4 of 8 · On one of the expeditions · A halt without water, on the road
'A'ishah bint Abi Bakr رضي الله عنها
The Blessing of the Family of Abu Bakr
On one journey, 'A'ishah lost a necklace she had borrowed from her sister Asma'. The Prophet ﷺ halted the army to search for it, at a place with no water, and the time for prayer came. People complained to Abu Bakr, who came and scolded his daughter while the Prophet ﷺ slept with his head on her lap; she did not move, so as not to wake him.
Then the verse of tayammum was revealed, allowing those without water to purify themselves with clean earth: ﴿فَتَيَمَّمُوا صَعِيدًا طَيِّبًا﴾ (“then seek clean earth”) (5:6). Usayd ibn Hudayr exclaimed, "This is not the first of your blessings, O family of Abu Bakr!" When they moved the camel she had been riding, they found the necklace beneath it (Sahih al-Bukhari 334).
What looked like a mistake and a delay became an ease for the whole Ummah until the end of time.
Can you recall an inconvenience that later turned out to be a mercy?
- Sahih al-Bukhari 334 Sahih · in the two Sahihs
- Sahih Muslim 367 Sahih · in the two Sahihs
- Qur'an 5:6
What the hadith grades mean
- Sahih (authentic): an unbroken chain of trustworthy, precise narrators, free of hidden flaws or contradiction. It is acted upon.
- Hasan (good): like sahih, but a narrator's precision is slightly lighter. It is also accepted and acted upon. "Hasan sahih" means it reaches sahih by its routes.
- Da'if (weak): a break in the chain or a narrator who is not reliable enough. It is not used to establish beliefs or rulings.
- Very weak (munkar, matruk): a seriously flawed chain or a narrator accused of lying. It is not relied on at all.
- Mawdu' (fabricated): falsely attributed to the Prophet ﷺ. It may not be narrated as his words except to warn against it.
- The two Sahihs: every hadith with a full chain in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim is accepted as sahih by the scholars of hadith.
- Historical report: biographies and histories (Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabari) record events with chains that are often incomplete. They are used for the story, not for rulings.
- Hadith scholars grade a narration; the four madhhabs do not. Where a hadith carries a ruling, the page shows which schools act on it.
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