلَ نَفْسًا بِغَيْرِ نَفْسٍ أَوْ فَسَادٍ فِي الْأَرْضِ فَكَأَنَّمَا قَتَلَ النَّاسَ جَمِيعًا وَمَنْ أَحْيَاهَا فَكَأَنَّمَا أَحْيَا النَّاسَ جَمِيعًا

Because of that, We decreed upon the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption [done] in the land - it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And whoever saves one - it is as if he had saved mankind entirely.

The Claim Examined

Verse 5:32 follows the story of Adam’s two sons and draws its decree Because of that.^[49] Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5 moves the same way: from Abel’s “bloods” in Genesis 4:10 to the teaching that one who destroys one soul from the Jewish people is blamed as if he destroyed an entire world, and one who sustains a soul is credited as if he sustained an entire world.^[50]

The Temple’s Answer

The decree has an origin. In the Mishnah the saying is a lesson rabbis drew from the wording of Genesis.

The Qur’an presents that lesson as God’s own writ. Human interpretation became revelation.

For Your Decision

The sacredness of life needs no such genealogy; Ma’at holds it. See how Zevism grounds ethics.

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The Qur’an 27:44, tr. Sahih International · Read the verse

قِيلَ لَهَا ادْخُلِي الصَّرْحَ ۖ فَلَمَّا رَأَتْهُ حَسِبَتْهُ لُجَّةً وَكَشَفَتْ عَنْ سَاقَيْهَا ۚ قَالَ إِنَّهُ صَرْحٌ مُمَرَّدٌ مِنْ قَوَارِيرَ

She was told, “Enter the palace.” But when she saw it, she thought it was a body of water and uncovered her shins [to wade through]. He said, “Indeed, it is a palace [whose floor is] made smooth with glass.”

The Claim Examined

Sura 27 has a hoopoe bring news of Sheba and a queen bare her legs on a floor of glass.^[51] The visit in 1 Kings 10 has no bird and no glass.^[52] Targum Sheni to Esther has both a missing bird and a room of glass. Its date is disputed: current opinion runs from the late Byzantine to the early Islamic period, and Zishan Ghaffar argues that the Qur’an presupposes it.^[53]

The Temple’s Answer

The Qur’an’s Solomon scene matches Jewish legend about the Queen, and the biblical account has none of it. Its details come from the storytelling of the region.

For Your Decision

Legend and scripture shared one marketplace. Read how Isa fared there: I21.

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The Qur’an 3:49, tr. Sahih International · Read the verse

أَنِّي قَدْ جِئْتُكُمْ بِآيَةٍ مِنْ رَبِّكُمْ ۖ أَنِّي أَخْلُقُ لَكُمْ مِنَ الطِّينِ كَهَيْئَةِ الطَّيْرِ فَأَنْفُخُ فِيهِ فَيَكُونُ طَيْرًا بِإِذْنِ اللَّهِ

Indeed I have come to you with a sign from your Lord in that I design for you from clay [that which is] like the form of a bird, then I breathe into it and it becomes a bird by permission of Allāh.

The Claim Examined

The Qur’an gives Isa the miracle of clay birds at 3:49 and 5:110.^[54] The Infancy Gospel of Thomas tells it of the boy Jesus: having made some soft clay, He fashioned out of it twelve sparrows, and the sparrows flew.^[55] In the 2nd century Irenaeus already condemned as false and wicked a tale of the boy Jesus at his letters, which this gospel tells in chapter 6.^[56] Mary’s palm at 19:23-25 parallels Pseudo-Matthew, dated about 600 to 625.^[57][58]

The Temple’s Answer

The clay birds stand on older ground, in an infancy literature Irenaeus counted among apocryphal and spurious writings. The Qur’an made its childhood wonder a sign of prophethood.

For Your Decision

Isa reached Arabia already shaped by Christian storytellers. The Temple reads that figure in The Inversion Was Politics.

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The Qur’an 4:157, tr. Sahih International · Read the verse

وَمَا قَتَلُوهُ وَمَا صَلَبُوهُ وَلَٰكِنْ شُبِّهَ لَهُمْ

And they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him; but [another] was made to resemble him to them.

The Claim Examined

Muslims receive 4:157 as a revealed correction of history: Isa wasn’t killed or crucified, but [another] was made to resemble him to them.^[59] Irenaeus reports Basilides teaching in the 2nd century that Simon, a certain man of Cyrene, being compelled, bore the cross in his stead, while Jesus himself received the form of Simon, and, standing by, laughed at them.^[60]

The Temple’s Answer

The shape of the claim is older than Islam. A crucifixion that only seemed to befall Jesus was taught by 2nd-century Christian sects and refuted by bishops long before Islam. The Qur’an’s correction takes one side in an old Christian argument.

For Your Decision

If both the Christian and the Muslim Jesus were built from contested stories, return to what precedes them: the Gods.

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The Qur’an 17:1, tr. Sahih International · Read the verse

سُبْحَانَ الَّذِي أَسْرَىٰ بِعَبْدِهِ لَيْلًا مِنَ الْمَسْجِدِ الْحَرَامِ إِلَى الْمَسْجِدِ الْأَقْصَى الَّذِي بَارَكْنَا حَوْلَهُ

Exalted is He who took His Servant [i.e., Prophet Muḥammad (ﷺ)] by night from al-Masjid al-Ḥarām to al-Masjid al-Aqṣā, whose surroundings We have blessed …

The Claim Examined

The verse speaks of a night travel to al-masjid al-aqsa, “the farthest place of prostration”, and names no city.^[61] Jerusalem enters through hadith: in Bukhari 3886 the Prophet says that when Quraysh disbelieved him, God displayed Bayt al-Maqdis before him.^[62] Ibn Kathir explains the term as the Sacred House in Jerusalem.^[63] The Dome of the Rock, dated 72 AH under Abd al-Malik, carries inscriptions on Isa and none on the night travel.^[64]

The Temple’s Answer

The identification is the issue. Jerusalem’s place in this verse rests on reports and commentary, and the Umayyad Dome of the Rock spoke of Isa and never of the night travel.

For Your Decision

Sanctity assigned by reports can be examined. Arabia’s sanctuaries are older: Allah before Islam.

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The Qur’an 18:86, tr. Sahih International · Read the verse

حَتَّىٰ إِذَا بَلَغَ مَغْرِبَ الشَّمْسِ وَجَدَهَا تَغْرُبُ فِي عَيْنٍ حَمِئَةٍ

Until, when he reached the setting of the sun [i.e., the west], he found it [as if] setting in a body of dark water,

The Claim Examined

The Arabic of 18:86 has Dhu l-Qarnayn find the sun setting in عَيْنٍ حَمِئَةٍ, a spring of dark mud; the translation adds [as if].^[65] In Bukhari 3199 the Prophet tells Abu Dharr that the sun at sunset goes (i.e. travels) till it prostrates Itself underneath the Throne and asks permission to rise.^[66]

The Temple’s Answer

Ibn Kathir had to state that reaching the place in the sky where the sun sets is impossible,^[67] since a literal reading lay ready to hand. Bukhari 3199 adds a nightly travel beneath the Throne. These are sacred images of a pre-scientific cosmos, never scientific foreknowledge.

For Your Decision

Judge each “scientific miracle” by the text and its oldest commentators. Next: I25.

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The Qur’an 67:5, tr. Sahih International · Read the verse

وَلَقَدْ زَيَّنَّا السَّمَاءَ الدُّنْيَا بِمَصَابِيحَ وَجَعَلْنَاهَا رُجُومًا لِلشَّيَاطِينِ ۖ وَأَعْتَدْنَا لَهُمْ عَذَابَ السَّعِيرِ

And We have certainly beautified the nearest heaven with lamps [i.e., stars] and have made [from] them what is thrown at the devils and have prepared for them the punishment of the Blaze.

The Claim Examined

The Qur’an makes the lamps of the lowest heaven رُجُومًا لِلشَّيَاطِينِ, missiles for devils.^[68] At 37:6-10 the stars guard heaven so that devils may not listen to the exalted assembly [of angels], and an eavesdropper is pursued by a burning flame.^[69]

The Temple’s Answer

Ibn Kathir’s commentary makes the missiles meteors taken from the stars.^[70] NASA describes meteoroids as space rocks, from dust grains to small asteroids, that become meteors when they burn up in the atmosphere, and ties meteor showers to comet debris.^[71]

They aren’t taken from stars, and they hunt no eavesdropping spirits. As sacred imagery the passage keeps its force; as a scientific miracle it fails.

For Your Decision

The Temple reads the Greek sky-images as images too; claim no more for any scripture. Next: I26.

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The Qur’an 23:14, tr. Sahih International · Read the verse

ثُمَّ خَلَقْنَا النُّطْفَةَ عَلَقَةً فَخَلَقْنَا الْعَلَقَةَ مُضْغَةً فَخَلَقْنَا الْمُضْغَةَ عِظَامًا فَكَسَوْنَا الْعِظَامَ لَحْمًا ثُمَّ أَنْشَأْنَاهُ خَلْقًا آخَرَ ۚ فَتَبَارَكَ اللَّهُ أَحْسَنُ الْخَالِقِينَ

Then We made the sperm-drop into a clinging clot, and We made the clot into a lump [of flesh], and We made [from] the lump, bones, and We covered the bones with flesh; then We developed him into another creation. So blessed is Allāh, the best of creators.

The Claim Examined

Preachers teach that 23:12-14 describes stages only modern embryology could know. Its key word عَلَقَةً is a clinging clot for Sahih International and a clinging form for Abdel Haleem, and the verse has bones formed first and then clothed with flesh.^[72]

The Temple’s Answer

The prediction depends on choosing among translations once the science is known. On sequence, StatPearls dates the start of ossification to the 6th to 7th week, with endochondral bone forming from a cartilage intermediate.^[73] UNSW Embryology’s muscle timeline records dermomyotomes by day 33 and myotubes within all muscle groups by day 54.^[74] The muscle line is under way before bone forms, so “bones, then flesh” describes no discovery.

