Nasibi Refuted on Barking Dogs of Hawab

بسم الله الرحمـن الرحيم

والصلاة والسلام على رسوله الكريم

والعاقبة للمتقين

The Nasiba are a category of people who bear enmity toward the Prophet’s ﷺ household, family and progeny (peace be upon them). In the name of defending the honor of the Prophet’s Companions (may Allah be pleased with them), and repudiating the cursed Rafida sect, the Nasiba attempt to mask the malice they harbor towards the Ahl-al-Bait^AS and deceive the ordinary Muslims, by cunningly exploiting the latter’s love and attachment to the Sahaba^RA. In short, both the Rawafid and the Nawasib are two sides of the same coin. They may appear to be polar opposites of each other, yet both are characterized with hatred towards those pious and saintly individuals whom the Prophet ﷺ loved and praised - his Family and his Companions.

Some of the unmistakable hallmarks of the Nasiba is their aversion to singing the praises and virtues of the Ahl-al-Bait^AS. They will often say that such activity ends up benefiting the Rawafid Shi’a and thus, according to this perverted logic, must be avoided. The Nasiba go overboard and exceed the bounds in praising certain other companions of the Prophet ﷺ, particularly the companions who belonged to Bani Umayya, such as sayyidina Uthman^RA,  Abu Sufyan, Hind and Mu’awiya. Likewise, the Nasiba excessively praise and defend the cursed Yazid, son of Mu’awiya, who was responsible for opposing the martyred Imam and Prophet’s own grandson, sayyidina Hussain b. Ali^AS. The Nasiba have invented a fallacious principle that any historical wrongdoing or error of the Prophet’s Companions^RA must never be mentioned, even if it is not with the intention of maligning them. They often claim that the early history of Islam has been distorted by Shi’ite narrators and storytellers. Some even go to the extreme of denying absolutely true historical events and incidents, asserting that the early history of Islam is doubtful and it is impossible that the Prophet’s Companions ever committed such great mistakes. The truth is, of course, that the Prophet’s Companions were not infallible. They were human beings like us. True, Allah and His Apostle ﷺ have praised them for their virtues, good deeds and faith, but this does not mean that they were totally sinless and pure like the Angels and Prophets of God.

The Prophet’s beloved and noble wife, sayyida A’isha^RA was a lady of extreme learning and piety. She was among the favorite wives of the Prophet ﷺ, and Allah Most High has declared all of the Prophet’s wives as ‘Mothers of the Believers’ (Sura 33: 6). The despicable Rafida disparage and even curse the Prophet’s wives, such as sayyida A’isha^RA, thereby coming under the curse and wrath of Allah themselves. In fact, anyone who curses the Prophet’s wife has become an apostate because he has belied the Holy Qur’an which declares the Prophet’s wives as Mothers of the Believers. Since it is impossible that someone would curse their own mother except if he is a wretched, vile person himself, it stands to reason that anyone who curses sayyida A’isha^RA is not a Believer, and she is not his mother.

Nevertheless, sayyida A’isha^RA, despite her noble and exalted status as Mother of the Believers, was still a human being who undoubtedly committed mistakes. To mention some of those historical errors she committed with the intention of drawing a lesson from them or for any other beneficial reason cannot in the least be considered unlawful. Of course, to mention the errors of sayyida A’isha^RA for a malicious intention, or due to enmity, is certainly unlawful. The orthodox Muslims of Ahlus Sunnati wal-Jama’a acknowledge the fact that sayyida A’isha, along with sayyidina Zubair and sayyidina Talha (Allah be pleased with them) were in error in the historical event of the Battle of Jamal (656 CE), while sayyidina Amir-ul-Mu’minin Ali b. Abi Talib^AS was upon the truth, not only in the Battle of Jamal, but in the subsequent War of Siffin against Mu‘awiya and in the Battle of Nahrawan against the Kharijite renegades. The orthodox Muslims of the Sunna are in agreement upon this point. It is only the Nasiba and other misguided sects who claim that the opponents of sayyidina Ali^AS were upon the truth in any of those three civil wars. One of the proofs that sayyidina Ali^AS was upon the truth in the Battle of Jamal, while sayyida A’isha, Talha and Zubair were in error is the authentic Hadith of Haw’ab:

