Question
Peace And Blessings Of Allah Be Upon All
A non Muslim friend of mine asked a Question to whether the prophets Father will get paradise or not. To support the point he posted This Hadith
Muslim :: Book 1 : Hadith 398
Anas reported: Verily, a person said: Messenger of Allah, where is my father? He said: (He) is in the Fire. When he turned away, he (the Holy Prophet) called him and said: Verily my father and your father are in the Fire.
Thanks In Advance
Peace Upon All
Answer
It is first important to understand what the Hadith is suggesting:
The Hadith does not suggest that the Prophet’s father is in Hell because of any specific crime or as an exceptional case. The Hadith is in fact making a statement about all people before the Prophet (pbuh) by giving the example of the father of the Prophet (pbuh). The statement that the Hadith is making is as follows:
“people who lived in Arabia just before the Prophet’s (pbuh) mission and did not believe in one God will go to Hell.”
Regardless of whether, technically (i.e. on the basis of the reliability of narrators), the Hadith is correct or not, the above suggestion is against a principle that is clearly given in the Qur’an:
We read:
… your Lord would not destroy towns unjustly while their people were oblivious. – Al An’am 6:131
As it is obvious from the above, punishing people in this world who were not aware of the truth and were unmindful is considered to be an unjust act and one that the Almighty will never do. A simple analogy tells us that this is also true about punishment of Hell, that is, God will not send people to Hell if they were oblivious of the truth. On the basis of the same principle, we read: “… We never punish until we have sent a messenger” (17:15).
We then have:
A Revelation of the Mighty, the Merciful. That you may warn a people whose fathers were not warned, so they are negligent. – Yaseen 36:5-6
So according to this, definitely the people in Arabia closely before the start of the mission of the Prophet (pbuh) were in principle unaware and therefore to punish them because of not believing in one God will not be just (and will not happen) unless there were individuals who knew the truth but arrogantly rejected it.
Abdullah Rahim