Farewell Sermon

The Farewell Sermon (خطبة الوداع‎, Khuṭbatu l-Wadāʕ) is purported to be the Prophet Muhammad's final sermon to his followers before his death in 632 CE, 10 H. However like most elements of the Islamic tradition our sources for this are late, with the earliest mention coming from Ibn Isḥāq who was born 70 years after the death of the prophet. The entirety of the supposed speech shows up in Ibn Isḥāq while Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim and Ṣaḥīḥ Bukhārī report shorter versions. Other sources in Hadith repeat isolated fragments of the speech, one of which reminds men to treat their wives well given that they are prisoners to their husbands. It also echoes Qur'an 4:34 in commanding the beating of women in the case of disobedience. It should be noted that a more recent retelling of the speech which omits this injunction is a recent fabrication and not part of the attested classical tradition.

Introduction

According to Muslim historians, Muhammad’s Farewell Sermon was delivered on the ninth day of Dhu al-Hijjah (Month of Hajj- Pilgrimage 632 CE) in the valley of mount Arafat. This area located in Saudi Arabia was, and still is, considered holy and even today non-Muslims are forbidden from entering.

The sermon took place ten years after Muhammad’s Hijra (هِجْرَة Migration) to Medina, meaning it was after conquering Mecca.

This event took place following this Qur'anic revelation:

Accordingly, the listeners were all strictly Muslim. Muhammad was addressing his own people, since no others were allowed to enter the area of the Sacred Mosque, which includes the Plain of Arafat.

Sources of the Sermon

The sermon is reported in numerous Hadith sources. Some reports mention the full sermon, while others mention fragments of it.

The earliest account of the full sermon was by Ibn Isḥāq (d.150 H) who reported it on the authority of Abdullāh Bin Abī Nujayḥ (d.131) who was a prominent religious authority in Mecca.^[1] Since that he never reported any Hadith directly from a companion of Muhammad^[2], this means that the chain of narration of Ibn Isḥāq’s sermon report has two missing links: The sermon witness and the one who heard the witness’s report.

Ibn Isḥāq’s report is found in Ibn Hishām’s (d. 213 H) biography of Muhammad^[3] which is a summary of Ibn Isḥāq’s missing work. Ibn Isḥāq’s report is also found in the History of Al-Ṭabarī (d. 310 H).^[4]

The second earliest mention of the full sermon after Ibn Isḥāq was by Al-Wāqidī (d. 207 H) who reported it with two chains of narrations: One goes back to Ibn Abbas a cousin of Muhammad, and the other goes back to a witness named ʕamr Bin Yathribī.^[5]

Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim reports a shorter version of the sermon in a narration where the great great grandson of Muhammad (The grandson of Ḥusayn) meets Jābir, a companion of Muhammad who lived until the age of 94 (d.78 H). He asked Jābir to tell him about the prophet’s pilgrimage. Jābir proceeded to detail the events of the pilgrimage including the farewell sermon.^[6]

Ṣaḥīḥ Bukhārī reports a short version that lacks the part about women. (see next section)

Text of the Farewell Sermon

Ibn Isḥāq's version which is the earliest report of the sermon:

Ṣaḥīḥ Bukhārī's verion:

Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim's version:

Importance of the Sermon

The Hadith corpus mentions many sermons by Muhammad but they are very short and usually each sermon includes a single main point. The farewell sermon is the only reported sermon that is long and includes many different points making it the only one that resembles a full sermon. This sermon is significant to Muslims since Muhammad, in front of thousands of followers, bid farewell to his nation by saying that he might not be here ever again, and he died just three months later. He preached several important lessons in this farewell sermon: The sacredness of Muslims’ blood and properties, the abolition of everything pertaining to the pre-Islamic era, how women should be treated by their husbands, and finally that Muslims will never go astray if they hold fast to the book of Allah.

What adds more significance to the sermon is the reports that the following verse was revealed on that day^[7]:

The sermon has impacted practiced Islam in the following ways:

1-Following in the footsteps of Muhammad, delivering a public sermon by an Imam became a ritual part of the Hajj. This sermon called the sermon of Arafah and it’s delivered in Arafah. In modern times this sermon is delivered by a prominent Imam chosen by the Saudi government. The grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia Abdul Aziz Al-Shikh used to be chosen to deliver the sermon every year for over 3 decades until 2015 when he fell ill^[8].  

2-The sermon clarified that the beating mentioned in the Quran as a punishment for wives with ill-conduct shouldn’t be severe. No other Hadith clarified this.

3-The sermon in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim is part of a long report by Jābir where he detailed the events of Muhammad's pilgrimage. This detailed report became an important source for how the Hajj should be conducted.

4-Muhammad ended the sermon by saying “Haven't I conveyed to you? O Allah bear witness”. This expression is sometimes used by religious and public speakers at the end of an important speech.