For Your Decision

Reverence for the forming of life needs no false science. Read the last claim of this group: I27.

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The Qur’an 86:6-7, tr. Sahih International · Read the verses

خُلِقَ مِنْ مَاءٍ دَافِقٍ يَخْرُجُ مِنْ بَيْنِ الصُّلْبِ وَالتَّرَائِبِ

He was created from a fluid, ejected, Emerging from between the backbone and the ribs.

The Claim Examined

The Qur’an says man is created from a fluid that يَخْرُجُ, emerges, from between the backbone and the ribs.^[75] Ibn Kathir, citing Ibn Abbas, explains: The backbone of the man and the ribs of the woman.^[76]

The Temple’s Answer

The classical reading is Ibn Abbas’s: the fluid comes from a man’s back and a woman’s chest. The modern reading moves it to the testes, which StatPearls places first on the posterior abdominal wall adjacent to the kidney; the first stage of descent occurs by the 8th week, most reach the scrotum by the 33rd, and sperm are produced in the seminiferous tubules.^[77]

The verse speaks of the fluid emerging. The new reading changes subject and meaning together: interpretation adjusting to science.

For Your Decision

Leave the contest of proof-texts and turn to the Divine directly: Begin Your Return.

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Sahih al-Bukhari 3, narrated by Aisha, tr. M. Muhsin Khan · Read the report

لَقَدْ خَشِيتُ عَلَى نَفْسِي

“I fear that something may happen to me.” … [Waraqa,] “who, during the pre-Islamic Period became a Christian and used to write the writing with Hebrew letters.”

The Claim Examined

Bukhari 3 reports that after the angel pressed him at Hira he came home frightened and told Khadija I fear that something may happen to me. Khadija took him to her cousin Waraqa, a convert to Christianity, who identified the visitor as the one whom Allah had sent to Moses.^[78] Bukhari 6982 adds, under the words as we have heard (فِيمَا بَلَغَنَا), that in the pause of revelation he intended several times to throw himself from mountain tops, an addition Muslim scholarship assigns to the transmitter al-Zuhri.^[79] The shorter report records fear. It doesn’t diagnose possession.

The Temple’s Answer

Read who gives the experience its meaning. His wife consoles him, and a Christian reader of Hebrew writing places it in the line of Moses. Islam’s founding moment is decoded, in its most trusted collection, through the Abrahamic narrative already present in Mecca. In Zevism you approach Zeus by your own free act, with understanding.

For Your Decision

You can respect the fear in this report and decline the interpretation laid over it. See how Zevism approaches the Gods.

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Sahih al-Bukhari 5763, narrated by Aisha, tr. M. Muhsin Khan · Read the report

سَحَرَ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم رَجُلٌ مِنْ بَنِي زُرَيْقٍ يُقَالُ لَهُ لَبِيدُ بْنُ الأَعْصَمِ … يُخَيَّلُ إِلَيْهِ أَنَّهُ يَفْعَلُ الشَّىْءَ وَمَا فَعَلَهُ

“A man called Labid bin al-A’sam from the tribe of Bani Zaraiq worked magic on Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) till … [he] started imagining that he had done a thing that he had not really done.”

The Claim Examined

Islam holds the Prophet protected in all he conveyed. Bukhari 5763 reports that magic worked on him by Labid bin al-A’sam made him imagine he had done things he hadn’t, until the charm was found in the well of Dharwan.^[80] In Bukhari 5765 he thought he had been with his wives when he hadn’t, and the transmitter Sufyan calls it the hardest kind of magic.^[81] The Qur’an quotes the wrongdoers’ taunt, You follow not but a man affected by magic, and answers that they have strayed.^[82]

The Temple’s Answer

For a time his perception of his own acts failed: he imagined he had done things he hadn’t. The Qur’an treats bewitchment as the unbelievers’ charge; the collection confirms an episode of it, and later theologians drew a line between affected and unaffected perception.^[83] A guarantee drawn after the event rests on those who drew it.

For Your Decision

The next dossier shows where the early record placed that line. Read I30, the Satanic Verses.

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al-Tabari (d. 923), Jami’ al-Bayan on Qur’an 22:52, first report; Qur’an 53:19 to 20 tr. Saheeh International, the added words rendered literally for this page · Read the commentary

أَفَرَأَيْتُمُ اللاتَ وَالْعُزَّى * وَمَنَاةَ الثَّالِثَةَ الأُخْرَى … تلك الغرانقة العلى, وإن شفاعتهنّ لترجى

“So have you considered al-Lāt and al-ʿUzzā? And Manāt, the third, the other one?” … “Those are the exalted gharaniq, and their intercession is hoped for.”

The Claim Examined

Islam holds that no word of Satan ever entered the recitation. The Qur’an names the 3 goddesses of Mecca, al-Lat, al-‘Uzza and Manat, then calls Them [mere] names you have named them.^[84] Al-Tabari, who died in 923, preserves in his commentary and his History reports that as the Prophet recited these verses, Satan cast onto his tongue words praising the goddesses as exalted beings whose intercession is hoped for.^[85] The History gives the account at Leiden pages 1192 to 1196; its translator W. Montgomery Watt summarises a message in which three goddesses were mentioned and permission was given to use them as intercessors.^[86]

Al-Tabari files the reports under Qur’an 22:52, which says that Satan casts into the recitation of every messenger and prophet and that God abolishes what Satan casts.^[87] The verse names no goddess and narrates no episode, so the narrative rests on the reports. One element stands in Bukhari: when the Prophet finished reciting Surat al-Najm he prostrated, and all the Muslims and pagans and Jinns and human beings prostrated along with him.^[88]

The rejection came later. Ibn Kathir, in the 14th century, granted that many of the scholars of Tafsir mentioned the story of the Gharaniq, then wrote that the reports all come through mursal chains and that he could not regard any as sahih.^[89] Shahab Ahmed’s Harvard study finds that early Muslims, circa 632 to 800 CE, held the incident an established fact in the history of the Prophet; Muslims today of all sects deny it.^[90]

The Temple’s Answer

The generations nearest the event passed the story on as fact; the objections to its chains came centuries later. Watt judged that The truth of the story cannot be doubted, since it is inconceivable that any Muslim would invent such a story.^[86]

At the threshold of the new religion al-Lat, al-‘Uzza and Manat were honoured in Mecca, and words of honour to Them were spoken at the recitation, then withdrawn and assigned to Satan. Zevism counts Them among the Ancient Gods whose worship was suppressed.

For Your Decision

The goddesses your forebears honoured were praised before they were forbidden. See the sacred world before the prohibition.

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Qur’an 33:37, tr. Saheeh International · Read the verse

فَلَمَّا قَضَىٰ زَيۡدٞ مِّنۡهَا وَطَرٗا زَوَّجۡنَٰكَهَا لِكَيۡ لَا يَكُونَ عَلَى ٱلۡمُؤۡمِنِينَ حَرَجٞ فِيٓ أَزۡوَٰجِ أَدۡعِيَآئِهِمۡ

“So when Zayd had no longer any need for her, We married her to you in order that there not be upon the believers any discomfort [i.e., guilt] concerning the wives of their claimed [i.e., adopted] sons.”

The Claim Examined

Zayd b. Haritha, the Prophet’s freedman, was called Zaid bin Muhammad until Qur’an 33:5 required adopted sons to bear their fathers’ names.^[91] Qur’an 33:37 then marries Zayd’s former wife Zaynab to the Prophet, so that believers need feel no discomfort over the wives of adopted sons, and tells him you concealed within yourself that which Allāh is to disclose. And you feared the people.^[92] Qur’an 33:40 adds that Muhammad is not the father of any of your men.^[93] Zaynab boasted that Allah had married her to him from over seven Heavens.^[94]

The Temple’s Answer

The sequence is the difficulty: a rule for every family arrived in the passage that settled the founder’s own marriage, and both the verse and Aisha admit its discomfort. Ma’at binds the ruler’s household first and is never fitted to it.

For Your Decision

Ask whether such a law comes from beyond its lawgiver. Read I32.

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Sahih al-Bukhari 4788, narrated by Aisha, tr. M. Muhsin Khan · Read the report

قُلْتُ مَا أُرَى رَبَّكَ إِلاَّ يُسَارِعُ فِي هَوَاكَ

“I feel that your Lord hastens in fulfilling your wishes and desires.”

The Claim Examined

Revelation is held to descend from beyond the Prophet’s wishes. In Bukhari 4788 Aisha says she looked down on the women who offered themselves to him. When Qur’an 33:51 came down, letting him postpone the turn of whichever wives he wished, she said: I feel that your Lord hastens in fulfilling your wishes and desires.^[95] The collection Sunni Islam trusts most kept her words.

The Temple’s Answer

The force of the report lies in the witness. The person closest to him saw the revelations touching his household move toward his desire, and said so to his face. A reader who sees the same pattern in 33:37, 33:50 and 33:51 sees what Aisha saw first.

For Your Decision

You may see what the founder’s own wife saw. Read I33, the marital exception.

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Qur’an 33:50, tr. Saheeh International · Read the verse

خَالِصَةٗ لَّكَ مِن دُونِ ٱلۡمُؤۡمِنِينَ

“[this is] only for you, excluding the [other] believers.”

The Claim Examined

The law is held to bind all believers alike. Qur’an 4:3 permits a believer two or three or four wives, and 1 if he fears injustice.^[96] Qur’an 33:50 makes lawful to the Prophet, beyond his wives, captives allotted to him, certain emigrant cousins and any believing woman who gives herself to him, only for you, excluding the [other] believers.^[97] In Bukhari 268 Anas counts the wives he visited in a single round as eleven in number; another chain says 9.^[98] Qur’an 33:52 then forbids him further wives.^[99]

The Temple’s Answer

The exception stands as a permanent record that the rule binding every believer didn’t bind the man who delivered it, and a law that exempts its messenger by name gives his person a standing no believer can share. Under Ma’at the greatest are bound most.

