Mustadrak al-Hakim — Hadith 3293

It is narrated from Ikrimah that he said: I came to Sayyiduna Abdullah bin Abbas (may Allah be pleased with them both) while he was reciting from the mushaf (before he lost his sight) and weeping. I said: "O Abu Abbas, may Allah make me your ransom, why are you weeping?" He said: "Do you know Aylah?" I said: "What is Aylah?" He said: "It was a town in which Jews lived. Allah forbade them (catching) fish on the Sabbath. On their Sabbath day the fish would come to them, white and plump like pregnant camels, surfacing on the water in front of the courtyards and buildings of their houses. But when it was not the Sabbath they would not find them, and could not get them except with great hardship and heavy expense. So some of them said to one another: 'Why do we not catch them on the Sabbath and eat them on a day other than the Sabbath?' So one household among them did that: they caught fish and roasted them, and their neighbours smelled the aroma of the roasting. They said (to themselves): 'By Allah, we see that nothing has befallen the sons of so-and-so (from eating the fish; no punishment has come).' Then others also began to do it, until it became widespread and common among them. So they split into three groups: one group that ate the fish, one group that forbade (the sin), and one group that said: 'Why do you admonish a people whom Allah is going to destroy or punish with a severe punishment?' [Surah al-A'raf: 164]. The group that forbade said: 'We warn you of Allah's wrath and punishment, lest He cause the earth to swallow you, or rain (stones) upon you, or send some other punishment. By Allah, we will not spend the night with you in a place where you are.' So they went out beyond the wall of the town. The next morning they came and knocked on the gate of the wall, but no one answered. They brought a rope, set it against the wall and climbed up. A man looked from the top of the wall and called out: 'O servants of Allah! By Allah, they have become monkeys with tails, and they are howling!' He said this three times. Then he came down and opened the gate, and the people went in. The monkeys recognised their relatives among the humans, but the humans did not recognise their relatives among the monkeys." Ibn Abbas said: "A monkey would come to its human relative and rub its body against him and cling to him, and the person would ask: 'Are you so-and-so?' It would indicate with its head: 'Yes (I am the one)', and weep. Likewise a female monkey would come to her human relative, and he would say: 'Are you so-and-so?' She would indicate with her head: 'Yes', and weep. Then their human relatives said to them: 'Did we not warn you of Allah's wrath and punishment, that He would cause the earth to swallow you, or disfigure your forms, or send some other punishment?'" Sayyiduna Ibn Abbas (may Allah be pleased with them both) said: "Listen to this saying of Allah: 'We saved those who forbade evil, and We seized those who did wrong with a wretched punishment because they were defiantly disobeying' [Surah al-A'raf: 165]. (Ibn Abbas said, weeping:) I do not know what became of that third group. And we too have seen so many evils and did not forbid them!" Ikrimah said: I said: "May Allah make me your ransom! Do you not see that when they said: 'Why do you admonish a people', they certainly condemned that sin and disliked it (that is why they asked this of the admonishers)?" Sayyiduna Ibn Abbas (may Allah be pleased with them both) was very pleased with what I said, and he ordered two thick cloaks for me and clothed me with them.
The chain of this hadith is sahih (authentic), and the two Shaykhs did not record it.