Although the Hadith corpus is full of reports that are considered misogynistic in modern standards, the farewell sermon is the only Hadith that describes wives as prisoners with their husbands. This description is mentioned in the version by Ibn Isḥāq, Al-Wāqidī and several other sources such as Sunan Ibn Majah^[9] and Al-Tirmidhi^[10]. But it isn’t mentioned in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim’s version. The version of Ṣaḥīḥ Bukhārī drops the portion about beating women from the sermon altogether.

Authenticity of the Sermon

Traditional Sunni Islam takes the sermon as authentic especially that large parts of it are reported in Ṣaḥīḥ Bukhārī and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim which are deemed by Sunni Muslims as the most authentic collections of Hadith.

From a critical scholarly point of view, though, the narrations have a number of issues: apparent that the sermon includes two fabrications:

1-In many versions of the sermon, including the earliest version by Ibn Isḥāq, Muhammad says “O people! listen to my words. I do not know whether I shall ever meet you again in this place after this year.” The fact that Muhammad died 3 months later turns what he said into a prophecy, which means it was a fabrication as it’s the habit of historians to deem accounts of miracles and prophecies in any tradition as ahistorical. In the sermon's versions reported in Ṣaḥīḥ Bukhārī and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, there’s no mention of this prophecy.

2-The sermon as reported by Ibn Isḥāq, Al-Wāqidī, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim and some other sources includes the following line:

“I have left you with something which, if you hold fast to it, you will never go astray; that is, the Book of Allah.“

Ibn Isḥāq’s version adds to it: “and the sunnah of his Prophet.”

The mention of "the Sunnah of the prophet" is clearly apocryphal, as Patricia Crone has shown in God's Caliph, since such a concept did not exist in actual khalifal/Islamic jurisprudence until well into the Abbassid period. Other renditions such as that of Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim don’t mention the Sunnah of the prophet.

The correct translation of ʿawān عوان

The sermon as reported by Ibn Isḥāq and many other sources includes the following part:

“Treat women well, for they are ʿawān with you”.

All Hadith exegesis and classical Arabic dictionaries agree that ʿawān mentioned in this Hadith means captives or prisoners. Despite this unanimous agreement, the word is mistranslated in some English translations into one of the following:

1-“Domestic animals” which appears in Ismail K. Poonawala’s translation of Al-Ṭabarī’s history.

This mistranslation stems from the existence of two Arabic words identical in pronunciation but different in meaning. One is singular and the other is plural:

The word ʿawān in the Hadith is a plural word since that it’s describing a plural noun (women). The sentence in the Hadith literally means “They are ʿawān at you”. The singular of ʿawān is ʿāniyah عانية which means female captive. It’s derived from the verb ʿanā عنا which means (he) submitted (to). ^[11]

There’s another ʿawān in Arabic which is a singular word so it cannot be the one meant in the Hadith. This singular ʿawān is listed in Lane’s lexicon which makes it clear the word is singular and has the plural form of ʿūn. Lane lists several meanings for ʿawān including beast or a cow.

2- Rizwi Faizer in her translation of Al-Wāqidī's Life of Muhammad, translated ʿawān as: “for they are bound to you and are dependent on you.”^[12] This is an apologetic translation that has no basis whatsoever.

3- Another apologetic translation that appears on many websites such as the international Islamic university in Malysia.^[13]

In this popular English translation of the sermon, ʿawān is translated as “partners and helpers” which has no basis whatsoever. It might have originated from the misconception that the word ʿawān is derived from the word ʿawn عون which means help. Whereas all classical sources affirm the word ʿawān is derived from ʿanā which means (he) submitted (to). And not a single classical source says that ʿawān has anything to do with “help”.

Related Text

Note that while translations of the following hadiths of the farewell sermon differ, the same Arabic text occurs in the line about beating without severity. In Arabic, 'beat them, but not severely' is fa-idribuhunna darban ghayra mubarrihin (فَاضْرِبُوهُنَّ ضَرْبًا غَيْرَ مُبَرِّحٍ), which literally translates to mean 'beat them, a beating without violence/severity/sharpness/vehemence^[14]'.

The version of the farewell sermon in Sunan Abu Dawud was collected also in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim.

The translations of Al-Ṭabarī and Ibn Isḥāq add that the women possess nothing for themselves or lack control over their persons, respectively.

These versions of the farewell sermon all allude to a verse in the Quran in which beating of women is mandated in certain situations.

External Links

• Muhammad's Last Sermon - Staring At The View (archived), http://staringattheview.blogspot.com/2013/07/muhammads-last-sermon.html 

• The Farewell Sermon - Blog post discussing the "sources" provided for this alternative Farewell Sermon (archived), http://bjhollingum.blogspot.com/2010/05/farewell-sermon.html 
• Fraudulent Translation of Muhammad's 'Last Sermon' to Make It Egalitarian - T. Omar Moros, Islam-Watch, August 18, 2009 (archived), http://www.islam-watch.org/authors/89-other-authors/134-fraudulent-translation-of-muhammad-last-sermon-egalitarian.html 

References