Title: Hadith regarding the Punishment of Collective Sins Question: Q1: Is the following hadith sound and correct when it comes to the current situation of the Muslim Ummah? The companion 'Abdullaah Ibn 'Abbaas r.a., narrated that the Prophet sallallaahu 'alaihi wa sallam said: "Five matters result when five things happen: If people break their covenant with Allaah, He will send an enemy against them; If they rule by other than the Law of Allaah, poverty will spread among them; If they become deceptive in trade, Allaah will deprive them of crops and they will be struck with famine; And if they withhold the payment of Zakaah, they will be struck with drought." (At- Tabaraani) Q2: If I had all the resources, I would really want to try to determine the correctness of the above hadith as an exercise by myself and to learn. I saw a similar detailed analysis of a hadith on the timings of Asr prayer ( Hadith ) on one of your recent articles. What do you think if I were to follow all the steps to find if a hadith is sound or not, Step 1: Make sure that the hadith is sound by determining a STRICTLY unbroken chain of narrators. Step 2: There is reference in the Quran or Sunnah that supports such a hadith . Step 3: Neither against common sense nor against the very nature of human beings. Thank you for your help and continue the great work. May Allah reward you plentiful. Most Sincerely, Amir United States of America Answer: This narrative has been reported with some variations in Al-Tabraniy's Mo`jam al-Kabeer (No. 10992), Al-Tabraniy's Musnad Al-Shaamiyyin (No. 1558), Ibn Maajah's Sunan (No. 4019) and Mu'atta of Imam Malik (No. 981) besides some other books [1] . The text that you have cited seems to be taken from Al-Tabraniy's Mo`jam al-Kabeer , which is reproduced below: حدثنا محمد بن علي المروزي ثنا أبو الدرداء عبد العزيز بن المنيب حدثني إسحاق بن عبد الله بن كيسان حدثني أبي عن الضحاك بن مزاحم عن مجاهد وطاوس عن بن عباس رضي الله عنهما قال قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم خمس بخمس قالوا يا رسول الله وما خمس بخمس قال ما نقض قوم العهد إلا سلط عليهم عدوهم وما حكموا بغير ما أنزل الله إلا فشا فيهم الفقر ولا ظهرت فيهم الفاحشة إلا فشا فيهم الموت ولا طففوا المكيال إلا منعوا النبات وأخذوا بالسنين ولا منعوا الزكاة إلا حبس عنهم القطر ( المعجم الكبير ج 11 ص 45 ، رقم الحديث 10992) Although the chain of narrators is generally not as strong as one might want it to be to safely ascribe it to the Prophet of God [2] , yet the content seems to be generally acceptable and based on the law relating specially to nations that have been appointed as 'Witnesses of God's Justice' on earth. You ask: Is the following hadith sound and correct when it comes to the current situation of the Muslim Ummah? The narrative is actually related to the law of the Almighty relating to the nations appointed as Witness of God's Justice on earth (i.e., the Ishmaelites in particular). The narrative states that for such nations God's justice is not deferred, as is generally the case with other nations. In the case of nations appointed as witnesses of God's justice, they are rewarded and punished, as the case may be, almost immediately. The case of other nations, although subject to the same laws over a long period of time, is not as swift. This law has been elaborated in detail, for the Israelites, in the Torah in Deuteronomy 28: 1 - 68, in the following words: Now it shall be, if you diligently obey the LORD your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I command you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you obey the LORD your God: Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country. Blessed shall be the offspring of your body and the produce of your ground and the offspring of your beasts, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. The LORD shall cause your enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you; they will come out against you one way and will flee before you seven ways. The LORD will command the blessing upon you in your barns and in all that you put your hand to, and He will bless you in the land which the LORD your God gives you. The LORD will establish you as a holy people to Himself, as He swore to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in His ways. So all the peoples of the earth will see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they will be afraid of you. The LORD will make you abound in prosperity, in the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your beast and in the produce of your ground, in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers to give you. The LORD will open for you His good storehouse, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand; and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. The LORD will make you the head and not the tail, and you only will be above, and you will not be underneath, if you listen to the commandments of the LORD your God, which I charge you today, to observe them carefully, and do not turn aside from any of the words which I command you today, to the right or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them. But it shall come about, if you do not obey the LORD your God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes with which I charge you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country. Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Cursed shall be the offspring of your body and the produce of your ground, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock. Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out. The LORD will send upon you curses, confusion, and rebuke, in all you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken Me. The LORD will make the pestilence cling to you until He has consumed you from the land where you are entering to possess it. The LORD will smite you with consumption and with fever and with inflammation and with fiery heat and with the sword and with blight and with mildew, and they will pursue you until you perish. The heaven which is over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you, iron. The LORD will make the rain of your land powder and dust; from heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed. The LORD shall cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you will go out one way against them, but you will flee seven ways before them, and you will be an example of terror to all the kingdoms of the earth. Your carcasses will be food to all birds of the sky and to the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away. The LORD will smite you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors and with the scab and with the itch, from which you cannot be healed. The LORD will smite you with madness and with blindness and with bewilderment of heart; and you will grope at noon, as the blind man gropes in darkness, and you will not prosper in your ways; but you shall only be oppressed and robbed continually, with none to save you. You shall betroth a wife, but another man will violate her; you shall build a house, but you will not live in it; you shall plant a vineyard, but you will not use its fruit. Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat of it; your donkey shall be torn away from you, and will not be restored to you; your sheep shall be given to your enemies, and you will have none to save you. Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, while your eyes look on and yearn for them continually; but there will be nothing you can do. A people whom you do not know shall eat up the produce of your ground and all your labors, and you will never be anything but oppressed and crushed continually. You shall be driven mad by the sight of what you see. The LORD will strike you on the knees and legs with sore boils, from which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head. The LORD will bring you and your king, whom you set over you, to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone. You shall become a horror, a proverb, and a taunt among all the people where the LORD drives you. You shall bring out much seed to the field but you will gather in little, for the locust will consume it. You shall plant and cultivate vineyards, but you will neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worm will devour them. You shall have olive trees throughout your territory but you will not anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives will drop off. You shall have sons and daughters but they will not be yours, for they will go into captivity. The cricket shall possess all your trees and the produce of your ground. The alien who is among you shall rise above you higher and higher, but you will go down lower and lower. He shall lend to you, but you will not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you will be the tail. So all these curses shall come on you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you would not obey the LORD your God by keeping His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. They shall become a sign and a wonder on you and your descendants forever. Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and a glad heart, for the abundance of all things; therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in the lack of all things; and He will put an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you. The LORD will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as the eagle swoops down, a nation whose language you shall not understand, a nation of fierce countenance who will have no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young. Moreover, it shall eat the offspring of your herd and the produce of your ground until you are destroyed, who also leaves you no grain, new wine, or oil, nor the increase of your herd or the young of your flock until they have caused you to perish. It shall besiege you in all your towns until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout your land, and it shall besiege you in all your towns throughout your land which the LORD your God has given you. Then you shall eat the offspring of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, during the siege and the distress by which your enemy will oppress you. The man who is refined and very delicate among you shall be hostile toward his brother and toward the wife he cherishes and toward the rest of his children who remain, so that he will not give even one of them any of the flesh of his children which he will eat, since he has nothing else left, during the siege and the distress by which your enemy will oppress you in all your towns. The refined and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground for delicateness and refinement, shall