"...When half o a third of the night passes by, Allah descends to the lowest heaven and says: 'No one asks more about my servants thatn myself. Who is asking me, so I can give to him? Who is calling uon me, so I can answer him? who is seeking my forgiveness, so I can forgive him?'". I got two questions about this hadith.
How sahee ( or correct ) is this hadith.
And second, what meaning is this hadith?.
Your question covers two matters:
1 – The extent to which this hadeeth is saheeh.
This hadeeth is a saheeh hadeeth which is proven in the
soundest two books after the Book of Allaah. It was narrated by al-Bukhaari
in his Saheeh (1145) and by Muslim (1261) from Abu Hurayrah (may
Allaah be pleased with him), that the Prophet (peace and blessings of
Allaah be upon him) said: “The Lord descends every night to the lowest
heaven when one-third of the night remains and says: ‘Who will call upon Me,
that I may answer Him? Who will ask of Me, that I may give him? Who will
seek My forgiveness, that I may forgive him?’”
This hadeeth was narrated from the Prophet (peace and
blessings of Allaah be upon him) by approximately twenty-eight of the
Sahaabah (may Allaah be pleased with them) and the Ahl al-Sunnah are
unanimously agreed that it is to be accepted.
2 – What is meant by the descent of Allaah – may He be
exalted – to the lowest heaven:
It should be noted that the descent of the Lord – may He be
exalted – to the lowest heaven is one of the actions that are attributed to
Him and has to do with His will and wisdom. It is descending in a real
sense, in a manner that befits His majesty and might. Allaah descends
however He wills, whenever He wills. Glory be to Him, there is nothing like
unto Him and He is the All-Hearing, All-Seeing. It is not permissible to
distort the meaning of the hadeeth by saying that what is meant is that His
command or mercy descends, or that one of His angels descends. This is false
for several reasons:
(i)
This misinterpretation goes
against the apparent meaning of the hadeeth. The Prophet (peace and
blessings of Allaah be upon him) attributed descent or the act of descending
to Allaah, and the basic principle is that a thing is attributed to the one
who does it, so if it is attributed to someone else, that is a distortion
that goes against this basic principle. We know that the Messenger
(peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) is the most knowledgeable of all
people about Allaah, and that he (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon
him) is the most eloquent of mankind and the most truthful in what he says.
There are no lies in his speech and it is impossible for him to attribute
something to Allaah that is not one of His names or attributes or actions or
rulings. Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):
“And if he (Muhammad) had forged a false saying concerning
Us (Allaah),
45. We surely would have seized him by his right hand (or
with power and might),
46. And then We certainly would have cut off his life
artery (aorta)”
[al-Haaqqah 69:44-46]
Moreover the only
intention of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him)
was to guide mankind, so if he said, “Our Lord descends” and someone else
says something that runs contrary to the apparent meaning of these words,
such as saying that His command descends, then we say: Do you have more
knowledge about Allaah than the Messenger of Allaah (peace and
blessings of Allaah be upon him)? The Messenger (peace and blessings of
Allaah be upon him) said, “Our Lord descends” but you say His command
descends. Or are you more sincere towards the ummah than he was, since he
(allegedly) concealed what he was supposed to tell them and told them
something different. Undoubtedly the person who tells the people one thing
but means something else is not sincere towards them. Or do you think that
you are more eloquent than the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings
of Allaah be upon him)?! Undoubtedly such a misinterpretation implies that
one is accusing the Messenger (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon
him) of some kind of shortcoming that a Muslim can never accept on the part
of the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him).
(ii)
The descent of His command and
mercy is not restricted to this part of the night, rather His command and
mercy descend all the time. If it is said that what is meant is a specific
command or specific mercy which does not happen all the time, the answer to
that is that if we assume that this interpretation is correct, then the
hadeeth indicates that where the descent of this thing ends is in the lowest
heaven, so what benefit can it be to us if mercy descend to the lowest
heaven without reaching us? Why would the Prophet (peace and blessings
of Allaah be upon him) even tell us about it?
(iii)
The hadeeth indicates that the
One Who descends says: “Who will call upon Me, that I may answer Him? Who
will ask of Me, that I may give him? Who will seek My forgiveness, that I
may forgive him?” No one can say that except Allaah, may He be exalted.
See: Majmoo’ Fataawa wa Rasaa’il al-Shaykh Muhammad ibn
Saalih al-‘Uthaymeen, 1/203-210.
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