For Your Decision

Decide which kind of law you want to live under. See the life ordered by Ma’at.

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Sahih al-Bukhari 5133, narrated by Aisha, tr. M. Muhsin Khan · Read the report

تَزَوَّجَهَا وَهْىَ بِنْتُ سِتِّ سِنِينَ … وَأُدْخِلَتْ عَلَيْهِ وَهْىَ بِنْتُ تِسْعٍ، وَمَكَثَتْ عِنْدَهُ تِسْعًا

“… married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years …”

The Claim Examined

The founder’s life is offered as the model for every age. Bukhari 5133 and 5134 (Hisham, from his father ‘Urwa, from Aisha) and 5158 (‘Urwa) give her age as 6 at the marriage and 9 at its consummation.^{[100][101][102]} Muslim 1422a has Aisha say 6 and 9; 1422c gives 7 and 9, adds her dolls were with her, and gives 18 at his death.^[103][104] These collections are the most authentic after the Qur’an for Sunni scholarship; Shia Muslims don’t hold them binding.

The Temple’s Answer

The numbers are explicit and repeated in the collections Sunni Islam trusts most: 6 or 7 at the marriage, 9 at its consummation, 18 at his death. The founder’s life is offered as the model for every age, and this is the marriage it offers. Ma’at doesn’t change with the century.

For Your Decision

You don’t have to defend what your conscience rejects. Read the answer on leaving.

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Sahih al-Bukhari 3043, narrated by Abu Sa’id al-Khudri, tr. M. Muhsin Khan · Read the report

فَإِنِّي أَحْكُمُ أَنْ تُقْتَلَ الْمُقَاتِلَةُ، وَأَنْ تُسْبَى الذُّرِّيَّةُ … لَقَدْ حَكَمْتَ فِيهِمْ بِحُكْمِ الْمَلِكِ

“I give the judgment that their warriors should be killed and their children and women should be taken as prisoners.” … “You have judged amongst them with (or similar to) the judgment of the King Allah.”

The Claim Examined

The founder’s judgments are held to be guided. Bukhari 3043 reports that Banu Qurayza submitted to the judgment of Sa’d b. Mu’adh, who ruled that their warriors (al-muqatila) be killed and their offspring taken captive, and that the Prophet called it the judgment of the King.^[105] Where the Arabic of 3043 names the offspring, Bukhari 4122 names the women as well and adds the division of property.^[106] The reports name a category, the fighting men, and give no count; totals come from later biographies and remain each source’s own figure.

The Temple’s Answer

The report calls the sentence divine: the judgment of the King. Once the killing of surrendered men and the captivity of their families is endorsed as the King’s judgment, God is bound to 7th-century war law, and any later century can invoke it. The Temple refuses to place that sentence in the mouth of Zeus, Father of Gods and men.

For Your Decision

See how political power wrote itself into the divine. Read The Inversion Was Politics.

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Sahih al-Bukhari 4037, narrated by Jabir bin Abdullah, tr. M. Muhsin Khan · Read the report

مَنْ لِكَعْبِ بْنِ الأَشْرَفِ فَإِنَّهُ قَدْ آذَى اللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُ … فَأْذَنْ لِي أَنْ أَقُولَ شَيْئًا … قُلْ

“Who is willing to kill Ka`b bin Al-Ashraf who has hurt Allah and His Apostle?” … “Then allow me to say a (false) thing.” … “You may say it.”

The Claim Examined

The founder is presented as the perfect moral example. Bukhari 4037 reports that he asked for a volunteer to kill Ka’b ibn al-Ashraf, because Ka’b had hurt Allah and His Apostle. Muhammad b. Maslama asked leave to tell Ka’b a false thing and received it. The party approached Ka’b on the pretext of a loan, drew him out at night, then killed him and went to the Prophet (ﷺ) and informed him.^[107]

The Temple’s Answer

The report gives its reason, injury to Allah and His Apostle, and its method, a killing prepared through feigned friendship and approved in advance. The most trusted collection keeps it as precedent.

The Greeks called Zeus Horkios the guardian of the sworn word, from whom no perjury escaped.^[108] Zevism walks in the light of Satya.

For Your Decision

Weigh what a religion permits in defence of its founder’s honour. Read I39.

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Sahih al-Bukhari 4211 and 4200, narrated by Anas, tr. M. Muhsin Khan · Read 4211 · Read 4200

وَقَدْ قُتِلَ زَوْجُهَا وَكَانَتْ عَرُوسًا … فَجَعَلَ عِتْقَهَا صَدَاقَهَا

“… whose husband had been killed while she was a bride.” … “The Prophet (ﷺ) made her manumission as her ‘Mahr’.”

The Claim Examined

Each report is read on its own. Bukhari 371: after Khaybar the captives were collected; Dihya took Safiyya; a man told the Prophet she was the chief mistress of the tribes of Quraidha and An-Nadir and she befits none but you; her dowry was Her self, since he freed and married her.^[109] Bukhari 4200: she fell first to Dihya’s share, then passed to the Prophet, who made her freedom her dowry.^[110] Bukhari 4211: her husband had been killed while she was a bride; the Prophet chose her for himself.^[111]

The Temple’s Answer

The 3 reports in Bukhari say nothing of her choice. They record capture, allotment, a transfer upward on the strength of her rank, and freedom granted as the price of marriage. The most trusted record shows a woman taken in the war that killed her husband.

For Your Decision

The law behind this record comes next. Read I40.

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Sahih al-Bukhari 114, narrated by Ibn Abbas, tr. M. Muhsin Khan · Read the report

ائْتُونِي بِكِتَابٍ أَكْتُبُ لَكُمْ كِتَابًا لاَ تَضِلُّوا بَعْدَهُ … إِنَّ النَّبِيَّ صلى الله عليه وسلم غَلَبَهُ الْوَجَعُ وَعِنْدَنَا كِتَابُ اللَّهِ حَسْبُنَا

“Bring for me (writing) paper and I will write for you a statement after which you will not go astray.” … “The Prophet is seriously ill, and we have got Allah’s Book with us and that is sufficient for us.”

The Claim Examined

The founder is held to have left complete guidance. Bukhari 114 reports that in his last illness he asked for writing material to write a statement after which they would not go astray; Umar said he was seriously ill and Allah’s Book was enough; the company quarrelled, and Ibn Abbas called the prevention most unfortunate (a great disaster).^[112] Bukhari 4431 dates it to a Thursday and has some ask أَهَجَرَ, rendered he is delirious (seriously ill)?^[113] Bukhari 4432 ends with his command, Get up.^[114]

The Temple’s Answer

The statement was never written. The report proves enough: the companions overrode the founder’s last request, a voice asked whether he was delirious, and his cousin remembered it as a calamity. The authority later claimed for the companions’ consensus begins with that refusal.

For Your Decision

See what followed. Read I45, the first succession wars.

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Sahih al-Bukhari 6922, from Ikrima, reporting Ibn Abbas, tr. M. Muhsin Khan · Read the report

مَنْ بَدَّلَ دِينَهُ فَاقْتُلُوهُ

“Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.”

The Claim Examined

Islam teaches that its truth is accepted freely. Bukhari 6922 opens with Ali burning a group of Zanadiqa; Ibn Abbas said he would have killed them instead, because the Prophet said Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.^[115] Bukhari 3017 repeats it.^[116] Muslim 1676a counts the deserter of his Din (Islam), abandoning the community among those whose blood is lawful.^[117] In jurisprudence, Malik’s Muwatta’ applies the saying to anyone who leaves Islam for another religion: called to repent, and killed if he refuses.^[118] National law today is a third question, and states differ.

The Temple’s Answer

The Qur’an says There shall be no compulsion in [acceptance of] the religion.^[119] The command to kill the apostate stands in Bukhari and the capital rule in Muslim, a founder of a law school applied it to plain change of religion, and its report begins with a caliph burning men.

A faith kept by the threat of death has told you what it thinks of your freedom. The Temple declares it will never convert by force, never suppress by violence.^[120]

For Your Decision

Your safety comes before any declaration. Read the answer on leaving, or read and practise privately.

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Sahih Muslim 1456a, narrated by Abu Sa’id al-Khudri, English as on sunnah.com · Read the report

تَحَرَّجُوا مِنْ غِشْيَانِهِنَّ مِنْ أَجْلِ أَزْوَاجِهِنَّ مِنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ … وَالْمُحْصَنَاتُ مِنَ النِّسَاءِ إِلاَّ مَا مَلَكَتْ أَيْمَانُكُمْ

“[They] seemed to refrain from having intercourse with captive women because of their husbands being polytheists.” … “And women already married, except those whom your right hands possess (iv. 24).”

The Claim Examined

The Qur’an is held to be timeless moral law. Qur’an 4:24 forbids married women except those your right hands possess; Abdel Haleem renders it other than your slaves.^[121] Muslim 1456a gives the occasion: at Autas the companions held back from captive women whose husbands were polytheists; the verse came down, and the women became lawful after their waiting period.^[122] Qur’an 23:5 to 6 exempts those their right hands possess from the duty of chastity.^[123] In Bukhari 4138 and 2229 companions ask about coitus interruptus with captives.^[124][125]

The Temple’s Answer

The Temple holds no living Muslim responsible. The record places the permission in revelation, a verse sent in answer to soldiers’ hesitation over married women taken in war.

A text can’t be the eternal word of God while its permissions are mere custom. Either the permission came from the Most High, or the verse speaks for the camp at Autas.

For Your Decision

Read the rules on women from the same scripture. Read I41.

