Man and His Destiny [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Part 14
Some Hadiths to the Contrary

There are some hadiths which appear to be contrary to what
we have said. But their contradiction is either superficial or due to the fact
that owing to some misunderstanding they were misquoted by one of their
transmitters. In the first case the contradiction disappears when we go deep
into the reports and in the second case the mistake can be rectified by
comparing the hadiths in question with other reports on the subject. We give
below an example of each type. Let us take the second case first.

A hadith has been mentioned in al-Bukhari's al-Sahih on
the authority of Yahya bin Yamar, according to which Ayesha, Mother of the
Faithful, says that she asked the Holy Prophet about the epidemic of plague.

He said: "It was a scourge sent by Allah unto whom He
willed. Now it has been made a blessing for the Muslims. A person who stays in
the affected town, shows patience and believes that nothing will befall him
except what Allah has ordained, will receive the same reward as a martyr".

Now we quote another hadith on this very subject. It is
mentioned in al-Kafi, Vol. VIII. According to it Ubaydullah al-Halabi asked
Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq (a) whether a person was allowed to move out of a place
where plague had broken out?

The Imam (a) said: "There is no harm. The Prophet only
forbade the leaving of a place which was situated in front of the enemy
position. When plague broke out there and the people began to flee from it, the
Prophet said that he who fled from there, would be considered to have run away
from a battlefield. The Prophet said so because he did not want the Muslims to
desert their position.

It is clear from the explanation given by Imam Sadiq that
the reason why the Holy Prophet forbade fleeing from plague on a particular
occasion was that he wanted to impress upon the Muslims that they must stick to
their duty and must not expose themselves to a bigger risk. He did not issue a
general instruction that the Muslims should not take precautionary measures
against plague and should sit simply awaiting what was in store for them. A
Muslim is duty bound to protect his life property.

As the saying of the Holy Prophet passed through a number
of transmitters, it took the shape of a general rule as we find it in its
present form in al-Bukhari. Fortunately the real intention of the Holy Prophet
has been disclosed by Imam Sadiq, who naturally knew it better than anybody
else, for he himself was a member of Ahl al-Bayt al-Rasul (the Holy Family).

It is also possible that the hadith of al-Bukhari may have
some other background and intention. The Holy Prophet might have asked the
people not to move out of a plague-ridden town so that they might not transmit
the epidemic to other places. In olden days there existed no means of treating
this disease, nor there were any quarantine arrangements. The only possible
precaution against the spreading of the disease was that the people should not
move out of the infected place.

Recounting Umar's Journey to Syria Ibn Abi al-Hadid in his
commentary on the Nahj al-Balaghah, Sermon 132 says: "On hearing that plague
was raging in a particular town of Syria, Umar decided not to visit that place.
In reply to Abu Ubaydah ibn al-Jarrah, who had objected to his fleeing from a
Divinely ordained destiny, he said that Abd Al-Rahman ibn Awf had told him that
the Holy Prophet had said; "If plague breaks out in a place, do not enter it,
if you are not already inside it, but if you are, do not leave it".

Either, the hadith of Sahih al-Bukhari is related to that
incident which has been explained by Imam Sadiq or it is an instruction to the
effect that the people of an infected area should not go to any other place. In
either case it is certain that its significance is not what it apparently
indicates, and that its transmitters have misunderstood it.

There is another report in al Kafi, Vol. II. According to
it Imam Sadiq is reported to have said:

"One day Imam Ali (a) was sitting with some people under a
dilapidated wall. Someone asked him not to sit under that wall because it was tottering.
The Commander of the Faithful said that one's appointed time (time appointed
for his death) guards him. No sooner he left the place than the wall fell
down".

Imam Sadiq (a) added that the Commander of the Faithful
used to do such things often. That is what is called Yaqeen
(Conviction).

It may be said that this hadith is not in keeping with
what we mentioned earlier and according to which Asbagh bin Nubatah reported
that Imam Ali (a) moved away from the bent wall and on being criticized for
fleeing from one divinely ordained destiny, he said that the was fleeing from
one divinely ordained destiny to another. How is it that when Ali, himself
moves away from a bent wall and he is criticized for doing that, he says that
he was feeling from destiny to another and when he is asked by someone else to
do that, he says that the appointed time' guards him?

Further, according to the Islamic law it is not
permissible to sit under a tottering wall. Then how is it that Imam Ali did not
leave the place under the plea that he was guarded by his appointed time'?

It appears that keeping in view what we have said earlier,
this hadith can be interpreted in a way that it would neither be inconsistent
with the hadith of Asbagh bin Nubatah nor with the legal principle enjoining
the protection of one's own life.

While discussing the spiritual factor we said that the
sequence of the causes affecting a destiny could not be confined to the three
dimension material causes of this world. The spiritual causes are also equally
effective. Some times it so happens that when we look at an event from its
material angle only, it appears that the sequence of its causes is complete,
but if we look at it from another angle and observe some secret aspects of it,
we realize that some spiritual causes to the contrary and other good deeds
performed with good intention make an impact on the system of causation. If somebody
has a sense additional to those senses which we all normally have, his
judgement in certain cases may be quite different from that of ours. This case
may be illustrated by an example.

We are three-dimensional beings. Our judgements about
three-dimensional matters will naturally be different from that of
two-dimensions. But as far as two dimensional matters are considered, our
judgement and their judgement will be the same. The people who are endowed with
conviction' have an additional sense and they look at things from a different
angle. Naturally on certain occasions their judgement is different from ours.

We may regard a thing as a cause of death, but a man of
conviction may not think so, because he has an eye on certain inner force at
work. From spiritual point of view there is no reason why we should not believe
that certain things are spiritually effective in causing prolongation of life,
maintenance of health and expansion of the means of living, and that the people
endowed with conviction are aware of them.

Anyway, this hadith can be explained, though it requires a
lengthy explanation.