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Recordings › False Hadith: The Prophet ﷺ Was Poisoned Before He Died · 17 Sep 2018 › Segment 1 of 5

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Was the Prophet Muhammad poisoned, and did he die from it?

hadeeth ahadith ahaadeeth hadis hadees ahaadith saheeh sahih hadith saheeh hadith sound hadith authentic imam bukhari sahih bukhari saheeh al-bukhari saheeh bukhari imam al-bukhari muftis sunna sunnat prophetic practice saheeh muslim imam muslim muslim ibn al-hajjaj

Was the Prophet poisoned before he died? The report and why he calls it nonsense

QuestionSource not recorded · questioner not identifiedAnswered 17 Sep 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺSegment 1 of 5 in the recording2018-09-17-S01

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This segment0:01 to 3:26 · 3 min 25 sGeneral teaching

The answer in brief

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No: Mufti Abu Layth says the Prophet did not die of poisoning. The report in Bukhari that he felt the poison cutting his aorta in his final illness is, in his view, a fabricated story that contradicts itself and fails on its chain.

In more detail

Mufti Abu Layth says he has been asked whether the Prophet was poisoned before his death, and announces that he will present the hadith, show why hadith dogmatism is problematic, and present what he calls a hadith paradox. He notes that ex-Muslims, atheists and Islamophobes circulate the claim that the Prophet died a humiliating death by poison, and that the report is found in Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, Sunan Abi Dawud, al-Darimi [?] and Musnad Ahmad. He gives the Bukhari version: in his final illness the Prophet said he still felt the pain of the poisoned food he had eaten, and that the poison was now cutting his aorta, which would mean a poison eaten about three years earlier was finally killing him. He states that this is nonsense, that the Prophet did not die of poisoning, that someone along the way seems to have thought it would be fitting for the Prophet to be a martyr as well, and that the story is massively contradictory in both content and chain, which he will now show.

Question as read aloud · questioner not identified

I've been asked the question: was the Prophet poisoned before his death?

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Position stated

correctedChecked by two independent reviews, not by the channel

Mufti Abu Layth holds that the Prophet did not die of poisoning and that the report in which the Prophet says in his final illness that he feels the poison cutting his aorta is a fabricated story.

In his words

“Now first of all this is nonsense. Okay the prophet did not die of poisoning.”

▶ 2:31Open on YouTube at 2:31

Category: historical claim

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Kind: general teaching

Transcript

machine0:01 to 3:26 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
0:00

I've been asked the question, was the prophet poisoned before his death? Now, let me bring the hadith and then I'm going to also show you why hadith dogmatism is problematic and present to you something which I call the war wager hadith paradox. So, what is that about people?

0:25

Stay tuned. Stay tuned. That's what I'm talking about. So first of all this hadith. So right now the there is a there is a notion people that the prophet was poisoned and died as a result of this poison. Now many ex-Muslims and atheists and Islamophobes have taken it to social media saying that look the prophet died a humiliating death.

0:55

uh the prophet of Islam having been poisoned um and th this hadith is in Bkari and Muslim and Abu D and Di and Musn Ahmed and all these hadith books. So what is this hadith about? So there's a hadith and what I'll do is take the main one which is in Bkari and it does have uh it kind of it resonates in Abu D as well and the sunnah of and the Ahmed.

1:23

Now the hadith uh states that the prophet said in his um in in in his dying illness that I continue to find or I still feel the pain of the food that the food that I ate in which was the poisoned food that I ate

1:58

So this is the time in which this is the time in which that poison is cutting my aort the arteries to my heart. Now, so basically what the prophet is saying in this hadith, if this hadith be true, which it isn't, but I'm just going to say if this hadith be true, the prophet is saying I at this stage am finding that poison finally killing me.

2:31

The poison which we ate back in uh three years prior to this incident. Now this hadith is in Bkari. It is in Abu Dharmi. It has and there's variations to this story which are in Sah Muslim and in other books. Now first of all this is nonsense. Okay the prophet did not die of poisoning. I don't know which genius along the way got this idea to somehow think I know why you know that it would be awesome if the prophet was not only a prophet but also a martyr.

3:11

I mean I don't know at what stage this incident got fabricated or people recreated this event but they did. This hadith or this story is massively contradictory. I will show the contradiction and then also show from the chain perspective why it is unacceptable. So let's take a look at the chain first. taking the strongest which is Sahil Bkari uh and it has its uh chain in Dharmi and Abu Daw and Muslims Ahmed.

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Cite this segment

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Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2018-09-17-S01, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/gcid83kra2i/s/1/ (accessed 1 November 2026)

APA 7 
Mufti Abu Layth. (2018, September 17). Was the Prophet Muhammad poisoned, and did he die from it? [Video, segment 2018-09-17-S01, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/gcid83kra2i/s/1/
Chicago author-date 
Mufti Abu Layth. 2018. "Was the Prophet Muhammad poisoned, and did he die from it?" Video, segment 2018-09-17-S01, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded September 17, 2018. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/gcid83kra2i/s/1/
BibTeX 
@misc{abulayth-2018-09-17-S01,
  author = {Mufti Abu Layth},
  title = {{Was the Prophet Muhammad poisoned, and did he die from it?}},
  year = {2018},
  month = {9},
  date = {2018-09-17},
  howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/gcid83kra2i/s/1/}},
  url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/gcid83kra2i/s/1/},
  organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive},
  urldate = {2026-11-01},
  note = {Segment 2018-09-17-S01, auto-transcribed, may contain errors}
}
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