be hostile toward the husband she cherishes and toward her son and daughter, and toward her afterbirth which issues from between her legs and toward her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of anything else, during the siege and the distress by which your enemy will oppress you in your towns. If you are not careful to observe all the words of this law which are written in this book, to fear this honored and awesome name, the LORD your God, then the LORD will bring extraordinary plagues on you and your descendants, even severe and lasting plagues, and miserable and chronic sicknesses. He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt of which you were afraid, and they will cling to you. Also every sickness and every plague which, not written in the book of this law, the LORD will bring on you until you are destroyed. Then you shall be left few in number, whereas you were as numerous as the stars of heaven, because you did not obey the LORD your God. It shall come about that as the LORD delighted over you to prosper you, and multiply you, so the LORD will delight over you to make you perish and destroy you; and you will be torn from the land where you are entering to possess it. Moreover, the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth; and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone, which you or your fathers have not known. Among those nations you shall find no rest, and there will be no resting place for the sole of your foot; but there the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and despair of soul. So your life shall hang in doubt before you; and you will be in dread night and day, and shall have no assurance of your life. In the morning you shall say, 'Would that it were evening!' And at evening you shall say, 'Would that it were morning!' because of the dread of your heart which you dread, and for the sight of your eyes which you will see. The LORD will bring you back to Egypt in ships, by the way about which I spoke to you, 'You will never see it again!' And there you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer. As for the present state of the Muslims, it is indeed an extension of the same law. You write: If I had all the resources, I would really want to try to determine the correctness of the above hadith as an exercise by myself and to learn. I saw a similar detailed analysis of a hadith on the timings of Asr prayer ( Hadith ) on one of your recent articles. What do you think if I were to follow all the steps to find if a hadith is sound or not, Step 1: Make sure that the hadith is sound by determining a STRICTLY unbroken chain of narrators. Step 2: There is reference in the Quran or Sunnah that supports such a hadith . Step 3: Neither against common sense nor against the very nature of human beings. I would agree that all these steps are indeed an essential requirement in determining the reliability of the ascription of a given narrative to the Prophet (pbuh). However, in step 1, with 'unbroken', I would also like to add 'reliable'. Furthermore, some of the more important steps that may help in determining the context of a narrative and constructing the circumstances that may have led to the narrated incident are: Compiling and analyzing all the variations in the reporting of the incident. Sometimes, other reports of the same incident may provide us with valuable information on the context and circumstances prevailing at the time; Studying and interpreting the narration in the light of the clear directives of the Qur'an and the Sunnah . Sometimes the relevant directives of the Qur'an and the Sunnah guide us to what may have been the circumstances in which the Prophet (pbuh) had recommended a particular course of action; Appreciation of the socio-cultural, economic and other norms and traditions of the society in which the Prophet (pbuh) had made a statement. Appropriate placement of a given directive or action narrated in a Hadith in the overall corpus of Islam in such a manner that the narrative under consideration is fully explained in the light of the Qur'an or the Sunnah or the universally acknowledged moral and ethical values or common and agreed upon knowledge. The foregoing application shall go a long way in helping to determine the context of the narrative as well as to ascertain the circumstances under which the Prophet (pbuh) may have spoken any narrated words or carried out a narrated action and also in determining the correct implication and placement of any directive or information entailed in it. I hope this helps. Moiz Amjad October 29, 2003 [1] Detailed references are given below: مسند الشاميين ج 2 ص 390 ، رقم الحديث 1558 سنن ابن ماجه ج 2 ص 1332 ، رقم الحديث 4019 موطأ مالك ج 2 ص 460 ، رقم الحديث 981 المستدرك على الصحيحين ج 4 ص 583 ، رقم الحديث 8623 المعجم الأوسط ج 5 ص 61 ، رقم الحديث 4671 حلية الأولياء ج 8 ، ص 333 فيض القدير ج 3 ، ص 452 شرح الزرقاني ج 3 ، ص 19 مجمع الزوائد ج 3 ، ص 65 الترغيب والترهيب ج 3 ، ص 118 الترغيب والترهيب ج 1 ، ص 309 ، رقم الحديث 1146 شعب الإيمان ج 3 ، ص 196 ، رقم الحديث 3314 الفردوس بمأثور الخطاب ج 5 ، ص 288 ، رقم الحديث 8209 [2] The narrative reported in Ibn Maajah, which is slightly different from the one reported by Al-Tabraniy, is considered 'Hasan' by Al-Albaniy (See: Al-Albaniy's Sahih Ibn Maajah, vol. 3, pg. 316 and Silsilah Al-Ahadith Al-Sahihah vol. 1, pg 216 - 218).