Question:
Assalamu alaykum Shaykh
Greetings to all the staff at eshaykh.com. May Allah Almighty reward you you for your efforts Ameen.
During August 2007 Mawlana Shaykh Nazim placed his finger into his mouth and then into my son’s mouth. He was 4 months old at the time. Please clarify what this means.
Shukran.
Answer:
wa `alaykum salam,
It is reported in Sahih Bukhari, as narrated by Asma’ bint Abu Bakr:
I conceived ‘Abdullah bin Az-Zubair at Mecca and went out (of Mecca [on Hijrah]) while I was about to give birth. I came to Medina and encamped at Quba’, and gave birth at Quba’. Then I brought the child to Allah’s Prophet (s) and placed it (on his lap). He asked for a date, chewed it, and put his saliva in the mouth of the child. So the first thing to enter its stomach was the saliva of Allah’s Apostle. Then he did its tahnik with a date, and invoked Allah to bless him.
Al- `Ayni (rahimahullah) said:
“The wisdom behind tahnik is the expectation that the baby would then attain iman and its sweetness, because dates are the fruits of the tree that the Prophet (s) likened to a believer–especially if the person performing tahnik is virtuous or of the righteous `ulama, so that his saliva will enter the baby’s stomach….
It is said, “reeq al-mumin shifa – the saliva of the believer is a cure” and it is supported by the hadith in Sahih Bukhari narrated by Sayyida `Aisha:
The Prophet used to say to the patient, “In the Name of Allah The earth of our land and the saliva of some of us cure our patient.”
And Allah knows best.
Taher Siddiqui
