The Touch at Birth

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) says: every child who is born is stabbed by Shayṭān. Whenever a child is born — what is the first thing that the child does when the child is born? Cry. The first thing they do, they cry; they come out — yastahillu ṣārikhan — they come out crying. Why do they cry? The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) says in this hadith, in Muslim, that Shayṭān stabs every child, and that is why the child comes out crying.

And by the way, before I continue with the hadith: you can see how much Shayṭān hates human beings. From the moment you are born, he stabs you; as soon as you come out, he stabs. And he hates humanity so much. Subḥān Allāh — who would like to harm, who would want to harm, such a lovely child? But this shows you the evilness and the wickedness of Shayṭān, and it shows you how foolish humans are when they follow Shayṭān. Inna al-shayṭāna lakum ʿaduwwun fa-ittakhidhūhu ʿaduwwā — like Ibrāhīm ibn Adham has given us advice: he said Shayṭān is your enemy, so take him as an enemy. He is our enemy; from day one he is our enemy, and we should take him as our enemy. Wa kāna al-shayṭānu lil-insāni khadhūlā — he is betraying the son of Ādam.

This happens to every child — there is an exception of two. Who are they? Who are the ones who are not stabbed by Shayṭān? Maryam and ʿĪsā. Maryam and ʿĪsā are the only exceptions; Shayṭān has stabbed every child that was born, with the exception of Maryam and ʿĪsā. Shayṭān did not stab them. Why? Because of the duʿāʾ of the mother of Maryam: wa innī uʿīdhuhā bika wa dhurriyyatahā min al-shayṭāni al-rajīm — and I seek refuge with You, O Allah, for her and for her offspring, from Shayṭān.

So the mother said: O Allah, I seek refuge in You to save my child and her offspring from Shayṭān. So her child is Maryam — and who is the offspring of Maryam? ʿĪsā; and it stopped right there; there was no other offspring. So these are the only two who were excluded from this stabbing of Shayṭān. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) says that when he wanted to stab ʿĪsā, he went to the ḥijāb — al-ḥijāb is the diaphragm; that is al-ḥijāb. So ʿĪsā (peace be upon him) and Maryam were saved from this stabbing of Shayṭān.

By the way, even though Christianity claims to be the religion of ʿĪsā, they are missing many of the details of the life of ʿĪsā to start with — and this is one thing that is missing: the issue that Allah (swt) has saved Maryam and ʿĪsā at their birth. And another thing that is missing — and it is one of the best, or the most wonderful, miracles that Allah (swt) has given ʿĪsā — is yatakallamu fī al-mahd, speaking at birth. This is not mentioned in the Bible; and this is knowledge that the people who claim to follow ʿĪsā do not even know: that ʿĪsā spoke when he was born. And these are some of the miracles of ʿĪsā that were mentioned in the Qur'an.