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Sahih al-Bukhari 304, narrated by Abu Sa’id al-Khudri, tr. M. Muhsin Khan · Read the report

مَا رَأَيْتُ مِنْ نَاقِصَاتِ عَقْلٍ وَدِينٍ … أَلَيْسَ شَهَادَةُ الْمَرْأَةِ مِثْلَ نِصْفِ شَهَادَةِ الرَّجُلِ … أَلَيْسَ إِذَا حَاضَتْ لَمْ تُصَلِّ وَلَمْ تَصُمْ

“… deficient in intelligence and religion … the evidence of two women equal to the witness of one man … a woman can neither pray nor fast during her menses …”

The Claim Examined

Islam presents its law as honouring women. Qur’an 2:282, on recording a debt for a specified term, asks for 2 men or 1 man and 2 women, so that if one of them [i.e., the women] errs, then the other can remind her.^[126] Qur’an 4:11 gives a son the share of 2 daughters, within shares that vary with the heirs.^[127] Qur’an 4:34 lets a husband admonish a wife whose defiance he fears, leave her bed, and strike them [lightly]; Abdel Haleem has then hit them.^[128] In Bukhari 304 the Prophet calls women deficient in intelligence and religion, citing their half-weight testimony and their not praying or fasting in menstruation, and says most dwellers of Hell were women; Bukhari 29 and 1052 give the reason as ingratitude to husbands.^{[129][130][131]}

The Temple’s Answer

Bukhari 304 is where the tradition generalises: in the founder’s reported words the debt rule becomes evidence about women’s minds, and women become most of the dwellers of Hell. Zevism honours Athena, wisdom born from the head of Zeus, and Hera the Divine Mother.

For Your Decision

Compare the standing each tradition gives your mother and your daughter. Meet the Gods of Zevism.

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Sahih al-Bukhari 6830, Ibn Abbas reporting the sermon of Umar, tr. M. Muhsin Khan · Read the report

فَكَانَ مِمَّا أَنْزَلَ اللَّهُ آيَةُ الرَّجْمِ … مَا نَجِدُ آيَةَ الرَّجْمِ فِي كِتَابِ اللَّهِ

“… among what Allah revealed, was the Verse of the Rajam …” [Umar fears that people will say] “we do not find the Verse of the Rajam in Allah’s Book.”

The Claim Examined

The Qur’an is presented as the complete foundation of the law. Qur’an 24:2 prescribes 100 lashes for the woman and the man guilty of unlawful intercourse.^[132] Umar’s sermon in Bukhari 6830 states that a verse of stoning was revealed, warns that people will say they don’t find it in Allah’s Book, and affirms stoning for the married on evidence, pregnancy or confession.^[133] Ali stoned a woman and said I have stoned her according to the tradition of Allah’s Messenger.^[134] Muslim 1676a counts the married adulterer among those whose blood is lawful.^[117]

The Temple’s Answer

The law’s gravest sentence rests on a verse the received Book lacks, by Umar’s own admission, and on transmitted practice. The reports govern the law, and with them the transmitters and jurists who decided which reports bind. That authority is human.

For Your Decision

The reported verse is examined earlier. Read I4.

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Sahih al-Bukhari 5950, Masruq from Ibn Mas’ud, tr. M. Muhsin Khan · Read the report

إِنَّ أَشَدَّ النَّاسِ عَذَابًا عِنْدَ اللَّهِ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ الْمُصَوِّرُونَ

“The people who will receive the severest punishment from Allah will be the picture makers.”

The Claim Examined

In Bukhari 5950 Masruq sees pictures at the house of Yasar b. Numair and recalls Ibn Mas’ud’s report that picture-makers will receive the severest punishment.^[135] The Metropolitan Museum’s survey of Islamic art states the outcome: the opposition to figural depiction holds true for religious art and architecture, while in the secular sphere such representations have flourished in nearly all Islamic cultures.^[136]

The Temple’s Answer

The prohibition held where it mattered, in worship. Before Islam 360 idols stood around the Kaaba, which Bukhari reports the Prophet struck with a stick at the conquest of Mecca;^[137] afterwards the threat of the severest punishment kept the sacred image out of prayer.

Kings kept their portraits; the Gods lost Theirs. Zevism restores the sacred image to the shrine.

For Your Decision

See what was removed and why. Read The Inversion Was Politics.

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Qur’an 9:29, tr. Saheeh International · Read the verse

حَتَّىٰ يُعۡطُواْ ٱلۡجِزۡيَةَ عَن يَدٖ وَهُمۡ صَٰغِرُونَ

“… until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled.”

The Claim Examined

Islam presents its rule as tolerant of other faiths. Qur’an 9:29 commands Fight against those who do not believe in Allāh or in the Last Day among the People of the Book until the jizya is paid while they are humbled; Abdel Haleem has until they pay the tax and agree to submit.^[138] The Pact of Umar, attributed to the 2nd caliph and transmitted in al-Turtushi’s Siraj al-Muluk, has Christians pledge to build no new churches, to not manifest our religion publicly nor convert anyone to it, and not to prevent any of our kin from entering Islam. The Fordham edition dates it 7th Century?.^[139]

The Temple’s Answer

The documents remain. The verse ties toleration to payment and humility.

The pact, whatever its date, forbids the protected to spread their faith and forbids them to stop anyone leaving it: a door that opens 1 way. The Temple invites by example, coerces no one, and asks no tribute for the right to believe.

For Your Decision

Compare a 1-way door with a free invitation. Read The Inversion Was Politics.

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Sahih al-Bukhari 1399 to 1400, narrated by Abu Huraira, tr. M. Muhsin Khan · Read the report

وَاللَّهِ لأُقَاتِلَنَّ مَنْ فَرَّقَ بَيْنَ الصَّلاَةِ وَالزَّكَاةِ … لَوْ مَنَعُونِي عَنَاقًا كَانُوا يُؤَدُّونَهَا إِلَى رَسُولِ اللَّهِ

“By Allah! I will fight those who differentiate between the prayer and the Zakat … If they refuse to pay me even a she-kid which they used to pay …”

The Claim Examined

The faith is said to have united Arabia by conviction. Bukhari 1399 to 1400 reports that after the Prophet’s death some Arabs renegade (reverted to disbelief); Umar objected, citing the Prophet’s order to fight people till they declare that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah; Abu Bakr swore to fight those who separate prayer from zakat, even over a she-kid.^[140] Rival prophecy is a separate thread: Musaylima had asked for the rule after Muhammad and, after his death, appeared (claiming to be a prophet) until Wahshi killed him.^[141][142]

The Temple’s Answer

The report shows the companions disputing whether withheld payment could be fought, and the caliph deciding it could. Unity after the founder was secured by campaigns, with payment to the new state made a test of faith.

For Your Decision

See how the next 30 years unfolded. Read I46.

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Sahih al-Bukhari 3700, narrated by ‘Amr bin Maimun, tr. M. Muhsin Khan · Read the report

الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ الَّذِي لَمْ يَجْعَلْ مَنِيَّتِي بِيَدِ رَجُلٍ يَدَّعِي الإِسْلاَمَ

“All the Praises are for Allah Who has not caused me to die at the hand of a man who claims himself to be a Muslim.”

The Claim Examined

Sunni Islam honours its first 4 caliphs as rightly guided, and Tirmidhi 3747 names Umar, Uthman and Ali among 10 companions promised Paradise.^[143] Umar was stabbed at prayer by The slave of Al Mughira, a non-Arab, and thanked Allah that his killer was no Muslim.^[144] Uthman was besieged in his house^[145] and, in G. R. Hawting’s summary of al-Tabari, was killed in Medina by malcontents from the garrison town of al-Fustat in Egypt in 656; Ali was murdered in al-Kufa early in 661 by Ibn Muljam, avenging the Kharijites Ali had killed at Nahrawan.^[146]

The Temple’s Answer

Umar alone fell to an outsider. Uthman fell to rebels from a Muslim garrison town, Ali to a man formed by the quarrel over his own arbitration. Within 30 years of the founder’s death, 3 of the 4 men promised Paradise who ruled after him had been killed.

For Your Decision

The civil war that followed is next. Read I47.

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Jami’ at-Tirmidhi 3747, narrated by ‘Abdur-Rahman bin ‘Awf, graded sahih · Read the report

وَعُثْمَانُ فِي الْجَنَّةِ وَعَلِيٌّ فِي الْجَنَّةِ وَطَلْحَةُ فِي الْجَنَّةِ وَالزُّبَيْرُ فِي الْجَنَّةِ

“‘Uthman is in Paradise, ‘Ali is in Paradise, Talhah is in Paradise, Az-Zubair is in Paradise …”

The Claim Examined

Islam presents its first community as guided. In 656 Aisha, with Talha and al-Zubayr, moved to Basra against Ali; Ammar b. Yasir told the people of Kufa that she was the wife of your Prophet in this world and in the Hereafter, yet Allah was testing whether they would obey Him or her.^[147] Adrian Brockett, translating al-Tabari, dates the Battle of the Camel to 4 or 9 December 656, in which Talhah and al-Zubayr were killed,^[148] 2 of the 10 whom Tirmidhi 3747 names in Paradise.^[143] At Siffin in 657 Ammar fell in Ali’s army against Mu’awiya’s Syrians; Bukhari 447 has the Prophet foretell his death at the hands of the rebellious group.^[149][146] At Karbala on 10 Muharram 61, 10 October 680, the Prophet’s grandson al-Husayn was killed, and al-Tabari reports 72 of his followers killed with him,^[150] and Bukhari 3748 records his head brought to Ubaidullah b. Ziyad in a tray.^[151]

The Temple’s Answer

No Muslim alive today fought at the Camel or Karbala, and none carries that guilt. The question is the claim that a final revelation united a people under God. Within 50 years men named in Paradise led armies against each other, the founder’s widow was the rallying point of one, and his grandson’s head was carried to a Muslim governor.

For Your Decision

The sanctuary itself was not spared. Read I48.

