# Does Sahih al-Bukhari really say God dangled in front of the Prophet?

*The night-journey hadith in which God 'dangles': Bukhari 7517 and the Salafi creed*

- URL: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/1zghntbmpis/s/31/
- Date: 2021-01-12 · Kind: lesson · Transcript tier: machine · Recording: Monday Nights with Mufti #197 | Q&A Unscripted & Unrestricted! 😉 | Mufti Abu Layth (1:58:33–2:11:08)
- Status: general teaching
- Watch from the start of the segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zgHntbMPis&t=7113s
- Recording page: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/1zghntbmpis/

**Topics:** Text criticism, reason and the Quran; God and the divine attributes; Isra and Mi'raj

**Summary (not a quotation; machine-made, unchecked):** Mufti Abu Layth says the Bukhari report of God 'dangling' before the Prophet is unacceptable, and any hadith that clashes with reason or the Quran must be rejected.

**Checked position (checked by two independent reviews, not by the channel):** Mufti Abu Layth says that describing God as dangling in front of the Prophet, as in this hadith, is utterly unacceptable.

**Evidence, his words at 2:07:10:** “this is utterly uh unacceptable and it is indicative and reflective of the greater problem with the the salafi creed” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zgHntbMPis&t=7630s)

## Longer summary

Mufti Abu Layth presents a passage of a night-journey hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari, number 7517, which he says he partly problematised in BukhariGate: at the end of creation the Lord, al-Jabbar, draws near and then 'dangles' (tadalla) before the Prophet. He shows the dictionary meaning, hanging like grapes or a bucket in a well, and says he is not the first to object: he cites al-Khattabi saying the book contains no more shocking sentence, and also Abd al-Haqq al-Ishbili [?] and Ibn Hazm, while a commentator tried hard to explain it away. He says the greater problem is the Salafi-Wahhabi creed of taking any hadith describing God as belief, listing attributes such as hands, fingers, teeth and a foot, which he says presents a deformed God. He says the verse in Surah al-Najm can refer to the angel Jibril, but God has no form and does not dangle, and that a hadith clashing with reason, the Quran or established principles is inadmissible, which he says is the teaching of the school of Medina.

## Sources and names cited

- Sahih al-Bukhari 7517 (the night journey; al-Jabbar drew near and came down): https://sunnah.com/bukhari:7517
- the Isra and Mi'raj
- al-Khattabi
- Abd al-Haqq al-Ishbili [?]
- Ibn Hazm
- Quran 53:8 (then he drew near and came down): https://quran.com/53/8
- Jibril
- tajsim (anthropomorphism)
- Salafi
- a hadith that clashes with reason, the Quran or established principles is not accepted

## Transcript (machine tier, 1:58:33–2:11:08)

[1:58:33] this is another hadith from sahil bukhari and it's describing the night journey okay so it's by the uh this is also one of the hadith that i have problematized by the way in my bodygate [Laughter] but here the interesting part is that as the description gets so colorful and everything that's happening on this night journey and by the way it's a complete um chaotic okay everything is all over the place uh this is happening here that's happening there i know it isn't

[1:59:11] in this rewire yes it is but put that aside the the colorful part suddenly turns into 4k as um it describes the prophet reaching the end of creation [Laughter] and then people the lord jabar the lord allah draws close but he doesn't just draw close he says

[1:59:51] was an al-jabbar he drew close rapula's lord the almighty draws close then the lord just hanged in front of the prophet and it's like yes

[2:00:20] what is this and i'm not making this up this is in [Music] but this and here's the definition you can see here the definition those of you that read arabic one of the examples often given is about grapes hanging just kind of like just hanging or something so and it comes from the root word of the dal which is the kind of the kind of bucket if you like or pale that they would use to collect water from a well and they would drop it and it would just hang in the well and that's where

[2:00:59] this root comes from to kind of like hang like this this bucket of water often used for things like grapes now you can see that there now this i'm not the one giving it that definition that's in the dictionary says to be dangling right so you can see that right there [Music] [Laughter] and this is uh

[2:01:37] this is not just you know i'm not saying this this is uh hadith which i've inaudible gone through part of it in bukhari gate but this is the more colorful part a little later on and you can see it there uh it's that same hadith seven five one seven and it mentions what an algebra

