Seeking Blessings from the Traces of the Prophet ﷺ

Know that the Companions, may Allah Accept their deeds, used to seek blessings from the traces of the Prophet during his life and after his death, and the Muslims have never ceased to be upon that until this day of ours.  The permissibility of this matter is known from the doing of the Prophet, which is that he distributed his hair when he shaved for the Farewell Hajj and distributed his nails.

As for the distribution of his hair, Al-Bukhariyy and Muslim have narrated that from the route of Anas.  According to the expression of Muslim, when he threw the stones at the station, and slaughtered his sacrifices, and shaved, he directed the barber to his right side and had him shave. Then the Prophet called Abu Talhah Al-Ansariyy and gave him that hair. Then he made the barber go to his left side, and he said “Shave.” So he shaved, and he gave it to Abu Talhah and he told him to distribute it among the people.

In another narration of Imam Muslim he started with the right side, and he distributed a hair or two among the people. Then he said, “The left side,” and so he did the same.  Then he said, “Here, Abu Talhah,” and he gave the hair to Abu Talhah. In another narration, also by Imam Muslim, he said to the barber, “Ha’” and he signaled with his hand to the right side, and then he distributed his hair to whoever was by him.  Then he directed the barber to his left side, and so he shaved it, and he gave the hair to Umm Sulaym. The meaning of the hadith is that he personally distributed the hair to the people who were close to him, and he gave some to Abu Talhah so that he would distribute it among the rest of the people, and he gave some to Umm Sulaym;  therein is seeking blessings from the traces of the Messenger.

He distributed his hair so that they would seek the blessing by it, and seek intercession with Allah by that which is from the Prophet, and seek a higher status from Allah for that.  He distributed that hair among them so it would be a remaining blessing among them and a reminder for them.  Then whoever Allah endowed to follow the Companions in their footsteps did so in seeking the blessings from his traces, and the latter-day Muslims took that from the Salaf.

As for the distribution of his nails, Imam Ahmad narrated in his Musnad that the Prophet clipped his nails and distributed them among the people. It is known that that was not so that they would eat it, rather, it was so they would seek the blessing by it.  As for his cloak, Imam Muslim narrated in the Sahih from the servant of Asma’ Bintu Abi Bakr that he said, “She brought out to us a cloak of Tayyaalisa and Kisrayan and with lifted arms  She said, ‘This is the cloak of the Messenger of Allah.  ^A’ishah had it, and when she died I took it. The Prophet used to wear it, and we wash it for the sick people to seek cure by it.’” In another narration it is said, “We wash it for the sick among us.”

[It came] from the route of Handhalah Ibn Hadhyam that he said, “I came with my grandfather Hadhyam to the Messenger of Allah, so my grandfather said, ‘Oh Messenger of Allah, I have sons who have beards and other than them, and this is the youngest of them.’ So the Messenger of Allah brought me close and he wiped my head, and he said ‘May Allah Bless you.’” Adh-Dhayyal said “I saw Handhalah approached with a man with a swollen face or a sheep with a swollen udder, so he would say ‘Bismillah’ on the spot where the Messenger of Allah wiped, then he would wipe it and the swelling would go away.”  At–Tabaraniyy narrated this in Al-Mu^jamu-l-Awsat and Al-Mu^jamu-l–Kabir with the likes of this expression, and Imam Ahmad also narrated it in a long hadith, and Ahmad’s narrators are trustworthy.

It was narrated from the route of Thabit that he said, “I used to come to Anas, and when I came he would be informed about my arrival, and so I would enter in on him and take him by his hands, and I would kiss them and say, ‘By my father, these two hands that have touched the Messenger of Allah!’, and I would kiss his two eyes and say, ‘By my father, these two eyes that have seen the Messenger of Allah!’” Abu Ya^la narrated this, and the narrators are narrators of sahih except for ^Abdullah Ibn Abi Bakr Al-Maqdimiyy, and he is still trustworthy.

It was narrated from the route of Dawud Ibn Abi Salih that he said, “One day Marwan [Ibnu-l-Hakam] came and found a man putting his face on the Prophet’s grave ﷺ. He said, “Do you know what you are doing?” So he approached him, and behold, it was Abu Ayyub [Al-Ansariyy], who said, “Yes. I came for the Messenger of Allah, and I did not come for a stone. I heard the Messenger of Allah saying, “Do not cry for the Religion if it is under the supervision of those who are qualified, rather, cry for it if it is under the supervision of those who are not qualified.” This is narrated by Ahmad and At–Tabaraniyy who narrated that in the Kabir and the Awsat.

Al-Bayhaqiyy narrated in his book Dala’ilu-n-Nubuwwah, and Al-Hakim narrated in his Mustadrak, and others have narrated in a chain of narration, that Khalid Ibnu-l-Walid lost his qalansuwah on the day of the battle of Al-Yarmuk. So he said, “Seek it,” but they did not find it; then they searched for it again and they found it.  Then Khalid said, “The Messenger of Allah made ^Umrah and he shaved his head, and the people rushed to get the hair from the sides of his head, and I beat them to his forelock and put it in this qalansuwah. And I did not attend any battle with this qalansuwah except that I was provided with victory.” This story is authentic, as mentioned by Shaykh Habibu-r-Rahman Al-A^dhamiyy in his commentary of the book Al-Matalibu-l-^Aliyah.  He said, “Al-Busiriyy said, ‘Abu Ya^la narrated this story with an authentic chain of narration.’”  Also, Al-Haythamiyy said that At–Tabaraniyy and Abu Ya^la narrated this story by the likes of these words, and both of their narrators are men of authentic narration. So there is no consideration after this given to the claim of those who reject seeking blessings from his honorable traces ﷺ.