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Sahih Muslim 1333f, narrated by ‘Ata’, English as on sunnah.com · Read the report

لَمَّا احْتَرَقَ الْبَيْتُ زَمَنَ يَزِيدَ بْنِ مُعَاوِيَةَ حِينَ غَزَاهَا أَهْلُ الشَّامِ

“The House was burnt during the time of Yazid b. Muawiya when the people of Syria had fought (in Mecca).”

The Claim Examined

The Kaaba is held to stand under special divine protection. Muslim 1333f reports that the House burned in the time of Yazid b. Mu’awiya when the Syrians fought in Mecca, and that Ibn al-Zubayr rebuilt it.^[152] Al-Tabari dates the day the Ka’bah was set alight to Saturday 3 Rabi’ al-Awwal 64, 31 October 683, without naming in that passage who set it alight; responsibility stays a question of the sources.^[153] In 692 al-Hajjaj besieged Ibn al-Zubayr and proceeded to set up a trebuchet and bombard Mecca; Ibn al-Zubayr was killed in the year 73,^[154] his body left hanging at the pass of Medina.^[155] In 317, 930 CE, the Qarmatians shed pilgrims’ blood around the Kaaba, broke and tore out the Black Stone, and kept it 22 years.^[156]

The Temple’s Answer

Keep the acts distinct: a fire during a siege, a deliberate bombardment, a massacre and a theft. All came from within the Muslim world: the fire of 683 during an Umayyad siege, whoever set it, the bombardment of 692 by an Umayyad army, and in 930 the Qarmatians, an Isma‘ili movement. The sanctuary taken from the Gods, where Bukhari counts 360 idols at the conquest,^[137] was burned, stoned and robbed by men who claimed it for the faith.

For Your Decision

Learn what the Kaaba held before. Read Before the Name Became One.

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al-Tabari, The History of al-Tabari, vol. XXXIV, Incipient Decline, tr. Joel L. Kraemer, p. 40, on the prisoner exchange of the year 231 (845 to 846) · Read the volume

“Those who professed that the Qur’an was created, and that God cannot be seen in the Afterlife, were ransomed …”

The Claim Examined

Islam teaches that its creed rests on revelation, not on rulers. Al-Tabari preserves al-Ma’mun’s orders testing judges and traditionists on whether the Qur’an is created, directing officials no longer to recognize the validity of the testimony of those failing to affirm it. In Baghdad the last 4 who refused were loaded with iron fetters, and Ahmad b. Hanbal persisted.^[157] Under al-Wathiq, Ahmad b. Nasr was asked Is the Qur’an created?, and the caliph struck him with a sword before an attendant severed his head; in the exchange of 231, returning Muslim captives were questioned, and those who professed the doctrine were ransomed. Kraemer notes the caliphs held it From the time of al-Ma’mun until al-Mutawakkil.^[158]

The Temple’s Answer

About 2 centuries after the founder, what the Qur’an itself is had become a matter for fetters and the sword, captives recited the court’s creed to come home, and the official answer changed when the ruler changed. Ibn Hanbal’s side prevailed when a later caliph changed course; no new revelation came. That is the political inversion in plain form.

For Your Decision

See how power shaped what you were told to believe. Read The Inversion Was Politics.

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Abu al-Qasim al-Khu’i, al-Bayan fi Tafsir al-Qur’an, tr. Mulla Asghar Ali M. M. Jaffer · Read the chapters

“To sum up, the general belief of Shi’a Ulama’ has been that the Qur’an is intact and pristine.” … “a small group of traditionalists, both among Shi’as and Sunnis”

The Claim Examined

Islam teaches that the Qur’an reached every Muslim unaltered. Early Shia collections transmitted reports that the text had been changed or was once longer. A tradition in al-Kafi, the collection of al-Kulayni, gives its verses as 17,000, and a 2009 study in the journal Hadith Studies finds that the standing of the book and the report make it difficult to present a solution.^[159] Etan Kohlberg and Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi edited 1 such work, al-Sayyari’s Kitab al-qira’at, as Revelation and Falsification.^[160] The modern jurist al-Khu’i answered that the general belief of Shia scholars is that the Qur’an is intact, while a small group of traditionists held otherwise.^[161]

The Temple’s Answer

Each great branch preserved, in collections it respects, reports that the text once differed (see I4 and I5), and each now explains its own reports away. A text guarded by later agreement is guarded by a human act.

For Your Decision

Return to where the fixing of the text began. Read I2.

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Aisha in Sahih al-Bukhari 3894 (Book 63, Hadith 119), tr. M. Muhsin Khan · Read the report

فَأَتَتْنِي أُمِّي أُمُّ رُومَانَ وَإِنِّي لَفِي أُرْجُوحَةٍ وَمَعِي صَوَاحِبُ لِي … فَلَمْ يَرُعْنِي إِلاَّ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم ضُحًى، فَأَسْلَمَتْنِي إِلَيْهِ، وَأَنَا يَوْمَئِذٍ بِنْتُ تِسْعِ سِنِينَ

… my mother, Um Ruman, came to me while I was playing in a swing with some of my girl friends. … Unexpectedly Allah’s Apostle came to me in the forenoon and my mother handed me over to him, and at that time I was a girl of nine years of age.

The Claim Examined

The founder’s marriages are taught as acts of honour and his conduct as the model for every age. Aisha tells her own wedding day in Bukhari 3894. She was engaged at 6.

In Medina she fell ill and her hair fell out. When it had grown back, her mother called her down from a swing where she was playing with her friends, and she went to her not knowing what she wanted to do to me. She stood at the door, out of breath, until her breathing settled.

Her mother washed her face and head and gave her to the women of the Ansar, who prepared her. Then the Prophet came in the forenoon, and she was handed over to him, a girl of nine years of age.^[165]

Muslim 1422a gives the same morning in her words: I did not know what she had wanted of me, and, after the women of the Ansar had prepared her, I was entrusted to him.^[166]

The Temple’s Answer

The report measures the bride: a swing, a game with friends, a child’s breathless run to her mother. Her father consented and her mother handed her over. Aisha herself says she didn’t know what was being done to her. She was married over her head, by adults, to the man every Muslim is asked to imitate. The child is in the text.

For Your Decision

See what the collectors did with this marriage next: they made it a heading of law. Read I52.

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‘Urwa in Sahih al-Bukhari 5158 (Book 67, Hadith 93), Book of Marriage, with its chapter heading, tr. M. Muhsin Khan · Read the report

باب مَنْ بَنَى بِامْرَأَةٍ وَهْىَ بِنْتُ تِسْعِ سِنِينَ … تَزَوَّجَ النَّبِيُّ صلى الله عليه وسلم عَائِشَةَ وَهْىَ ابْنَةُ سِتٍّ وَبَنَى بِهَا وَهْىَ ابْنَةُ تِسْعٍ وَمَكَثَتْ عِنْدَهُ تِسْعًا

Chapter: Whoever consummated his marriage with a lady of nine years of age … The Prophet (ﷺ) wrote the (marriage contract) with `Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death).

The Claim Examined

The marriage is often called a private matter of its century, recorded and never meant as a rule. The collectors arranged it as a rule.

Al-Bukhari’s Book of Marriage gives it its own chapter, Whoever consummated his marriage with a lady of nine years of age, and sets 5158 beneath it.^[167] Bukhari 3896 repeats the ages: married at 6, the marriage consummated at 9.^[168]

Muslim files all 4 of his versions, 1422a to 1422d, under the chapter It is permissible for a father to arrange the marriage of a young virgin (باب تَزْوِيجِ الأَبِ الْبِكْرَ الصَّغِيرَةَ). 3 give her age as 6 at the contract and 1 gives 7. All give 9 at its consummation, and 2 add that she was 18 when he died.^[169]

The Temple’s Answer

The 2 collections are books of rulings, arranged so that a judge can find his precedent under its heading, and each turned this marriage into one. Bukhari states an act, Muslim a permission: a father may marry off a young virgin. Where a modern state raised the age, it did so by its own statute, and the precedent still stands in both books under the headings their compilers wrote. A law that has to be held back by civil legislation is still a law.

For Your Decision

The collections also record what she carried into his house. Read I53.

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Aisha, from ‘Urwa, in Sahih Muslim 1422c (Book 16, Hadith 83), tr. Abdul Hamid Siddiqui · Read the report

تَزَوَّجَهَا وَهْىَ بِنْتُ سَبْعِ سِنِينَ وَزُفَّتْ إِلَيْهِ وَهِيَ بِنْتُ تِسْعِ سِنِينَ وَلُعَبُهَا مَعَهَا وَمَاتَ عَنْهَا وَهِيَ بِنْتُ ثَمَانَ عَشْرَةَ

… married her when she was seven years old, and he was taken to his house as a bride when she was nine, and her dolls were with her; and when he (the Holy Prophet) died she was eighteen years old.

The Claim Examined

Her defenders say she was a grown woman by the measure of her time. The reports measure her otherwise. Muslim 1422c sends her into the marriage with her toys: her dolls were with her.^[170]

In Bukhari 6130 she says: I used to play with the dolls in the presence of the Prophet, and my girl friends also used to play with me. When he came in, her friends hid, but the Prophet would call them to join and play with me.^[171]

The note printed under the English of 6130 on sunnah.com gives the explanation of the commentators, citing Ibn Hajar’s Fath al-Bari (vol. 13, p. 143), the standard commentary on al-Bukhari: The playing with the dolls and similar images is forbidden, but it was allowed for `Aisha at that time, as she was a little girl, not yet reached the age of puberty.^[171]

Abu Dawud 4932, graded sahih by al-Albani, finds the dolls still in her room when the Prophet came back from Tabuk or Khaybar: among them a horse with wings made of rags. Asked about the wings, she answered that Solomon had winged horses, and he laughed so heartily that I could see his molar teeth.^[172]

In Bukhari 5236 she watches the Abyssinians play in the mosque from behind his cloak, and its English ends: So you may deduce from this event how a little girl (who has not reached the age of puberty) who is eager to enjoy amusement should be treated in this respect.^[173] Bukhari 5190 puts the same line as So you may estimate of what age a little girl may listen to amusement.^[174]

The Temple’s Answer

Images were forbidden, and the scholars had to explain why the Prophet’s wife kept dolls in his house. Their answer is her age: a little girl, not yet reached the age of puberty. The tradition that bars pictures permits these to her because she was a child, and places that child in the marriage. When her friends hid from him, he called them back to play with her. The collections keep the scene as the model of a husband.