حَدَّثَنَا يَحْيَى ، عَنْ إِسْمَاعِيلَ ، حَدَّثَنَا قَيْسٌ ، قَالَ : لَمَّا أَقْبَلَتْ عَائِشَةُ بَلَغَتْ مِيَاهَ بَنِي عَامِرٍ لَيْلًا ، نَبَحَتْ الْكِلَابُ ، قَالَتْ : أَيُّ مَاءٍ هَذَا  قَالُوا : مَاءُ الْحَوْءَبِ ، قَالَتْ : مَا أَظُنُّنِي إِلَّا أَنِّي رَاجِعَةٌ ، فَقَالَ بَعْضُ مَنْ كَانَ مَعَهَا : بَلْ تَقْدَمِينَ ، فَيَرَاكِ الْمُسْلِمُونَ ، فَيُصْلِحُ اللَّهُ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ ذَاتَ بَيْنِهِمْ ، قَالَتْ : إِنَّ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ قَالَ لَنَا ذَاتَ يَوْمٍ : كَيْفَ بِإِحْدَاكُنَّ تَنْبَحُ عَلَيْهَا كِلَابُ الْحَوْءَبِ

“the sound Hadeeth reported by Ahmad and al-Haakim  may  Allaah  have  mercy  upon  them which says, ‘When 'Aa'ishah  may  Allaah  be  pleased  with  her reached the waters of Bani Amr at night, she heard some dogs barking. She asked, ‘Which water is this?' They replied, ‘The water of Hawab'. She said, ‘I think I had better return, the Prophet  sallallaahu  `alayhi  wa  sallam ( may  Allaah exalt his mention ) said to us once: How will one of you be when the dogs of Hawab will be barking at her?‘ Az-Zubayr thereupon said to her, ‘How can you return! Perhaps Allaah might make people reach an agreement through you'. Al-Albaani  may  Allaah  have  mercy  upon  him said the chain of this Hadeeth is authentic and five other scholars of Hadeeth grade it as sound.“

This is an absolutely authentic Hadith. In his checking of the Musnad of Imam Ahmad b. Hanbal, the Muhaddith, Shu’aib Arna’ut has declared it authentic:

Reference: Musnad al-Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal (Mu’asasa al-Risala); v. 40, p. 299

Likewise, another Muhaddith, Hamza Ahmad al-Zain, has declared the same Hadith as authentic:

Reference: al-Musnad lil-Imam Ahmad bin Muhammad bin Hanbal (Darul Hadith, Cairo); v. 17, p. 273, H. 24135

Finally, Muhammad Nasiruddin Albani (d. 1999), considered the most authoritative Muhaddith of the age in the Salafi tradition, declared this Hadith as ‘extremely authentic’:

Reference: Silsila al-Ahadith al-Sahiha; v. 1, pp. 846-847, H. 474

Despite the fact that these and many other authoritative Muhaddithin have all declared this Hadith as authentic, the Nasibis find it extremely hard to digest since this Hadith contravenes their erroneous narrative that the opponents of sayyidina Ali^AS were upon the truth in the Battles of Jamal and Siffin. One of the despicable Nawasib, Mahmud Ahmad Abbasi, wrote that this Hadith is fabricated and a lie:

ام المومنین عائشہ ^رض اور حضرت طلحہ ^رض و زبیر ^رض کو ان کے اقدام قصاص میں مطعون کرنے کی غرض سے بہت سی جھوٹی باتیں کہی گئی ہیں، ان میں سےکذب بیانی سب سے زیادہ شرمناک ہے کہ بصرہ کے راستے میں جب ایک مقام الحوءب آیا وہاں کتے بھونکنے لگے ام المومنین نے فرمایا کہ مجھے واپس لوٹا‌ؤ میں نے رسول اللہ صلعم کو اپنی ازواج سے یہ فرماتے سنا ہے کہ نہ معلوم تم میں وہ کون ہوگی جس پر الحوءب کے کتّے بھونکیں گے۔‍

“In order to challenge the steps taken by the Mother of the Believers A’isha^RA, and Talha^RA and Zubair^RA for inflicting Qișāș [retaliation upon the murderers of Uthman^RA], a lot of lies have been fabricated. Among them the most shameful lie is that on the way to Basra, when they passed by a place called Haw’ab, dogs started barking. The Mother of the Believers said: Take me back! I heard Allah’s Apostle^SA saying to his wives: ‘I don’t know which one of you will be barked at by the dogs of Haw’ab.’”

