I hope that you are well and in good health with the grace of Allah

Ta’allah. I spoke to you in the Mosque yesterday after your kutba, my

name is [xyz].

I would like to know whether kissing the thumbs and putting them on
your eyes on hearing the Prophet Muhammad (blessing and peace of
Allah be upon him and his family) in the azan has any basis according
to Shafi mazhab? I have read that it is not aloud, but i have read that
there is a Hadith about Hazrat Abu Bakr (may Allah be please with him)
doing this action and the Prophet (blessing and peace of Allah be upon
him and his family) saying follow my companions sunnah. According to
the literature this Ahadith is not authentic (weak), can you enlight me
on this subject. I follow Hanafi mazhab but I want to hear your answer
on this subject coz your neutral because your a Shafi teacher I want to
know what the ruling is in Shafi mazhab.

Allah Hafiz

Ma sha’ Allah, Rabbi zidni ‘ilman!

In fiqh, the discussion of taqbil al-unbulatayn wa mash al-’aynayn is

usually found at the end of Bab Adhan. Certain gestures performed
during the adhan, and specifically the ‘amal of kissing the thumbs and
wiping the eye, are something known to Shafi’is, and there can be no
objection whatsoever by our jurists (and any jurists for that matter) to
those wishing to perform this ‘amal: as far as we are concerned, it is
classified under the category of the Fada’il al-A’mal [I'anat, 1:243; al-
Jurdani, Fath al-'Allam, 2:140-1].

Among its legal bases ['ilal] is that it is a Sunna of the first Khalifa of
the Messenger of Allah (may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him!)
[i.e., an Athar of the first Khalifa], and it is also based on a number of
Hadiths, of which the most well known is the Hadith of Abu Bakr (may
Allah be well pleased with him!):

lammA sami’a qawla l-mu’adhdhini ashhadu anna MuHammadan

rasUluLlAhi qAla hAdhA wa qabbila bATina l-unmulatayni l-
sabbAbatayni wa masaHa ‘aynayhi fa-qAla SallaLlAhu ‘alayhi wa
sallama man fa’ala mithla khalIlI faqad Hallat ‘alayhi shafA’atI
[Whenever he [Abu Bakr] heard the Mu’addhin say: “I bear witness
that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah”, he would repeat this
[phrase as it is the Mandub of Adhan] and would kiss the tip of the
index fingers [or thumbs] and wipe his eyes. The Prophet (may Allah’s
peace and blessings be upon him!) said: whosoever does what my
friend [i.e., Abu Bakr] did, my intercession will come down upon him]
(Related by al-Daylami, with variants).

Almost all of the Muhaddith consider this and other Hadiths like it to be
weak [Da'if] (at its lowest level, a Marfu’ Hadith [something ascribed to
the Prophet]; and it is because the Hadith is Da’if that the ‘amal is
counted among the Fada’il, and not the confirmed Sunna!).
Nevertheless, this is definitely not a fabricated Hadith [Mawdu'], and
weak Hadiths are not and cannot be considered as false and lies.
Furthermore, as Sayyid ‘Alawi al-Maliki (may Allah be pleased with
him!) reported in his dedicated treatise on the rules concerning the use
of weak Hadiths, the Manhal Latif, that scholars of the four law-schools
[madhhab] concurred by Ijma’ [Consensus]–and that this Ijma’ was
recorded from the time of the Mujtahid Imam, Ahmad Ibn Hanbal (may
Allah be well pleased with him!) until now–that any Hadith which are
Da’if (as long as it is not Mawdu’), can be acted upon for the Fada’il al-
A’mal ['Alawi al-Maliki, Manhal, 251-253]. Literally, “Fada’il al-A’mal”
means ‘extra works’; but technically it means the extra acts of
devotion performed, or refrained from, beyond one’s call of duty in
order to please the Lawmaker, that is, an ‘amal that can lead to it’s
being classed either as recommended [i.e., Mandub/Sunna/Mustahabb]
or disliked [Makruh] but never Wajib [obligatory] or Haram [prohibited].
In this mas’ala, of course, it is a recommended act (and not Makruh).

Know that he who blames others–in the name of bid’a–for carrying out
an ‘amal, saying that it is based on a weak Hadith or that the ‘amal is
not based on an authentic Hadith, shows a sign that he may not be a
trained faqih (whether he is called a Mufti/Shaykh/Mawlana or not); and
that he probably has knowledge only of the literal Arabic but not a
deep understanding of what is beyond the text, which is what the jurist
is expected to know. In the old days, when scholarship was taken for
granted (because scholastic ‘alims were many and accessible then),
even the public knew that a weak Hadith can form the basis of an
‘amal. Imam al-Nawawi (may Allah be pleased with him!), in his
popular work the Adhkar, says:

“The specialists of Hadiths [i.e., Muhaddith] and the jurists [Fuqaha']

and other (scholars) have said that one is permitted, and in fact is
recommended, to use weak Hadith in matters of ‘extra acts of
devotion’ [Fada'il] and in ‘arousing one’s desire to do good and
inspiring one’s fear from doing evil’ [Targhib wa al-Tarhib]–as long as it
is not a fabricated Hadith. As for the legal rulings pertaining to what is
lawful and unlawful [al-Halal wa al-Haram], buying and selling,
marriage and divorce, and others like it [because all of them involve
either an injunctive legal ruling [Hukm Shar'i Taklifi] (such as Haram
and Wajib) or a stipulatory legal ruling [Hukm Shar'i Wad'i] (such as
Shart and Mani’)] are concerned, one can only use a rigorously
authenticated Hadith [Sahih] or a well authenticated Hadith [Hasan],
except if a precautionary ruling [Ihtiyat] is [involved] in some matter
relating to one of them. So, if a weak Hadith is found to object against
some types of sales or some form of marriages, then it is
recommended to avoid it (i.e., the sale or the marriage) even when it is
not obligatory to do so [and even when the sale or the marriage is
legally valid].” [al-Nawawi, Adhkar, 7-8]

I am not a Hanafi scholar (from whom you should really be asking your
fiqhi/furu’ questions), but classical Hanafi reference texts such as those
of the Muhaqqiq of your school, Ibn ‘Abidin (and in spite the fact that
he knew this ‘amal is based on weak Hadiths, he nevertheless) relates
the opinion that this ‘amal is permissible and even Mustahabb, that is,
the act when done will entail a reward. [Ibn 'Abidin, Hashiya, 2:84-5]. In
practice, apart from the Hanafis, some Shafi’i communities have
inherited this ‘amal, and among the Malikis, those who are in the
Sudan.

###Qa’ida### To this end, we could sum up a point of law tersely in

the following maxim: al-’amalu bi-r-riDA yanfI l-Hurmata [an act that is
consented to, prevents prohibition].
What I mean by this qa’ida is that once something has been accepted
by some of the mustahiqq, in this case, the scholars and the public
alike, no one has any right [haqq] to object to it.

So do not be swayed by what you read if Muslims have been doing this
in the past and are still doing this fadila ‘amal. If there are others who
blame you for carrying on with this inherited ‘amal, then know that the
person, apart from wasting his precious time, knows not how to leave
alone what does not concern him [tark ma la ya'nih] where his time
could be better spent in improving the lot of the Muslims today or
benefiting others in this world. Not only does he not know how to mind
his own business, but he has no right whatsoever to censure [Ihtisab]
you in the first place (and by not tolerating and by criticizing you on
this, he himself is transgressing a well known rule of Bab Amr bi-l-
Ma’ruf wa Nahi ‘an al-Munkar [roughly speaking, the duty of a Muslim
to intervene when another is acting wrongly]: that the duty has no
application in matters over which the fuqaha’ differed, thereby making
himself liable for others to advise him). Furthermore, what is more
embarrassing is that there is no legal basis ['illa] and cause [sabab]
that warrants a Hisba for this case, or at least no jurist properly
schooled will ever entertain the thought. For when others are blamed
by a Muhtasib for carrying out this ‘amal, it is no different from the
case of someone becoming upset at the sight of a pedestrian suddenly
stopping to remove a wad of old chewing gum from his path (ponder
over this!) or at the very minimum, complaining why a customer is
buying only apples and not oranges.

According to Shafi’i jurists, this act is counted among the Fada’il, and
there are undeniable benefits for those who wish to take from it and
they are means to make one rich in the Next world; and in the same
way that the one performing it cannot criticize others for neglecting it,
nor can others criticize those who carry on doing it. It is a matter of
personal choice (for one’s private-but-made-public bank account is no
one else’s in the Next world) if one wants to take or overlook this
Fadila in this world: take it or leave it, no more.

Allahumma aj’alna mina’l-’amilin wa-la taj’alna mina’l-mutakallikim!

[O' Allah! Make us among those who do some work, not among those
who can only talk]; Amin!

May this be of benefit.

wa sallallahu ‘ala Muhammadin wa ‘ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam

wa billahi t-tawfiq wa l-hidaya wa l-hamdulillah rabbi l-’alamin.

Your silent brother in Oxford,

M. Afifi al-Akiti
24 Muharram 1425
17 III 2004

Select Bibliography:

‘Alawi al-Maliki. al-Manhal al-Latif fi Ahkam al-Hadith al-Da’if. In Majmu’

Fatawa wa-Rasa’il al-Imam al-Sayyid ‘Alawi al-Maliki al-Hasani. Edited
by [his son and our scholar] Muhammad ibn ‘Alawi al-Maliki al-Makki al-
Hasani. [Medina: Matabi' al-Rashid], 1413 H.

al-Bakri. Hashiyat I’anat al-Talibin. 4 vols. Bulaq, 1300 H.

al-Jurdani. Fath al-’Allam bi-Sharh Murshid al-Anam fi al-Fiqh ‘ala

Madhhab al-Sadah al-Shafi’iyah. Edited by Muhammad al-Hajjar. 4 vols.
Cairo: Dar al-Salam, 1990.

Ibn ‘Abidin. Radd al-Muhtar ‘ala Durr al-Mukhtar Hashiyat Ibn ‘Abidin.
Edited by ‘Abd al-Majid Tu’mah Halabi. 12 vols. Beirut: Dar al-Ma’rifa,
2000.

al-Nawawi. al-Adhkar al-Muntakhab min Kalam Sayyid al-Abrar. Beirut:

al-Maktaba al-’Umawiyya, 1955.