For Your Decision

See how the household’s crises were settled. Read I54.

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Aisha in Sahih al-Bukhari 4750 (Book 65, Hadith 272), tr. M. Muhsin Khan, the second line the words of Ali · Read the report

وَقَدْ لَبِثَ شَهْرًا، لاَ يُوحَى إِلَيْهِ فِي شَأْنِي … لَمْ يُضَيِّقِ اللَّهُ عَلَيْكَ وَالنِّسَاءُ سِوَاهَا كَثِيرٌ

He had stayed a month without receiving any Divine Inspiration concerning my case. … Allah does not impose restrictions on you; and there are plenty of women other than her.

The Claim Examined

Revelation is taught as God’s word arriving on God’s schedule. Bukhari 4750, Aisha’s own long account, shows it arriving on the household’s. On the march home from a raid her necklace broke: A necklace of mine made of Jaz Azfar (a kind of black bead) was broken.

She went back to search for it, and the army left without her. I came to their camp but found nobody therein.

Safwan ibn al-Mu’attal, riding behind the army, found her and led her camel back. The talk began, and the leader of the Ifk (forged statement) was `Abdullah bin Ubai bin Salul.^[175]

For a month the Prophet withheld his kindness from her and asked only How is that (lady)? When the Divine Inspiration delayed, he called Ali and Usama to consult them as to the idea of divorcing his wife. Ali answered: Allah does not impose restrictions on you; and there are plenty of women other than her.

The Prophet questioned her slave girl Barira, quarrelled tribes almost came to blows in the mosque, and he told Aisha herself: if you have committed a sin, then ask for Allah’s forgiveness and repent to Him. Then 10 verses came, 24:11 to 20, and declared her innocent.

Her mother told her to go and thank him. She refused: By Allah, I will not go to him and I will not thank anybody but Allah.^[175]

When her vindication came down, he recited it from the pulpit and ordered regarding the two men and the woman, and they were given the prescribed punishment.^[176] Abu Dawud 4475 names them: the poet Hassan ibn Thabit, Mistah ibn Uthatha, and Hamna bint Jahsh, the sister of the Prophet’s wife Zaynab.^[177] Ibn Ubayy, named in 4750 as the leader of the slander, isn’t among them.

The Temple’s Answer

Read the order of events. For a month the household had no answer from heaven, and the Prophet acted as any suspicious husband acts: he cooled toward her, took advice on divorce, questioned her servant and asked her to repent. The verses arrived only after that, and settled a crisis in his own home, in his own favour, and with his wife’s honour. The punishment fell on a poet, a poor relative of Abu Bakr and a woman, and passed by the powerful man the report itself names as the leader. Aisha understood the moment better than her mother did: she thanked no one but Allah. The 4 witnesses of 24:13, born in this affair, have stood since then as a rule of law across the Muslim world.

For Your Decision

A household’s crisis met with verses is a pattern. Read I57 on the honey, then I32 on Aisha’s own verdict.

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Aisha, through Muhammad ibn Qays, in Sahih Muslim 974b (Book 11, Hadith 132), Book of Funerals, tr. from the Arabic by the Temple of Zeus · Read the report

فَلَهَدَنِي فِي صَدْرِي لَهْدَةً أَوْجَعَتْنِي ثُمَّ قَالَ « أَظَنَنْتِ أَنْ يَحِيفَ اللَّهُ عَلَيْكِ وَرَسُولُهُ »

He struck me on my chest a blow that hurt me, then said: “Did you think that Allah and His Messenger would wrong you?”

The Claim Examined

Aisha herself is quoted for the founder’s gentleness: Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) never beat anyone with his hand, neither a woman nor a servant, but only, in the case when he had been fighting in the cause of Allah.^[178] In Muslim 974b she tells of a night that was hers by the rota of the wives. He lay down beside her, waited until he thought she was asleep, took his mantle and shoes slowly and slipped out.

She dressed, veiled herself and followed him to the graveyard of al-Baqi’. When he turned for home she ran ahead of him and was in bed before he came in. He saw her out of breath and demanded the truth: Tell me or the Subtle and the Aware would inform me.

She told him. Then, in the Arabic, فَلَهَدَنِي فِي صَدْرِي لَهْدَةً أَوْجَعَتْنِي: he struck her on the chest a blow that hurt her.^[179]

The dictionaries of Arabic settle it. Lisan al-Arab defines al-lahd as الضَّرْبُ فِي الثَّدْيَيْنِ, striking in the breasts, and as الدَّفْعُ الشَّدِيدُ فِي الصَّدْرِ, a violent shove in the chest; al-Layth, quoted there, calls it الصَّدْمَةُ الشَّدِيدَةُ فِي الصَّدْرِ, a violent blow to the chest.^[180] Lane’s Arabic-English Lexicon gives pushed him violently upon the chest and struck him in the breasts, and for awja’ahu: He, or it, pained him; or caused him pain.^[181]

The English printed on sunnah.com reads He gave me a nudge on the chest which I felt.^[179] The Arabic says a violent blow that hurt.

The Temple’s Answer

The lexicons settle the word: a violent blow to the chest, and Aisha says it hurt. The order of the report settles the rest: she followed, he struck, he asked whether she feared that God and His Messenger would wrong her, and only then did he speak of Gabriel. Set it beside her own sentence that he never beat a woman: one of the 2 reports is false, or the blow didn’t count as beating to the one who told it. The English on sunnah.com turns it into a nudge.

For Your Decision

Aisha also recorded what she saw the believing women suffer. Read I56.

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Aisha, through ‘Ikrima, in Sahih al-Bukhari 5825 (Book 77, Hadith 42), Book of Dress, tr. M. Muhsin Khan · Read the report

مَا رَأَيْتُ مِثْلَ مَا يَلْقَى الْمُؤْمِنَاتُ، لَجِلْدُهَا أَشَدُّ خُضْرَةً مِنْ ثَوْبِهَا

I have not seen any woman suffering as much as the believing women. Look! Her skin is greener than her clothes!

The Claim Examined

Islam is taught as the faith that honoured women. Bukhari 5825 records a wife of Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Zabir who came to Aisha in a green veil, (and complained to her (Aisha) of her husband and showed her a green spot on her skin caused by beating). When the Prophet came in, Aisha said to him: I have not seen any woman suffering as much as the believing women. Look! Her skin is greener than her clothes!^[182]

The husband arrived with his 2 sons. She said he was impotent; he called her disobedient. The Prophet ruled on what she wanted, a return to her first husband Rifa’a: it is unlawful for you to remarry Rifa`a unless `Abdur-Rahman has had sexual intercourse with you.

Then he pointed to the boys: these boys resemble him as a crow resembles a crow.^[182] The report gives no word from him about the bruise.

The Temple’s Answer

The translator’s bracket, caused by beating, names what the Arabic shows: she showed her a green spot on her skin while complaining of her husband, and Aisha’s own words, the believing women’s suffering, say what she understood by it. The Prophet’s youngest wife set a bruised woman before him and named the cause. He judged the marriage and the paternity of the boys. The report, kept by the most trusted collection, leaves the bruise without a word.

For Your Decision

Set her words beside the founder’s own judgment on women in I41, then see how the household’s quarrels reached the Qur’an: Read I57.

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Aisha, through ‘Ubayd ibn ‘Umayr, in Sahih al-Bukhari 5267 (Book 68, Hadith 17), Book of Divorce, tr. M. Muhsin Khan · Read the report

فَتَوَاصَيْتُ أَنَا وَحَفْصَةُ أَنَّ أَيَّتَنَا دَخَلَ عَلَيْهَا النَّبِيُّ صلى الله عليه وسلم فَلْتَقُلْ إِنِّي أَجِدُ مِنْكَ رِيحَ مَغَافِيرَ … {إِنْ تَتُوبَا إِلَى اللَّهِ} لِعَائِشَةَ وَحَفْصَةَ

So Hafsa and I decided that if the Prophet (ﷺ) came to anyone of us, she should say him, “I detect the smell of Maghafir (a nasty smelling gum) in you. … If you two (wives of Prophet) turn in repentance to Allah,’ (66.1-4) addressing Aisha and Hafsa.

The Claim Examined

Every verse of the Qur’an is taught as eternal, written before creation. Sura 66 opens on a quarrel over honey. Aisha tells it twice in al-Bukhari.

The Prophet lingered with his wife Zaynab bint Jahsh and drank honey at her house. So Hafsa and I agreed secretly that whichever of them he visited next would tell him his breath smelt of maghafir, a foul resin.

They did. He answered that he had only drunk honey at Zaynab’s, and I shall never take it again. I have taken an oath as to that, and you should not tell anybody about it.^[183]

Bukhari 5267 gives what followed: So there was revealed: ‘O Prophet! Why do you ban (for you) that which Allah has made lawful for you . . . If you two (wives of Prophet) turn in repentance to Allah,’ (66.1-4) addressing Aisha and Hafsa. Al-Bukhari files the report in his Book of Divorce.^[184] The same sura goes on to warn the wives that if he divorced them, his Lord would give him better ones.^[185]

The Temple’s Answer

Sura 66 answers a scheme of 2 jealous wives over which wife’s house he lingered in: an oath about honey, the 2 rebuked, named in the tradition’s own reading, and warned of divorce. Scripture that settles which bedroom the prophet visits is scripture about the prophet’s bedroom. Aisha’s remark in I32 was made of verses like these.

