Narration No. 8
عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ سِيرِينَ، قَالَ حُجْرُ بْنُ عَدِيٍّ: لَا تَغْسِلُوا عَنِّي دَمًا، وَلَا تُطْلِقُوا عَنِّي قَيْدًا، وَادْفِنُونِي فِي ثِيَابِي فَإِنَّا نَلْتَقِي غَدًا بِالْجَادَّةِ۔
“Muhammad bin Sirin says that Hujr bin Adi said: Do not wash my blood off me, do not remove my shackles, and bury me in these very clothes of mine, for tomorrow we will meet while remaining firm upon our position.”
This narration is da’if (weak) with this chain of narration; in it is a narrator, Ash’ath, who is da’if (weak).
. However, in “Masa’il al-Imam Ahmad” it is also narrated through another chain, all of whose narrators are thiqah (reliable)
. That detailed narration is coming later, and it too is in favour of Sayyiduna Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him).
Narration No. 9
Abu Zur’ah bin Amr bin Jarir says:
مَا وَفَدَ جَرِيرٌ قَطُّ إِلَّا وَفَدْتُ مَعَهُ، وَمَا دَخَلَ عَلَى مُعَاوِيَةَ إِلَّا دَخَلْتُ مَعَهُ، وَمَا دَخَلْنَا مَعَهُ عَلَيْهِ إِلَّا ذَكَرَ قَتْلَ حُجْرِ بْنِ عَدِيٍّ۔
“Whenever Jarir bin Abdullah (may Allah be pleased with him) went on a journey as part of a delegation, I always went with him. And whenever he went to Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him), I also always went with him to him. And whenever we went to Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him), Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him) would mention the killing of Hujr bin Adi.”
This narration is sahih (authentic), but in this too there is no trace of anything like what Mirza Sahib has stated. Rather, it proves that Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him) used to keep consulting the Companions regarding this matter. But Jarir bin Abdullah (may Allah be pleased with him) never said to Sayyiduna Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him) anything at all like: this is an unjust killing, or: you want to kill them in revenge for Sayyiduna Ali (may Allah be pleased with him), and so on. Had the decision of Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him) been wrong, the noble Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) would certainly have opposed him. Jarir (may Allah be pleased with him) would have even stopped him from mentioning this killing, rather than going repeatedly to hear something about an unjust killing.
Narration No. 10
عَنِ ابْنِ سِيرِينَ، أَنَّ زِيَادًا، أَطَالَ الْخُطْبَةَ، فَقَالَ حُجْرُ بْنُ عَدِيٍّ: الصَّلَاة! فَمَضَى فِي خُطْبَتِهِ، فَقَالَ لَهُ: الصَّلَاة، وَضَرَبَ بِيَدِهِ إِلَى الْحَصَى، وَضَرَبَ النَّاسُ بِأَيْدِيهِمْ إِلَى الْحَصَى، فَنَزَلَ فَصَلَّى، ثُمَّ كَتَبَ فِيهِ إِلَى مُعَاوِيَةَ فَكَتَبَ مُعَاوِيَةُ: أَنْ سَرِّحْ بِهِ إِلَيَّ فَسَرَّحَهُ إِلَيْهِ، فَلَمَّا قَدِمَ عَلَيْهِ قَالَ: السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكَ يَا أَمِيرَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ. قَالَ: وَأَمِيرُ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ أَنَا؟ إِنِّي لَا أُقِيلُكَ، وَلَا أَسْتَقِيلُكَ، فَأَمَرَ بِقَتْلِهِ، فَلَمَّا انْطَلَقُوا بِهِ طَلَبَ مِنْهُمْ أَنْ يَأْذَنُوا لَهُ، فَيُصَلِّيَ رَكْعَتَيْنِ، فَأَذِنُوا لَهُ فَصَلَّى رَكْعَتَيْنِ، ثُمَّ قَالَ: لَا تُطْلِقُوا عَنِّي حَدِيدًا، وَلَا تَغْسِلُوا عَنِّي دَمًا، وَادْفِنُونِي فِي ثِيَابِي فَإِنِّي مُخَاصِمٌ۔
“Muhammad bin Sirin says: When Ziyad prolonged the sermon, Hujr bin Adi said: The prayer! But Ziyad continued his sermon. Hujr said to him again: The prayer! And along with that he struck his hand on the ground, and at the same time the other people also struck their hands on the ground / pointed towards the pebbles. Ziyad came down from the pulpit and led the prayer, and wrote a letter to Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him) about Hujr. Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him) wrote in reply: Send him to me. Ziyad sent him to Sayyiduna Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him). When Hujr bin Adi reached Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him), he said: Peace be upon you, O Commander of the Believers. Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him) said: Am I the Commander of the Believers? I will neither speak anything to you nor listen to anything. Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him) ordered his killing. When they took him away to be killed, he asked for a respite to pray two rak’ahs, so he was given the respite. He prayed two rak’ahs and then said: Do not remove my shackles from me, do not wash my blood off my body, and bury me in these very clothes of mine, for (on the Day of Resurrection) I will be one who disputes.”
