. Y""" (cont.)

Utba ibn Abu Waqqaas entrusted his son to his brother Saad ibn Abu Waqqaas saying, "The son of the slave girl of Zama is my son, take him into your custody." During the year of the Conquest of Makkah, Saad took the boy and said, "This is my brother's son whom my brother had asked me to look after." Abd ibn Zama stood and said, "He is my brother and the son of the slave girl of my father and was born on my father's bed." Then both of them came to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and Saad said, "O Messenger of Allah, this is my brother's son whom he had asked me to look after." Abd ibn Zama stood and said, "This is my brother and the son of the slavegirl of my father." The Prophet (peace be upon him) said, "Abd ibn Zama, this boy is to be in your custody as the boy belongs to the bed in which he was born and the stone is for the adulterer." Then the Prophet (peace be upon him) told his wife Sauda ibn Zama, "Observe the veil before this boy," when he saw the boy's resemblance to Utba. After that, the boy did not see Sauda until she died. The relevance of this hadith is that although the Prophet (peace be upon him) rewarded the boy to Abd ibn Zama, he ordered his wife Sauda, the brother of Abd and therefore the sister of the boy also, to observe the hijaab or veil in front of that boy, since there was still some ambiguity concerning the matter. This is the safest and the more pious manner in which to handle such a problem. In another hadith, Adi ibn Thaabit asked about when he is hunting and sends his dog after the prey. Upon finding the prey, he finds another dog there 1 lbn Hajr, Fath, vol. 1 , p. 173. 2 al-Haitami, Fath, p. 1 15. Hadith #6: 'The Permissible is Clear. .. " and he does not know which dog actually killed the prey. The Prophet (peace be upon him) told him, ;-1 =Ԉr-Jj 4 = ૊:;- wҩ wҨ ju 1 "Do not eat [that prey], for you have mentioned the name of Allah over your dog but you did not mention it in the case of the other dog." (Recorded by al­ Bukhari and Muslim.) Again, the Prophet (peace be upon him) decided the matter due to the doubt that was present and told Adi not to eat the prey as he feared that the animal had been killed by the other dog and would have been a type of meat that is not permissible to eat. These examples, and others, show that the Prophet (peace be upon him) decided cases according to this principle of avoiding the doubtful matters. This, of course, is perfectly consistent with a statement of Abdullah ibn Masood that is recorded by al-Nasaai. In that statement, Abdullah said, "Verily, the permissible things are clear and the forbidden things are clear. And between them are some matters that are doubtful. Therefore, leave what makes you doubt for what does not make you doubt." The Prophet (peace be upon him) also said in a hadith that comes later in this collection, "Leave what makes you doubt for what does not make you doubt." (Recorded by al-Tirmidhi and al-Nasaai.) The Causes for Uncertainty and Doubt As noted earlier, there are many factors that may lead to people being uncertain about a certain act, whether it is permissible or not. One of those reasons is that the evidence related to a particular point may seem to be contradicting. One hadith, for example, may show an act to be permissible while another one shows the same act to be forbidden. Even scholars sometimes have difficulty reconciling conflicting hadith. An example of this nature is the hadith that prohibit drinking while standing and the hadith that states that the Prophet (peace be upon him) drank while standing. Both of these hadith are authentic and the scholars have come to different conclusions concerning how to reconcile them. For non-scholars, it is sometimes very confusing when scholars hold differing and conflicting opinions about one act. This causes a great deal of confusion for many but, in many cases, when one studies the different opinions of the scholars, the reasons the scholars differed are quite obvious and need not be confusing. For example, one scholar may have made a decision concerning an act based on his own personal reasoning and not based directly on a verse of the Quran or hadith. Another scholar may hold the opposite opinion because he knows of a specific hadith related to that point. This aspect has been a common cause for differences of opinions among the scholars. Commentary on the 40 Hadith of al-Nawawi Another example is where one scholar is following a particular hadith yet he does not realize that the hadith he is applying is not an authentic hadith.