For Your Decision

Aisha’s jealousy reached even the dead. Read I58.

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Aisha in Sahih al-Bukhari 3821 (Book 63, Hadith 46), tr. M. Muhsin Khan · Read the report

فَغِرْتُ فَقُلْتُ مَا تَذْكُرُ مِنْ عَجُوزٍ مِنْ عَجَائِزِ قُرَيْشٍ، حَمْرَاءِ الشِّدْقَيْنِ، هَلَكَتْ فِي الدَّهْرِ، قَدْ، أَبْدَلَكَ اللَّهُ خَيْرًا مِنْهَا

So I became jealous and said, “What makes you remember an old woman amongst the old women of Quraish an old woman (with a teethless mouth) of red gums who died long ago, and in whose place Allah has given you somebody better than her?”

The Claim Examined

The Prophet’s wives are the Mothers of the Believers, and their household is offered as the model of a faithful home. Aisha says: I did not feel jealous of any of the wives of the Prophet (ﷺ) as much as I did of Khadija though I did not see her. He spoke of Khadija often and sent cuts of every sheep he slaughtered to her women friends, and Aisha told him he treated her as if there is no woman on earth except Khadija.^[186]

When Khadija’s sister Hala asked to come in and her voice reminded him of his first wife, Aisha said: What makes you remember an old woman amongst the old women of Quraish an old woman (with a teethless mouth) of red gums who died long ago, and in whose place Allah has given you somebody better than her?^[187] Muslim 2437 keeps the same words, under the chapter on the virtues of Khadija.^[188]

The Temple’s Answer

The woman who stood beside him through his first revelation is mocked, years after her death, by the girl married in her place, as toothless and old. The second Mother of the Believers calls herself better than the first. The collections file it among Khadija’s virtues. The reader also learns what life was like in the house held up as the model of every Muslim home.

For Your Decision

Another wife bought her place with her night. Read I59.

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Aisha, through Hisham ibn ‘Urwa, in Sunan Abi Dawud 2135 (Book 12, Hadith 90), graded hasan sahih by al-Albani · Read the report

وَلْقَدْ قَالَتْ سَوْدَةُ بِنْتُ زَمْعَةَ حِينَ أَسَنَّتْ وَفَرِقَتْ أَنْ يُفَارِقَهَا رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ يَوْمِي لِعَائِشَةَ

When Saudah daughter of Zam’ah became old and feared that the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) would divorce her, she said: Messenger of Allah, I give to ‘Aishah the day you visit me.

The Claim Examined

The Qur’an permits 4 wives on condition of justice between them, and the Prophet’s fairness to his wives is held up as that justice made flesh. Aisha describes his rota of nights, then the case of his wife Sawda bint Zam’a: When Saudah daughter of Zam’ah became old and feared that the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) would divorce her, she said: Messenger of Allah, I give to ‘Aishah the day you visit me. The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) accepted it from her.

Aisha adds that 4:128, If a wife fears cruelty or desertion on her husband’s part, was revealed about this or a like case.^[189] Al-Bukhari made it a chapter of his Book of Marriage: To give up the turn with the husband to one of his other wives.^[190]

The Temple’s Answer

Read what she feared and what she gave. An older wife, afraid of being put away, kept her marriage by handing her nights to the youngest. He accepted. The verse that followed calls such a bargain a settlement, and the law since then lets a wife who fears desertion buy her place with her own rights. The justice between wives that the Qur’an demands was measured, in the Prophet’s own house, by youth.

For Your Decision

The law of the bedroom came from the same household. Read I60.

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Aisha in Sahih al-Bukhari 299 to 301 (Book 6, Hadith 6), Book of Menstrual Periods, chapter “Fondling a menstruating wife”, tr. M. Muhsin Khan · Read the report

وَكَانَ يَأْمُرُنِي فَأَتَّزِرُ، فَيُبَاشِرُنِي وَأَنَا حَائِضٌ

During the menses, he used to order me to put on an Izar (dress worn below the waist) and used to fondle me.

The Claim Examined

Islamic law claims to come from God and His Messenger. In al-Bukhari, its rulings on intimacy in menstruation and in the fast rest on one witness: the wife the Prophet married at 6 and took into his house at 9. Al-Bukhari’s Book of Menstrual Periods has a chapter titled Fondling a menstruating wife (باب مُبَاشَرَةِ الْحَائِضِ), and its report is hers: The Prophet (ﷺ) and I used to take a bath from a single pot while we were Junub. During the menses, he used to order me to put on an Izar (dress worn below the waist) and used to fondle me.^[191]

His Book of Fasting has the chapter To embrace while one is observing Saum (fast), and its report is hers again: The Prophet (ﷺ) used to kiss and embrace (his wives) while he was fasting, and he had more power to control his desires than any of you.^[192]

The Temple’s Answer

The rulings on touching a menstruating wife and on embracing in the fast rest on what a girl, married at 9 and widowed at 18, told of her own body and her husband’s desire. The jurists built chapters on it, and believers still follow them. The Temple calls things by their names: a child’s marriage became the textbook of the Muslim marriage bed.

For Your Decision

Aisha also gave the law its strangest ruling, on suckling grown men. Read I61.

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Sunan Abi Dawud 2061 (Book 12, Hadith 16), graded sahih by al-Albani · Read the report

فَبِذَلِكَ كَانَتْ عَائِشَةُ - رضى الله عنها - تَأْمُرُ بَنَاتِ أَخَوَاتِهَا وَبَنَاتِ إِخْوَتِهَا أَنْ يُرْضِعْنَ مَنْ أَحَبَّتْ عَائِشَةُ أَنْ يَرَاهَا وَيَدْخُلَ عَلَيْهَا وَإِنْ كَانَ كَبِيرًا خَمْسَ رَضَعَاتٍ ثُمَّ يَدْخُلَ عَلَيْهَا

Hence, A’ishah(may Allaah be pleased with her) used to ask the daughters of her sisters and the daughters of her brethren to give him breast feed five times, whom A’ishah wanted to see and who wanted to visit her. Though he might be of age; he then visited her.

The Claim Examined

Islamic law separates men and women who aren’t close kin, and fosterage through milk counts as kinship. Muslim’s Book of Suckling has a chapter titled Breastfeeding an adult. In it Sahla bint Suhayl complains that Salim, a grown freedman of the household, comes in to her and her husband resents it.

The Prophet tells her: Suckle him. How can I suckle him as he is a grown-up man?

He smiles: I already know that he is a young man.^[193] In 1453b: Suckle him and you would become unlawful for him, and she returns to say she did, and her husband’s resentment was gone.^[194]

Aisha made it her practice. When Umm Salama objected to a boy near puberty coming in to her, Aisha answered: Don’t you see in Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) a model for you?^[195] Abu Dawud 2061 says she had her nieces suckle the men she wanted to receive, Though he might be of age.^[196]

Malik’s Muwatta says she took that as a precedent for whatever men she wanted to be able to come to see her, ordering her sister Umm Kulthum and her brother’s daughters to nurse them, while The rest of the wives of the Prophet … refused.^[197] She once sent Salim ibn Abdullah ibn Umar to Umm Kulthum: Suckle him ten times so that he can come in to see me. Umm Kulthum fell ill after 3, and he never got in.^[198]

The verse behind it is gone. Ibn Majah 1944, graded hasan by Darussalam, gives Aisha’s words: The Verse of stoning and of breastfeeding an adult ten times was revealed, and the paper was with me under my pillow. When the Messenger of Allah died, we were preoccupied with his death, and a tame sheep came in and ate it. The Arabic says under her bed (تَحْتَ سَرِيرِي).^[199]

The Temple’s Answer

Aisha held the ruling general, acted on it, and answered her objecting co-wife with the founder’s example. The rest of the Prophet’s wives refused it. The Prophet smiled at a grown man’s suckling and ordered it. The written verse, by Aisha’s own account, was eaten by a sheep while the household mourned. Set it beside I5, where she says the verses of suckling were still recited when he died. The 2 reports together are a whole account of a law that lost its verse and kept its force.

For Your Decision

You may ask whether a scripture can be guarded by a household that lost a page to a sheep. Return to I1 and read how the book was gathered.

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The Qur’an 3:28, tr. Saheeh International · Read the verse

لَّا يَتَّخِذِ ٱلْمُؤْمِنُونَ ٱلْكَـٰفِرِينَ أَوْلِيَآءَ مِن دُونِ ٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ ۖ وَمَن يَفْعَلْ ذَٰلِكَ فَلَيْسَ مِنَ ٱللَّهِ فِى شَىْءٍ إِلَّآ أَن تَتَّقُوا۟ مِنْهُمْ تُقَىٰةً

Let not believers take disbelievers as allies [i.e., supporters or protectors] rather than believers. And whoever [of you] does that has nothing [i.e., no association] with Allāh, except when taking precaution against them in prudence.

The Claim Examined

Islam is presented as the religion of truthfulness. Qur’an 3:28 forbids friendship with unbelievers except when taking precaution against them in prudence, إِلَّآ أَن تَتَّقُوا۟ مِنْهُمْ تُقَىٰةً, the word from which taqiyya comes.

