Ḥudhayfah and the Word That Still Saves

After the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) passed away, Ḥudhayfah al-Yamānī (may Allah be pleased with him), like many of the Companions, left Madīnah; they settled in different centres, different cities across the Muslim world, and Ḥudhayfah was no different. He came and settled in Baṣrah, then Kūfah, then other places. In one of those cities, once a week, he would appear before the people as a Companion of the Prophet (peace be upon him) and give a talk — an admonition, a bayān, on what he had learned from the Prophet Muḥammad (peace be upon him). In one of these he was speaking about the signs of the Hour: when the Resurrection will come, when the end of the world will come, and what will become of the condition of the Muslims. He said: I heard from my beloved Prophet Muḥammad (peace be upon him) that a time will come upon my Ummah when Islam will be weak, very weak, and people will not practise Islam — there will be no practice of Islam in their lives at all; they will not pray, they will not fast, no Hajj, no zakāh, nothing; but they will say with their words, lā ilāha illallāh. Asked how, they will say: we say lā ilāha illallāh as our parents and our grandparents used to say it; the people before us used to say lā ilāha illallāh, and we also say it.

One of the young men present, one of the tābiʿīn, said: what kind of lā ilāha illallāh is that? It is not going to help them at all. Ḥudhayfah al-Yamānī said: I heard from my beloved Prophet Muḥammad (peace be upon him) that even this lā ilāha illallāh will save them on the Day of Judgment; because of this lā ilāha illallāh they will enter Paradise. The young man — hot-headed, a really enthusiastic Muslim — asked how that could be so: they do not pray, they do not perform Hajj, no ṣalāh, no zakāh, no jihād, no nothing, and they are going to go to Paradise? Ḥudhayfah al-Yamānī stood up and said: I am telling you something that I heard from the Prophet Muḥammad (peace be upon him), and you are telling me otherwise. By Allah, I will never let you sit in my company; I never want to see you again. According to the muḥaddithūn who narrate this hadith, he never again allowed the man to come and sit in his company — the company of one who had kept the company of the Prophet Muḥammad (peace be upon him) — or to associate with him. Such is the attitude of a Companion towards a hadith of the Prophet (peace be upon him) when people begin to interpret it their own way. Lā ilāha illallāh.

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) says, again, among the signs of that time: a person will see a munkar, something forbidden, being committed before him — adultery, zinā, will have become commonplace, and the drinking of alcohol will have become commonplace — and he will see it, but be so afraid, so weak in his īmān, that he cannot say anything; he simply walks past, saying: I wish I had the power to stop this. He does nothing; he walks past, and says only that he wishes he had the power to stop this despicable act from happening. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) says: this man is like Abū Bakr and ʿUmar among you. One can only imagine what will have become of the Ummah. He said to the Companions that if they neglected even ten per cent of their religious practice, of the commandments of Allah (swt) — neglected, not disobeyed; neglected — they would end up in Jahannam; and that a time will come upon my Ummah when, if they practise only ten per cent of the religion, if they revive that much of the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), they will be the equal of Abū Bakr and ʿUmar among you. These are the times now being lived through. But, if Allah wills, it is getting better.