Reference: Tahqiq Mazid ba Silsila Khilafat Mu’awia o Yazid; p. 105

The Nasibi mulla, Mahmud Abbasi, attempts to deceive the public regarding this Hadith by citing only a single sanad from the Tarikh of al-Tabari, and then proceeding to unveil the weakness of the narrators in that particular sanad. This despite the fact that the mulla knew very well that this Hadith has multiple asanid containing nothing but truthful and trustworthy narrators. The mulla also overlooked the fact that another version of the Hadith, with a completely different sanad was brought by Ibn Jarir al-Tabari^RA in his Tarikh that is authentically traced back to Imam al-Zuhri^RA. Although it may be said that that particular sanad is mursal, the point is there are other narrations in books of Hadith like the Musnad of Imam Ahmad, which I have already cited, but also in the Musannaf of Ibn Abi Shaiba, the Musnad of Abu Ya’la, the Musnad of al-Bazar, the Sahih of Ibn Hibban, the Musnad of Ishaq bin Rahuwaih the Mustadrak of al-Hakim, and others. Indeed, this Hadith is authentically established to sayyida A’isha^RA via Isma’il b. Abi Khalid and Qais b. Abi Hazim. The Nasibi mulla conveniently ignored this authentic sanad establishing the soundness of the Hadith to sayyida A’isha^RA and instead focused on citing the most weak sanad of the Hadith in question, thus giving his readership the impression that the Hadith is forged.

Moving along, the Nasibi mulla Mahmud Abbasi makes another futile and pathetic attempt to cast doubt on the authenticity of the Hadith of Haw’ab. The mulla writes:

بالفرض الحوءب اس زمانہ میں قافلہ کی منزل بھی رہی ہو تو کتّوں کے بھونکنے کی خصوصیت اسی منزل کی کیوں تھی۔ دوسری بیس منزلوں کے کتّے کیا نہ بھونکنے ہوں گے۔ اجنبیوں کو دیکھ کر کتّے کہاں نہیں بھونکتے کیا حضرت علی رض کے قافلہ پر نہ بھونکے ہوں گے۔ پھر حضرت عائشہ رض کے قافلہ ہی کی یہ خصوصیت کیوں اور کس بنائ پر؟

“Suppose, hypothetically, that Haw’ab was a layover along the way for [A’isha’s] caravan during that time. But what was so particular about it that dogs barked at that layover? Wouldn’t dogs bark at any of the other twenty layovers? Where don’t dogs bark when they see strangers? Wouldn’t they have barked at Ali’s^RA caravan too? Then why and on what basis was A’isha’s^RA caravan particularized (for being barked at)?”

Reference: Ibid, p. 107

The laughable and foolish objection to the Hadith put forward by this deceptive Nasibi mulla need only be compared to a similar pathetic objection made to the authentic Hadith of Safina^RA by another Nasibi, Faiz Alam Siddiqui. In that case, the Nasibi Faiz Alam argued that the Hadith attributed to the Prophet ﷺ that his rightly-guided succession would last only thirty years after him had to be a fabrication, because had sayyidina Ali^RA not been martyred and lived longer the Prophet’s prediction would have turned out false!

Dear reader, consider the stupidity of Nasibi logic! They have in fact employed a logical fallacy whose technical term is counterfactual fallacy, or speculative fallacy. To clarify and break down the structure of this fallacy:

“If event X did not happen, then event Y would not have happened.”

In the specific argument of the Nasibi mulla Mahmud Abbasi, the same logical fallacy has been employed, though in reverse:

“If event X did happen, then event Y would have happened.”

In other words, if the dogs did bark at A’isha^RA at Haw’ab, then they should have barked at the other layovers along the way to Basra, and likewise, they should have barked at sayyidina Ali’s^AS caravan too.

Apart from the fact that this argument is purely speculative and hypothetical, it misses the point of the Hadith and attempts to cloud the issue. Whether or not dogs barked at the caravan at any other place is immaterial, the Prophet ﷺ specifically predicted that dogs would bark at one of his wives at a place called Haw’ab. This was a prophecy of the Prophet ﷺ which was literally fulfilled, and as such serves as a strong proof for the veracity of his claim of being a Prophet. Consider the fact that when the Prophet ﷺ made this prophecy, none of his wives could conceivably think about going off to a far off place near Basra, the location of Haw’ab, let alone hear dogs barking at one of them there. The extreme unlikelihood of this event unfolding at the time it was predicted is all the more reason to accept the truth of this prophecy.

The Nasiba simply have no worthwhile argument to deny the Hadith. They simply resort to stubbornly rejecting and repudiating it due to their animosity toward the Ahl-al-Bait, particularly, Amir-ul-Mu’minin Ali b. Abi Talib (peace be upon him).