[2:02:05] and then he hanged in front of home i say dangled in front of the prophet and i'm not the first person to problematize this this has been highly criticized by many scholars of khattabi said about this that this whole book which book

[2:02:38] he said this whole book hasn't brought a more shockingly obscene sentence then this sentence in this hadith needless to say they considered this fabricated people like uh uh the the maliki abdul hakalish bili saying obviously these people lack knowledge of hadith the narrators ibn hasam and others all problem size even ibn saying that there was

[2:03:16] uh numerous mistakes in this hadith and this obviously being one of them um but you know has tried to lift lift lift the ego you go you go your dirty wine try to lift the ego of someone

[2:03:53] it has been ibn he tries in his commentary he tries you gotta get that's that's like you know who says romance is dead huh who says [Laughter] that's how you'd want and someone to defend you huh someone so he really does try he he

[2:04:30] tries and then even he says look oh oh you know it's like i've caught my my royal jewels in a vice yeah but he does still the man tries he tries he goes in he tries hard to apologize he says but yes so this is the problem with some of these absurd ridiculous hadith and and obviously the added problem of uh

[2:05:08] the salafi wahabi dawa saying whenever you find a hadith describing god you can just that is your belief of god then you think yeah i understood from your akita before that god had three multiple not two multiple eyes or whatever okay he had two right hands two fingers he laughs had teeth maybe according to some had a back had half a leg one foot and he used to run around and come down

[2:05:49] [Laughter] he seriously need to work on the akida department you need to purge that damn thing and start it again from zero this is totally um that is totally unacceptable now people may say people may say that but this verse is used about angels you know you may say oh that didn't this happen in the vision of the prophet when he saw

[2:06:29] the angel gibril hang suddenly before him and he got shocked and scared fine that's not a problem you know if in a vision if the prophet saw an angel kind of hang in front of him and it shocked him uh if that refers to the prophet there let's say now there's other interpretations fine but not god you see god doesn't just hang in front of people and or dangle like a grape this

[2:07:10] is so people what i would say is uh this is utterly uh unacceptable and it is indicative and reflective of the greater problem with the the salafi creed you know because this is the problem when you picture god to be this kind of goblin that this kind of deformed kind of uh being this kind of like i mean what

[2:07:48] how are people meant to like how do you how do you worship that it's like so exactly because god has no form he's not he's he's beyond forms he's beyond words he's not like he doesn't have two right hands and only two fingers and a bunch of teeth and one leg and he doesn't dangle and hang and this is just unacceptable okay so i thought i'd share that because it's uh it was quite interesting and obviously because it's from my below it [Laughter]

[2:08:31] so i thought that would be you know something interesting but cool people yeah because it does give a picture of a disabled god for allah you know like and that's not subhanahu ta'ala this is why people you have to be weary of these kind of weird weird belief and to be honest the 21st century is seeing a death of this it's embarrassing to believe in stuff like that anyway in this day and age you know to say i believe in this it's like everybody else in the room is like uh i don't believe in that that's just do you

[2:09:10] really um [Laughter] i'll just go stand over there so yeah yeah so somebody said fatadallah is in surah najam yes but it's not talking about god i'm not saying the verb is a is a bad verb in arabic having two fingers is not a bad thing in in the world it's a problem when you say god has two fingers you know hanging people you know you could say he i don't know was hanging off the wall fine you could say the bucket

[2:09:49] was hanging in the well the grape was hanging off the tree the word hanging and dangling is not a problem as a verb the problem is when you say god does that you can't bring god into this kind of this hanging affair so people so this is why it's important yeah it's it is uh you know it's embarrassing honestly i say this stuff because it's embarrassing you know you read this and this is why it's important to know that look yes

[2:10:28] we do respect all books of hadith but we treat treat each hadith on its own merits if the hadith is problematic if it clashes with reason clashes with the quran or with the uproots and islamic principle the hadith is not acceptable it is inadmissible that's the teaching according to the school of medina and that's according to many scholars of hadith even if they didn't practice it somebody said have javed ramadisab on mind trap yeah i would love to let me try and see if we can make that happen it would be great if we could do that um

## Cite

Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 1zgHntbMPis/s/31. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/1zghntbmpis/s/31/

Not a fatwa: these answers were given to specific people at specific times. Ask a qualified scholar about your own situation.