The Albaani Site

Questioner: Shaikh, a brother is asking about the ḥadīth about cursing … is it referring to specific people or is it general, yaʿnī, ‘… curse them …’, does it mean a specific woman or is it general, directly [to their face] or indirectly?

Al-Albaani: Firstly, the prohibition of cursing is not general, it is allowed to curse specific individuals, whether they be women or men.

So when answering questions like this I always mention [the ḥadīth] where the Prophet ﷺ cursed the tribes of Riʿl and Dhakwān who had killed seventy of the Companions wrongfully, unjustly and sinfully. The Prophet ﷺ was extremely sad over it and he performed the duʿā al-Qunūt against them in the five prayers, supplicating and cursing them until Allaah ﷻ sent down the verse that said:

‘You ˹O Prophet˺ have no say in the matter. It is up to Allaah to turn to them in mercy or punish them, for indeed they are wrongdoers.’ [3:128]

When this āyah came down he ﷺ stopped supplicating against them.

Later what Allaah already knew became clear [to everyone else]: that these murderers who the Prophet ﷺ had cursed in the prayer would turn back and repent to Allaah and enter Islaam, that is why the āyah mentions, ‘… it is up to Allah to turn to them in mercy or punish them,’ and they did indeed repent so Allaah turned in mercy to them.

Thus the Prophet ﷺ supplicated against them by cursing them and in that is a proof for the permissibility of cursing people by name and this does not contradict the fact that in the end the Prophet ﷺ stopped cursing them, because the reason for stopping was that Allaah sent that āyah down and they turned back to Allaah ﷻ, repentant.

This has been reported in the two Ṣaḥīḥs and other texts confirm it, one of the clearest [narrations] apart from this ḥadīth, ‘Curse them for they are cursed,’—the answer to which is coming—[but] one of the [other] clearest proofs showing the permissibility of cursing a specific person, with the condition that said person is deserving of being cursed, is what has been reported in Al-Adab al-Mufrad of Imām al-Bukhārī and other books of the Sunnah from Abū Hurairah ﵁: that one of the Companions came to the Prophet ﷺ complaining about a neighbour who had oppressed him, so he ﷺ said, ‘Put your belongings in the middle of the street,’ and so he did. So then people would pass by and ask, ‘What happened, O so and so?’ He would reply, ‘My neighbour, so and so, has oppressed me.’ So they would walk by saying, ‘May Allaah kill him! May Allaah curse him!’ So the oppressor’s ˹guilt distressed him˺ until the earth, despite its vastness, seemed to close in on him and so he went to the Prophet ﷺ to say to him, ‘O Messenger of Allaah! Tell my neighbour to take his belongings back inside because the people are cursing me.’ So he ﷺ said, ‘The ones in the Heavens have cursed you before those on earth …’

The point taken from this ḥadīth is that these people who were passing by the house were Companions. And in today’s terminology they learnt and graduated from Muḥammad’s school ﷺ, and they would not send forth their curses on this man who oppressed his neighbour if they hadn’t learnt the permissibility of making such a curse against such an oppressor from their Prophet ﷺ. This is the first point.

The second point is that when this oppressor mentioned to the Prophet ﷺ how the people were cursing him hoping that he ﷺ would tell the wronged neighbour to take his belongings back inside, the Prophet ﷺ told him, ‘The ones in the heavens have cursed you before those on earth …,’ this means that, firstly, the inhabitants of the heavens curse specific people and secondly that the Prophet ﷺ agreed with those who were cursing this oppressor, and his ﷺ [tacit] approval is a ruling and is legislation [in and of itself].

And [this story is enough to establish this point on its own] even if we didn’t have the [additional] story of the Prophet’s ﷺ supplication against Riʿl and Dhakwān [which I mentioned in the opening].

When we understand this and then go back to his statement ﷺ about the women who display themselves [mutabarrijāt, where he said], ‘Curse them for they are cursed,’—is this then cursing them in public or secretly? [Actually] the issue is not whether it is allowed to curse publicly or not, but rather is it allowed unrestrictedly or not? Is it allowed for me to call on Allaah to curse someone secretly without anyone hearing me? After which comes the [next] question: is it also allowed for me to publicly/openly curse this person who I was cursing secretly?—this is another issue.

So his ﷺ saying, ‘Curse them for they are cursed,’ is an open proof for the permissibility of cursing mutabarrijāt women, as for whether it is allowed to do that publicly, then the answer is as you have just heard, it is allowed—because the Companions cursed that man openly.

But if we wanted to curse mutabarrijāt women, copying those noble Companions who cursed that oppressor and who the Prophet ﷺ agreed with, then we need to consider that they wanted to nurture that oppressor and deter him from oppressing [his neighbour]—so if we want to raise our voices so that the rebellious transgressors [fāsiqāt] and the mutabarrijāt hear our curses in order for it to help rectify them and we feel that this method will indeed help cultivate them: then such an action is legislated.

But if there is no benefit that will come about from such open cursing—which I think is [actually] the case in this day and age, and in fact there might be [more] harm that comes about [instead], because the general climate is not in Islaam’s favour or in favour of Islamic legislation—… so for example day and night you will hear lots of open sinners and dissolute wicked people and those who have no share in Islaam abusing Allaah ﷻ and abusing the Messenger ﷺ and the dīn, and the law pays no attention. But if one of them were to abuse ‘His Majesty,’ then how quickly he would be taken into custody, prosecuted and imprisoned and so on. So it’s as if they placed the king above the [One having] True Majesty, above the Lord of Honour.

So the [current] climate in ordering good and forbidding evil does not aid us in implementing [the action of] cursing mutabarrijāt women out loud, because the one who does so will be taken, criticised, abused and maybe imprisoned. And then what will happen to him is the same thing that happened to some of the people of weak īmān when Iraq was conquered and the disbelievers won, what did your mate, who is not [actually] your mate, say?

Questioner: [laughing] he said, ‘Now I believe that Christianity is the truth, because it beat Islam.’

Al-Albaani: Allaahu Akbar! Does a Muslim say this?!

So the point here in cursing mutabarrijāt women publicly is that it comes under Islamic legal politics: so where it is thought that doing it openly will have some benefit it is legislated and if not, then it is not done.
Al-Hudā wan-Nūr, 531.