Understanding Hadith 30 of Nawawi's Forty: Limits and Prohibitions

He (RH) said:

The thirtieth Hadith.

On the authority of Abu Tha'labah al-Khushani, Jundub bin Nashir (RA),

from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ that he said:

"Verily, Allah ﷻ has prescribed obligatory duties, so do not neglect them;"

“and He has set limits, so do not transgress them;”

"and He has forbidden things, so do not violate them;"

"and He has been silent about things out of mercy, not forgetfulness, so do not seek them out."

A good hadith, related by al-Daraqutni and others.

Yes, this is the hadith of Abu Tha'labah.

In it, the Prophet ﷺ said: "Allah has prescribed obligatory duties, so do not neglect them."

We have previously mentioned that it is obligatory to perform the duties completely.

Those unable to do so either transition to an alternative in form,

or to an alternative in description, or they are waived entirely.

Then he said: "and He has forbidden things, so do not violate them,"

meaning it is forbidden to violate them wholly or in part, as previously mentioned.

He also said in this hadith: "And He has set limits, so do not transgress them."

Scholars have an approach in interpreting this sentence.

Some scholars said the Prophet's ﷺ statement, "Allah ﷻ has set limits, so do not transgress them,"

is that "limits" refers to the deterrents, which are the punishments.

These punishments, whether they are the six or seven hudud in books of fiqh, or anything beyond that which requires a ta'zir punishment.

They said: The reasoning for this is to avoid repetition, because if we interpret "limits" as prohibitions,

then it would be a repetition of the sentence that follows it.

Some scholars said—an objection to this first view is that some scholars say

that applying the term "hudud" to the six or seven prescribed punishments mentioned in books of usul...

in books of fiqh is merely a later technical terminology.

This is the approach of Sheikh Taqi al-Din.

and I say "six or seven" based on whether rebellion is a hadd or is it fighting.

Okay.

And some scholars say that the Prophet's ﷺ saying, "and He set limits, so do not transgress them," refers to rulings in general,

because Allah عز وجل called the obligatory duties and inheritance laws "limits",

and He called prohibitions "limits", and He called obligations "limits".

So it would be by way of emphasizing the avoidance of prohibitions,

so you do not commit a prohibition, which includes neglecting an obligation, nor do you perform a forbidden act.

Thus, it is by way of emphasizing prohibitions,

So in this case, two commands combine to avoid the prohibition,

and one command to perform the obligatory act.

Therefore, scholars deduced from this that...

Avoiding the prohibited

is more emphasized than performing the obligatory.

This rule was mentioned by Ibn al-Qayyim (RH) in Al-Fawa'id.

Which is more emphasized: the obligatory act or avoiding the prohibited?

He mentioned a detailed scholarly discussion on this issue.

Among the important matters indicated by this Hadith are two rules.

The first rule is that this Hadith indicates that all rulings exist in Islamic Sharia,

by the text of the Book and the Sunnah, either explicitly, or by implication, which is the understood meaning,

or by meaning, which is qiyas.

The meaning of the discourse is qiyas; the implication of the discourse is its understood meaning,

and its text is the explicit wording,

and absolutely nothing falls outside of it.

Therefore, whoever seeks to dispense with or needs a ruling outside the texts of Sharia,

only demonstrates their ignorance or lack of comprehensive knowledge of the rulings.

This is a great principle repeated by many scholars of narration and reports.

The second rule from this Hadith...

...is that it points to a proof which is the weakest of proofs, yet it is valid.

I said it is the weakest of proofs

because it is only used when proofs from the Quran, Sunnah, consensus, and companions' sayings are absent.

It is the proof of istishab al-bara'a al-asliyya (presumption of original permissibility).

For this hadith indicates that the default ruling for things is permissibility.

"and He was silent about things out of mercy for you, not forgetfulness,"

indicating that the default state is permissibility.

And there is a difference between Istishab of rational proof and Istishab of original innocence.

We say that the valid evidence is the second one, which is Istishab of original innocence,

As for the first — Istishab of rational proof — it is not valid evidence, because the intellect...

does not permit or forbid, so it is not a proof in itself.

Rather, what is a valid proof is istishab al-bara'ah al-asliyyah,

on which scholarly consensus has been reported, yet it is the weakest of proofs,

as Abu al-Khattab said: it is not used except when other proofs are absent.

Why did I say that?

Because when the Zahiris did not apply qiyas

and some types of implied meaning (fahwa al-khatab), on the grounds

that it is a qiyas, which Al-Shafi'i (RH) called a clear qiyas,

this forced them to rely heavily

on the proof of istishab al-bara'ah al-asliyyah.

and thus some odd rulings emerged from them,

as they relied on the weaker proof despite a stronger one existing.

Yes. May Allah bless him.