The footnote printed with it on quran.com: When fearing harm from an enemy, the believer may pretend as long as his heart and intention are not affected.^[200] Qur’an 16:106 exempts from God’s wrath the believer who denies his faith except for one who is forced [to renounce his religion] while his heart is secure in faith.^[201]

Ibn Kathir, the 14th-century Sunni commentator, explains 3:28: believers who fear the unbelievers are allowed to show friendship to the disbelievers outwardly, but never inwardly. For instance, Al-Bukhari recorded that Abu Ad-Darda’ said, “We smile in the face of some people although our hearts curse them.” Al-Bukhari said that Al-Hasan said, “The Tuqyah is allowed until the Day of Resurrection.”^[202] The saying of Abu al-Darda stands at the head of a chapter of al-Bukhari’s Book of Good Manners, To be gentle and polite with the people: إِنَّا لَنَكْشِرُ فِي وُجُوهِ أَقْوَامٍ، وَإِنَّ قُلُوبَنَا لَتَلْعَنُهُمْ.^[203]

Shia Islam makes it a duty. Al-Kulayni’s al-Kafi, the first of its 4 canonical collections, gives it a whole chapter.

Imam Ja’far al-Sadiq: nine tenths of religion is in al- Taqiyyah (cautious measures). One who does not observe al- Taqiyyah has no religion.^[204] Imam al-Baqir, in a report graded sahih by both Shia authorities the edition cites: Al-Taqiyyah is from my religion (belief) and the religion (belief) of my forefathers, and whoever disregards al-Taqiyyah has no belief.^[205]

The Temple’s Answer

Read the permission as its own commentators read it. Ibn Kathir allows a smile on the face with a curse in the heart, and al-Bukhari’s chapter of good manners keeps the curse. Al-Hasan makes the licence last until the end of the world, and the Shia Imams make whoever lacks it a man without religion. A rule that allows the face to say one thing and the heart another, toward whoever the believer counts as outside, leaves every outsider to wonder which one he’s hearing. The Temple teaches Satya: one truth, in the heart and on the tongue.

For Your Decision

The hadith name the occasions when a plain lie is permitted. Read I63.

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Umm Kulthum bint ‘Uqba, in Sahih Muslim 2605a (Book 45, Hadith 130), chapter “The Prohibition Of Lying, And What Is Permitted Thereof”, tr. Abdul Hamid Siddiqui · Read the report

قَالَ ابْنُ شِهَابٍ وَلَمْ أَسْمَعْ يُرَخَّصُ فِي شَىْءٍ مِمَّا يَقُولُ النَّاسُ كَذِبٌ إِلاَّ فِي ثَلاَثٍ الْحَرْبُ وَالإِصْلاَحُ بَيْنَ النَّاسِ وَحَدِيثُ الرَّجُلِ امْرَأَتَهُ وَحَدِيثُ الْمَرْأَةِ زَوْجَهَا

Ibn Shihab said he did not hear that exemption was granted in anything what the people speak as lie but in three cases: in battle, for bringing reconciliation amongst persons and the narration of the words of the husband to his wife, and the narration of the words of a wife to her husband (in a twisted form in order to bring reconciliation between them).

The Claim Examined

Muslim titles the chapter The Prohibition Of Lying, And What Is Permitted Thereof. The Prophet says: A liar is not one who tries to bring reconciliation amongst people and speaks good (in order to avert dispute), or he conveys good.

The report then lists the permitted cases: war, reconciliation, and what husband and wife say to each other.^[206] Al-Bukhari gives the same words under the chapter He who makes peace between the people is not a liar: He who makes peace between the people by inventing good information or saying good things, is not a liar.^[207]

His Book of Jihad has a chapter titled with the Prophet’s words: The Prophet (ﷺ) said, “War is deceit.”, الْحَرْبُ خُدْعَةٌ.^[208] The killing of Ka’b ibn al-Ashraf, in I36, shows the permission used: a lie asked for, granted and acted on.

The Temple’s Answer

The licence names 3 cases, and each is wide. War is declared by the community against those it names enemies, and the reports show the permission used to kill a man through feigned friendship. Husband and wife may tell each other what isn’t true. Inventing information to make peace is no lie. A law that names when deception is righteous has made deception a tool of righteousness, to be used when the believer judges the case fits. Ma’at knows no exception for the side one fights on.

For Your Decision

Set these permissions beside the claim of a perfect moral example, then return to I36.

Back to all dossiers

Ruhollah Khomeini, Tahrir al-Wasila, vol. 2, Book of Marriage, issue 12, Arabic as published by the Institute for the Compilation and Publication of Imam Khomeini’s Works, tr. Temple of Zeus · Read the ruling

لايجوز وطء الزوجة قبل إكمال تسع سنين، دواماً كان النكاح أو منقطعاً، وأمّا سائر الاستمتاعات- كاللمس بشهوة والضمّ والتفخيذ- فلابأس بها حتّى في الرضيعة

Intercourse with a wife before she completes 9 years is not permitted, whether the marriage is permanent or temporary. As for the other pleasures, such as touching with desire, embracing and tafkhidh [rubbing between the thighs], there is no harm in them, even with a nursing infant.

The Claim Examined

The marriage of Aisha is often called a matter of the 7th century. The number 9 in it became a line in law, and the law was still being written in the 20th century, by a jurist who went on to rule a state.

Khomeini’s Tahrir al-Wasila, issue 12 of the Book of Marriage, forbids intercourse with a wife before she completes 9 years, and permits every other pleasure, even with a nursing infant.^[209] The same issue goes on: a man who has intercourse with a wife under 9 without injuring her incurs nothing but the sin; if he injures her so that the passages are torn into one, she becomes forbidden to him forever, yet stays his wife, and he owes her maintenance and blood money.^[209]

The Temple’s Answer

The jurist was the founder of the Islamic Republic and its first Supreme Leader, and his own foundation prints the book. He didn’t invent the line: 9 is Aisha’s age in I52, filed by al-Bukhari as a heading of law. A precedent written into the collections waits for a jurist to read it as law, and this one did. Ma’at protects the child, and no book that permits these things can speak for the Father of Gods and men.

For Your Decision

The same book rules on the animal, and so do the hadith. Read I65.

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Ibn Abbas, in Sunan Abi Dawud 4464 (Book 40, Hadith 114), graded hasan sahih by al-Albani · Read the report

مَنْ أَتَى بَهِيمَةً فَاقْتُلُوهُ وَاقْتُلُوهَا مَعَهُ … قَالَ أَبُو دَاوُدَ لَيْسَ هَذَا بِالْقَوِيِّ

If anyone has sexual intercourse with an animal, kill him and kill it along with him. … Abu Dawud said: This is not a strong tradition.

The Claim Examined

A law sent from God is held to be clear. On this act it gives 3 answers. Abu Dawud 4464 has the Prophet order death for the man and the animal; asked what the animal had done, Ibn Abbas said I think he (the Prophet) disapproved of its flesh being eaten when such a thing had been done to it.

Abu Dawud himself adds that the report is not a strong tradition, and al-Albani grades it hasan sahih.^[210] The next report gives Ibn Abbas’s own ruling: There is no prescribed punishment for one who has sexual intercourse with an animal.^[211] Al-Tirmidhi records both and judges the second أَصَحُّ مِنَ الْحَدِيثِ الأَوَّلِ, more correct than the first, adding that the scholars act on it, Ahmad and Ishaq among them.^[212]

Khomeini’s Tahrir al-Wasila rules on the animal. Intercourse makes it, its later offspring, its milk, wool and hair forbidden, whoever the man and whether he acted willingly or not. An animal kept for eating must be slaughtered, then burnt, and the man pays its owner its value; a donkey, mule or horse kept for riding or carrying is taken to another town and sold there, and the price goes to the man.^[213]

The Temple’s Answer

The reports disagree on the penalty. The Prophet’s reported command kills the animal along with the man; the companion who reported it says there’s no penalty; the collector who kept it calls it weak, and the scholars follow the version without the death. The 20th-century jurist’s care goes to the meat and the market, down to selling the donkey in another town. A law that has to be pieced together like this was pieced together by men.

For Your Decision

The books record a rite at a grave as well. Read I66.

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Ibn Abbas, as given by Ibn Abd al-Barr, al-Isti‘ab, vol. 4, entry 4052, tr. Temple of Zeus · Read the entry

أَلْبَسَهَا رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ قَمِيصَهُ ، وَاضْطَجَعَ مَعَهَا فِي قَبْرِهَا … إِنَّمَا أَلْبَسْتُهَا قَمِيصِي لِتُكْسَى مِنْ حُلَلِ الْجَنَّةِ ، وَاضْطَجَعْتُ مَعَهَا لِيُهَوَّنَ عَلَيْهَا

The Messenger of Allah dressed her in his shirt and lay down with her in her grave. … “I dressed her in my shirt so that she would be clothed in the garments of Paradise, and I lay down with her so that it would be made easy for her.”

The Claim Examined

Fatima bint Asad, the mother of Ali, was to the orphaned Muhammad, in his own words in the report, my mother after my mother (كُنْتِ أُمِّي بَعْدَ أُمِّي). When she died in Medina, al-Tabarani records from Anas that the Prophet dug her grave with his own hand, took out its earth with his own hand, فَلَمَّا فَرَغَ دَخَلَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ فَاضْطَجَعَ فِيهِ, and when he had finished he went in and lay down in it, before he, al-Abbas and Abu Bakr lowered her in. Al-Tabarani notes that only Sufyan al-Thawri reported it from Asim, and only Rawh ibn Salah from him.^[214]

Ibn Abd al-Barr gives a version from Ibn Abbas in which he lay down with her in her grave, dressed in his shirt, so that it would be made easy for her.^[215] Al-Hakim’s version says only that he went down into her grave and gestured at its sides, as though widening it.^[216]

A claim spread online says more than this. No source says more. In every version that has him lie down the verb is idtaja‘a, to lie down on one’s side, and nothing else is told.

The Temple’s Answer

The reports record a rite: a man lies in an open grave, alone or beside the body, and gives his shirt for a shroud, so that by his presence the dead woman’s passage is eased and she’s clothed in Paradise. It claims a personal power over the fate of the dead, worked with the body and the grave. The Temple keeps to the record and adds nothing to it. A faith that condemns the rites of the Gods as magic has its own founder performing this one.

For Your Decision

Return to where the reports were gathered and chosen: I1.

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