Its chain of narration is da’if (weak); in it is a narrator, “Hisham bin Hassan”, who is a mudallis (one who practises tadlis), whom Allama Ibn Hajar (may Allah have mercy on him) counted in the third category of mudallis narrators.
Mirza Sahib himself keeps repeating by rote: a mudallis’s narration with “an” is weak, a mudallis’s narration with “an” is weak, but since now objections are to be raised against the Companions, everything is therefore authentic.
Even in this weak narration there is no evidence for you. The words of Engineer Sahib are: “Read those thirteen hadiths and your tears will not stop, with what cruelty Hujr ibn Adi was killed. Only on the ground that he used to delay the Friday prayer, used to curse and abuse Ali from the pulpits, and this one (Hujr bin Adi) used to oppose.” That is, the impression being given to his ignorant listeners is that the governors of Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him), including himself, used to delay the Friday prayer, whereas in this only Ziyad’s name occurs. And that too is not as a routine, rather only a single occasion is mentioned. And then there is not even a trace of any mention that he was cursing and abusing Sayyiduna Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) in the sermon.
Narration No. 11
مُخَشِّيُّ بْنُ حُجْرِ بْنِ عَدِيٍّ، عَنْ أَبِيهِ، أَنَّ النَّبِيَّ صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ خَطَبَهُمْ، فَقَالَ: أَيُّ يَوْمٍ هَذَا؟ قَالُوا: يَوْمٌ حَرَامٌ، قَالَ: فَأَيُّ بَلَدٍ هَذَا؟ قَالُوا: الْبَلَدُ الْحَرَامُ، قَالَ: فَأَيُّ شَهْرٍ؟ قَالُوا: شَهْرٌ حَرَامٌ، قَالَ: فَإِنَّ دِمَاءَكُمْ وَأَمْوَالَكُمْ وَأَعْرَاضَكُمْ حَرَامٌ عَلَيْكُمْ كَحُرْمَةِ يَوْمِكُمْ هَذَا كَحُرْمَةِ شَهْرِكُمْ هَذَا كَحُرْمَةِ بَلَدِكُمْ هَذَا، لِيُبَلِّغِ الشَّاهِدُ الْغَائِبَ، لَا تَرْجِعُوا بَعْدِي كُفَّارًا يَضْرِبُ بَعْضُكُمْ رِقَابَ بَعْضٍ۔
“Mukhshi bin Hujr bin Adi narrates from his father Hujr bin Adi that the Prophet ﷺ, while addressing them in a sermon, said: What day is this? The people said: A sacred day. He ﷺ asked: What city is this? The people said: The sacred city. Then he ﷺ asked: What month is this? The people replied: A sacred month. Then he ﷺ said: So your blood, your wealth and your honour are forbidden to you in the same way as the sanctity of this day of yours, as the sanctity of this month of yours, and as the sanctity of this city of yours. Let those of you who are present convey it to those who are not present. Do not return to disbelief after me, striking one another’s necks.”
Perhaps the intention by this is to prove that Hujr bin Adi was a Companion and that he also heard hadiths directly from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. But this inference is questionable, because here Imam al-Hakim (may Allah have mercy on him) made a slip. In reality, this narration was reported by a narrator named “Mukhshi bin Hujayr” from his father “Hujayr (may Allah be pleased with him)”, but he (may Allah have mercy on him) made an error and took it to be Mukhshi bin Hujr from Hujr bin Adi.
Imam Ibn Abi Asim, Imam al-Tabarani and Imam Ibn Mandah (may Allah have mercy on them) narrated this hadith with the wording “Mukhshi bin Hujayr from his father Hujayr”.
Hafiz Ibn Hajar (may Allah have mercy on him) also transmitted this hadith under the chapter of Hujayr bin Abi Hujayr al-Hilali (may Allah be pleased with him), through the route of: عكرمة بن عمار، أخبرني مخشي بن حجير عن أبيه.
Allama Muqbil bin Hadi and Mr. Muhammad Diya’ al-Rahman al-A’zami have also explicitly stated that the correct form here is “Mukhshi bin Hujayr from his father Hujayr”, and that Imam al-Hakim was mistaken in this matter.
Furthermore, Imam al-Haythami (may Allah have mercy on him) declared Mukhshi bin Hujayr to be majhul (unknown).
