The Farewell Sermon at ʿArafah and the completion of the religion

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

A common misconception holds that the Prophet ﷺ gave a single Farewell Sermon; in truth he gave at least three, one at ʿArafah on the 9th, and two or even three at Minā on the days that followed, and the famous "poster" of the Farewell Sermon is really a conglomeration of them all, which is fine to know, so long as we realise it was not one address. The ʿArafah sermon is the greatest, for it is the sermon of the Day of ʿArafah, and it established the sunnah that every year the imām delivers a khuṭbah at ʿArafah.

❧"Today I have perfected your religion"

The 9th that year happened to fall on a Friday, and it was there, standing on the plain of ʿArafah, that Allāh revealed to him: الْيَوْمَ أَكْمَلْتُ لَكُمْ دِينَكُمْ وَأَتْمَمْتُ عَلَيْكُمْ نِعْمَتِي وَرَضِيتُ لَكُمُ الْإِسْلَامَ دِينًا, "Today I have perfected for you your religion, completed My favour upon you, and chosen for you Islam as a way of life." It is not the last verse of the Qurʾān, for three months of his life remained and other verses would come, perhaps Sūrat al-Naṣr, and certainly some of al-Baqarah, but it is among the last, and what a verse to descend when Islam stood at its glorious peak: a hundred thousand or more at Ḥajj, the whole Peninsula upon Islam, not one idol worshipped in all of Arabia. A Jew once said to ʿUmar, "O Commander of the Faithful, you have a verse in your Book which, had it come to us, we would have taken that day as an ʿĪd"; ʿUmar asked which, and when the man recited this verse, ʿUmar said, "I know exactly when it was revealed, our Prophet ﷺ was standing at ʿArafah on the Day of the Greater Ḥajj, and it was already a day of celebration for us." And a Companion in the Sunan of Abū Dāwūd relates that they could hear the Prophet's ﷺ voice even from their tents, no ordinary thing, so that from this we learn a miracle: Allāh carried his blessed voice so the people of ʿArafah heard him directly.

❧Blood, wealth, and jāhiliyyah under his foot

"O people, listen to me, for I know not whether I shall meet you again after this year." He declared their blood and their wealth as sacred, one to another, as this day is sacred, in this month, in this land, abolishing the law of the jungle that had ruled Arabia, where the strong preyed on the weak; no more killing, plundering, or stealing. Then he said that everything of jāhiliyyah was تَحْتَ قَدَمِي مَوْضُوعٌ, "placed under my foot," trampled, obliterated, a thing of the past: its ways, its rituals, its idol-worship, all gone, for Islam had come with something new. And the blood-feuds, every tribe carried its long ledger of vendettas written in blood, the very thing that kept the tribes from uniting, he cancelled them all, beginning with his own family: "the first blood-money I abolish is that of the son of Rabīʿah ibn al-Ḥārith ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib," his own cousin's child, an infant killed in a war between Banū Saʿd and Hudhayl, over whom Quraysh had a standing feud and a hundred unpaid camels; the Prophet ﷺ waived it, money owed to his own kin, to be the example. Likewise the ribā: "the first ribā I abolish is that of my uncle al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib," a wealthy man owed much interest from before the prohibition; "you repay only your principal, not a penny more." His own family would be the first to lose, what leadership, to make himself the proof of his own words.

❧The rights of women, and the trust left behind

In the most important sermon of his life he set aside a passage for women, اتَّقُوا اللَّهَ فِي النِّسَاءِ, "fear Allāh regarding women", and think how significant that is: there was no worldly reason to speak of women here, in a society where women had no rights at all; yet no ummah can rise while its women are mistreated. "You have taken them by the trust of Allāh, and made them lawful by the word of Allāh." Their right upon the man is faithfulness, that they let no one they would hate step onto his bed; and upon the man is their maintenance and provision bil-maʿrūf, according to his means. He permitted, in a society where beating one's wife was the unquestioned norm, only a discipline "without pain and without injury", leaps beyond what the people were doing, whatever debates surround the phrase in our own century, and a matter beyond the scope of the Sīrah lesson. Then: "I have left among you that which, if you hold to it, you will never go astray, the Book of Allāh." And, "you will be asked about me, what will you say?" They answered that he had conveyed the message, fulfilled his trust, and been sincere; and he raised his fingers to the sky and said three times, اللَّهُمَّ فَاشْهَدْ، اللَّهُمَّ فَاشْهَدْ، اللَّهُمَّ فَاشْهَدْ, "O Allāh, bear witness", for Allāh says that on that Day both the messengers and their nations will be questioned, فَلَنَسْأَلَنَّ الَّذِينَ أُرْسِلَ إِلَيْهِمْ وَلَنَسْأَلَنَّ الْمُرْسَلِينَ, and he wanted his Ummah to testify then that he had done his task.