Mu'adh's Question on the Road to Paradise

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

❧A private moment on the march

This incident is preserved in the Musnad of Imām Aḥmad, the largest ḥadīth collection we possess, now printed in fifty volumes, at volume thirty-six, ḥadīth 22122, narrated through Abū al-Naḍr from ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd from Shahr from Ibn Ghunm from Muʿādh ibn Jabal.

Muʿādh said that on the road to Tabūk, after they had prayed Fajr and remounted, the sun rose and the men began dozing on their camels, and a sleeping rider's camel cares more for grazing than for the road, so the army drifted apart. Muʿādh, trying to keep pace with the Prophet's ﷺ mount, felt his own camel stumble; he jerked the reins, it reared, and it startled the Prophet's ﷺ camel, which bolted forward. The Prophet ﷺ had his turban wrapped about his face; he drew it back to see who it was, and saw Muʿādh. He said, يَا مُعَاذُ, and Muʿādh answered, لَبَّيْكَ يَا نَبِيَّ اللهِ. He said, أُدْنُ دُونَكَ, "come closer", and Muʿādh drew alongside until their saddles touched.

The Prophet ﷺ remarked that he had not realized how far the people had scattered. Muʿādh explained that they had grown sleepy and their camels had carried them off. "And I too was asleep," he ﷺ said.

❧"Tell me a deed that will admit me into Paradise"

Seeing that they were alone, Muʿādh seized the moment with great adab: "Yā RasūlAllāh, give me permission to ask you something, a question that has made me think and ponder until I fell sick over it." The Prophet ﷺ said, سَلْ عَمَّا شِئْتَ, ask whatever you wish. So he said: حَدِّثْنِي بِعَمَلٍ يُدْخِلُنِي الْجَنَّةَ، لَا أَسْأَلُكَ عَنْ شَيْءٍ غَيْرَهُ, "Tell me a deed that will admit me into Paradise; I will ask you about nothing else."

The Prophet ﷺ said, بَخٍ بَخٍ, an expression of admiration with no English equivalent, something between "excellent!" and "what a noble thing!", لَقَدْ سَأَلْتَ بِعَظِيمٍ, "you have asked about something momentous," repeating it three times; and وَإِنَّهُ لَيَسِيرٌ عَلَىٰ مَنْ أَرَادَهُ اللهُ تَعَالَىٰ بِهِ الْخَيْرَ, "and it is easy for the one for whom Allāh intends good," three times also. Muʿādh noted that he would always repeat the important things three times.

Then he answered: تُؤْمِنُ بِاللهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الْآخِرِ وَتُقِيمُ الصَّلَاةَ, "you believe in Allāh and the Last Day, you establish the prayer, you worship none but Allāh, and you remain upon that until you die." Muʿādh asked him to repeat it, and he did.

❧The head, the pillar, and the summit

Then he ﷺ said: "Shall I not tell you of رَأْسُ هَٰذَا الْأَمْرِ, the head of this matter, وَقِوَامُ هَٰذَا الْأَمْرِ, its backbone, وَذِرْوَةُ السَّنَامِ, and the very peak of its hump?" Muʿādh said, "Of course, بِأَبِي أَنْتَ وَأُمِّي يَا رَسُولَ اللهِ," may my father and mother be your ransom, the way they addressed him.

He said: the head of the matter is أَنْ تَشْهَدَ أَنْ لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا اللهُ وَحْدَهُ لَا شَرِيكَ لَهُ وَأَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا عَبْدُهُ وَرَسُولُهُ, the shahādah. Its qiwām, its backbone, is إِقَامَةُ الصَّلَاةِ وَإِيتَاءُ الزَّكَاةِ. And its dhirwat al-sanām, its crowning peak, is الْجِهَادُ فِي سَبِيلِ اللهِ, said, note, to men who were at that moment marching to Tabūk expecting to meet a Roman army.

❧Read in its setting

He continued with the famous words that he had been commanded to fight the people until they establish the prayer, pay zakāh, and testify to the shahādah, and if they do, their lives and property are protected. The shaykh cautions that this is the ḥadīth Islamophobes most commonly misread as a mandate for endless war. In context the Prophet ﷺ is explaining why he is marching to Tabūk; "al-nās" means the people he is addressing. Hence the majority of scholars held that the Islamic state is under no obligation to wage war on everyone until the Day of Judgment, which is why, historically, the Umayyads, Abbasids and Ottomans had settled borders and were not perpetually at war beyond them.

He closed with encouragement suited to that march: "By the One in whose hand is my soul, no face becomes dusty and no foot becomes weary in a deed that raises it higher in Paradise, after the obligatory prayer, like jihād in the way of Allāh", and that nothing weighs the mīzān heavier than spending upon an animal in Allāh's path, or carrying men in His path.