# Did the Prophet really order Jews and Christians expelled from Arabia?

*'Expel the Jews and Christians from Arabia': a hadith he finds suspect*

- URL: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/kwmtt2tqao0/s/30/
- Date: 2020-08-24 · Kind: question · Transcript tier: machine · Recording: Monday Nights with Mufti #179 | Q&A Unscripted & Unrestricted! 😉 | Mufti Abu Layth (2:06:49–2:17:34)
- Status: general teaching
- Watch from the start of the segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWmtt2TQAO0&t=7609s
- Recording page: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/kwmtt2tqao0/

**Topics:** Text criticism, reason and the Quran; False and fabricated hadith; Christians and other faiths

**Question as asked:** Could you explain the hadith in which the Prophet said, expel the Christians and the Jews from the Arabian Peninsula?

**Summary (not a quotation; machine-made, unchecked):** Mufti Abu Layth finds the hadith ordering the expulsion of Jews and Christians from Arabia suspect, since the Prophet traded with a Jewish man days before he died, and sees it as a later fabrication.

**Checked position (checked by two independent reviews, not by the channel):** Mufti Abu Layth says he finds the hadith ordering the expulsion of the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula incredibly suspect and does not believe it is true.

**Evidence, his words at 2:11:50:** “leave that this doesn't add up you see so i find this hadith incredibly suspect” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWmtt2TQAO0&t=7910s)

## Longer summary

After a quick reaffirmation that music is not haram, Mufti Abu Layth takes a question asking him to explain the hadith in which the Prophet said to expel the Christians and the Jews from the Arabian Peninsula. He says he struggles to see it as true, citing the report in Sahih Muslim that among the Prophet's final transactions he pawned his shield to a Jewish man in Medina for wheat: one cannot order a people stripped of homes and farms across the whole peninsula while trading with one of them from a weaker position days before one's death. He feels it is a later fabrication projected back onto the Prophet, perhaps from the wars against the Byzantines under Umar, though he stresses this is a thought he does not hold firmly. Asked about a motive, he says anti-Jewish and anti-Christian sentiment appears within a few centuries, notes that Umayyad and Abbasid rulers employed Christian and Jewish ministers while clerics wrote books against it, and says such reports would come from the clergy, sometimes through false memories rather than malice.

## Sources and names cited

- report: akhriju al-yahud wa al-nasara min jazirat al-arab
- report: the prophet died with his shield pledged to a jewish man for bags of wheat (unresolved; cited as in Sahih Muslim, number not stated)
- Sahih Muslim
- Umar ibn al-Khattab
- the Byzantine Empire
- the Umayyads
- the Abbasids
- Ahl al-Kitab (People of the Book)

## Transcript (machine tier, 2:06:49–2:17:34)

[2:06:10] give it up because then it would be a problem to it would be too close to islamabad and if it got infiltrated by india they would be too close so if they kept maintained buffers and just gave a certain region like the valley and certain parts they made that independent and some other parts i i'm not too you know whatever they can but these things would never happen but i wish they would right so let's move on people what is going on what else was there did i have any uh right oh let's take a few of your

[2:06:48] questions somebody said mufti you missed a super chat let me see uh somebody asked about gangutili i'm going to speak about that in just a moment is music permissible i make beats brawl [Laughter] i do and it do yeah music's permissible music isn't haram okay so salaam alaikum could you explain the hadith in which the prophet

[2:07:28] said expel the christians and the jews from the arabian peninsula see i'm not so sure about that hadith because that hadith just doesn't settle i struggle to see that hadith being true um because because check this out

[2:08:00] what insignia right my knee right check this out one of the in sahih muslim one of the final transactions of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is with a jewish medinan resident and the prophet takes certain sacks of wheat or whatever it is to feed his family and in turn he leaves with them with the person as a

[2:08:36] um as an alternate payment kind of like pawns his uh his shield the prophet then passes away now how can this be that the prophet on one hand is saying chuck out the jews from the jazeera out of the entire arabian peninsula not even that locality or this the entire jazeera and on the other toe on the other hand

[2:09:15] a couple of days before he's passing away he's trading with him in fact he's he's saying look how could you give me this and uh bags of wheat because look if you go to position one chuck them out of the entire peninsula see that's a very down talk like you're talking down to someone you're exhibiting power yeah in this scenario if if a be true then b is problematic because here the prophet is in a position of having to