Narration No. 12
Ibrahim bin Ya’qub states:
قَدْ أَدْرَكَ حُجْرُ بْنُ عَدِيٍّ الْجَاهِلِيَّةَ، وَأَكَلَ الدَّمَ فِيهَا، ثُمَّ صَحِبَ رَسُولَ اللهِ صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ وَسَمِعَ مِنْهُ، وَشَهِدَ مَعَ عَلِيِّ بْنِ أَبِي طَالِبٍ رَضِيَ اللهُ عَنْهُ الْجَمَلَ، وَصِفِّينَ، وَقُتِلَ فِي مُوَالَاةِ عَلِيٍّ
“Hujr bin Adi also lived in the Jahiliyyah (pre-Islamic era), and in that period he also ate blood, then he gained the companionship of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and also heard from him, and he also took part with Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) in the Battle of the Camel and at Siffin, and he was martyred among the lovers of Ali (may Allah be pleased with him).”
Narration No. 13
عَنْ مَرْوَانَ بْنِ الْحَكَمِ، قَالَ: دَخَلْتُ مَعَ مُعَاوِيَةَ عَلَى أُمِّ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ عَائِشَةَ رَضِيَ اللهُ عَنْهَا فَقَالَتْ: يَا مُعَاوِيَةُ، قَتَلْتَ حُجْرًا وَأَصْحَابَهُ، وَفَعَلْتَ الَّذِي فَعَلْتَ، وَذَكَرَ الْحِكَايَةَ بِطُولِهَا۔
“Marwan ibn al-Hakam said: I went in with Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him) to the Mother of the Believers, Sayyidah Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her), and she said: O Mu’awiyah! You killed Hujr ibn Adi and his companions, and you did what you did with them besides that, and the narrator related the whole incident.”
This is the short narration. Along with it, the Engineer presents the narration of Musnad Ahmad, in which the details are given. The impression he tries to give is that Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him) had Hujr ibn Adi unjustly killed, that the Companions were strongly opposed to him for it, and that Sayyidah Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) was extremely angry with him over this act. But all of this is one hundred percent false; this narration is severely da’if (weak).
After quoting this narration, Imam Nur al-Din al-Haythami (may Allah have mercy on him) said: وفيه علي بن زيد، وهو ضعيف “In it (its chain) is the narrator Ali ibn Zayd, who is da’if (weak).”
Imam Abu al-Abbas al-Busiri (may Allah have mercy on him) writes under this narration: هذا إسناد ضعيف، لضعف علي بن زيد بن جدعان “This chain is da’if (weak) because of the weakness of Ali ibn Zayd ibn Jud’an.”
Further details on this follow, so when the narration is not established at all, then to use it as evidence is invalid.
So bring to mind what Mirza Sahib said while citing these narrations, and here before you are all thirteen of those narrations whose references were shown on the screen. Is there in even one narration a trace of even one of the things the Engineer said? Is this not deception? And is it not throwing dust in people’s eyes in the name of references? Whenever one speaks to Mirza Sahib’s blind followers, their statement is always that the respected teacher says everything with a reference. So here, look at the state of the references!
It is astonishing how blind Mirza Sahib’s followers are, that even after all this their eyes do not open. The Engineer often says sarcastically, “Brother, my Bukhari was not printed in Iran,” and so on. But here this objection is also removed. Although you narrate from these very books and not from Iranian (Shia) books, the films those people in Iran have made against the Companions are certainly running in your mind. You give the reference of some book, but everything you narrate is presenting the central idea of that same film. And the blind followers think, “Here everything is stated with a reference.” Yet they would never dare to open the book themselves and check whether what is being told to us has any reality or not.
Then the state of the references given is also before you: in some there is a da’if (weak) and matruk (abandoned) narrator, in some a liar, in some a majhul (unknown) narrator; some are weak because of tadlis (concealment), and some are severely munqati’ (broken chain). Despite this, Mirza Sahib claims that his case consists only of narrations with sahih (authentic) chains. If this is the state of these narrations regarding the killing of Hujr ibn Adi, then think what the state of the historical narrations must be. Therefore, whatever is said in this regard while raising objections against Mu’awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him) is all false; it has not even an iota of reality. Nor can the Engineer present this false claim of his from any sahih (authentic) narration. Rather, Mirza Sahib on this occasion too follows the conduct of those Shia reciters about whom he himself used to say that these are some ignorant reciters who keep narrating false narrations in order to object against the Companions. Fine, they are ignorant, but Mirza Sahib, you are educated, aren’t you? Then why do you become an educated ignorant person? And why do you make false accusations against the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) and spread them?