[2:09:52] negotiate and doesn't have the money to pay him so he's the prophet is saying how about i leave my shield and i will come back because if a be true then c ought to be true which is that the prophet actually snatches takes by force the wheat or whatever it was uh the food from the jewish person and says to him get the hell out of medina that it ought to be is that not true i mean come on like does it add like if

[2:10:31] i told you look uh there's such a such a person who is you know i've sacked him and chucked him out and i've seized all his properties and i've done this and i've done that to him and then you see some this you get this news report somebody's saying oh i've sacked such and such a person and i've done these legal lawsuits against them and i've even tried to seize some of his assets and i've done this like some horrible things i've frozen he had his bank accounts frozen and done this and done that and then you see on my insta story

[2:11:11] me and him uh having a laugh at a cafe somewhere cracking jokes going hey what's up so one of these has got to give it just doesn't tally like i can't be doing all this stuff to him and be like this with the person so the question is if the prophet is saying throw these people out of the arabian peninsula strip them out of the arabian peninsula remember from their homes their assets their farms agricultural territory strip that you

[2:11:50] can't pick that up and take it with you on the other hand the prophet is saying because allegedly he said this towards the end of his life allegedly throw them out yeah but only a few days before he passes away what is the profit he's trading and he's trading from a less powerful position to the jewish trader saying oh you know okay i haven't got the money is it all right if i leave this and the person's like yeah fine yeah that's that's fine leave that this doesn't add up you see so i find this hadith incredibly suspect

[2:12:28] i don't believe it's true this whole yahudah nasara i feel that this begins later on you see when the battles start uh when the battles during umar's time radiology when they are start to really fuel up against the byzantines against the christians and against those it's around those kind of times or maybe slightly after that these strong christian anti-christian sentiments and the anti-people of the book sentiments because the jews and christians were seen as

[2:13:08] more allied with each other than they were seen as with muslims so i feel this is a later fabrication and that is then retrospectively projected back onto the profit yeah right what is going on what would be the motive to invent this yeah i feel that later on in in islam you do start to see um a kind of sentiment it's interesting i'm not

[2:13:46] exactly sure what stage at what stage it mean right so this thing i just said a moment ago it could have been when the battle against the byzantines and stuff that's just i'm just saying it's slight like i'm just that's just a thought i'm just i just expressed it i'm not holding that as a firm belief but what we do see is definitely down the line there seems to be and this definitely within a few centuries this seems to be this um people seem to look down on the jews and christians some people

[2:14:23] now an interesting question is where when does that sentiment begin i haven't arrived at that point in understanding that requires a lot of research does it begin early on with these battles does it is it um does it begin later but is then kind of redirected as though it began earlier on and then you forge some of these incidents like these hadith and show it coming down is that what you do or maybe you find some legitimate

[2:15:02] incidents in the lifetime of the prophet when you didn't get on with the jewish people and what you do is you amplify that by making it echo much louder so but i don't know exactly at what point another thing that is true is that a lot of the muslim kings including what's interesting is including the dynast but even after the bani umayya definitely but even after bani umayyad during the abbasid time a lot of the kings kept occasionally as their kind of prime ministers

[2:15:38] or their key ministers they kept christians and jewish people because they were seen as more kind of um academic so they kept them to document stuff they kept them to so you see books are authored on the prohibition of fistic the fistic tabi ahlil kitab in fact i've got a book here somewhere about a traditional book classical where the the scholars start writing about why it's haram for the the rulers to have jews and christians

[2:16:15] as the um as part of the administration but it's a wide practice and it happened for centuries so i do know that a lot of the clergy did have this kind of hatred towards certain jewish and christian people now remember if these kind of hadith are to be fabricated they will come from the clergy they're not going to come from outside it will be the clergymen who invent them and sometimes it's not even sinister sometimes it's just false memories it's um you know you wish something into existence

[2:16:54] [Laughter] you know you just keep wishing it and then you're like i'm sure there was something like that there was something i heard once there is there is a teaching that's the kind of evolution of some of these hadith yes so right what is going on people right [Music] i'm just trying to see some questions people uh right more people seem to be interested in uh the female mods

[2:17:33] i've got than they do in my show [Laughter] see this is this this is what you get there's more questions being directed at them are you kashmiri i am a kashmiri yes right so mufti is a somebody saying you secret chav a super chat you mean have i missed a super chat um

## Cite

Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment KWmtt2TQAO0/s/30. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/kwmtt2tqao0/s/30/

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