Reconciling between the verse “Allah will protect you from the people” and the death of the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him)

Firstly: 

The verse in
question says (interpretation of the meaning):

“O
Messenger (Muhammad )! Proclaim (the Message) which has been sent down to
you from your Lord. And if you do not, then you have not conveyed His
Message. Allah will protect you from mankind. Verily, Allah guides not the
people who disbelieve.”

[al-Maa’idah 5:67]. 

The hadeeth in
question says:

‘Aa’ishah (may
Allah be pleased with her) said: The Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah
be upon him) used to say, during the illness of which he died: “O ‘Aa’ishah,
I still feel the pain of the food that I ate in Khaybar, and this time I
feel that my aorta is being cut from that poison.”

Narrated by
al-Bukhaari, 4165 

The “food” was
poisoned mutton.

The aorta is
an artery connected to the heart; if it is cut, the individual dies. 

The original
story is as follows 

It was
narrated from Anas that a Jewish woman brought some poisoned mutton to the
Messenger of Allaah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) and he ate
some of it. Then she was brought to the Messenger of Allaah (blessings and
peace of Allah be upon him) and he asked her about that. She said: I wanted
to kill you. He said: “Allaah would not have given you the power to do
that.”

Narrated by
al-Bukhaari, 2474; Muslim, 2190 

Secondly: 

The Muslim
must understand that there is no contradiction between the texts of the
revelation. What some people think, that there are contradictions between
the texts of the revelation are only apparent contradictions as it appears
to them, but in fact they are not contradictions. Hence the well-versed
scholars of Islam are not incapable – by the grace and help of Allah – of
reconciling what appears to be a contradiction for those who are unaware of
how these texts may be reconciled. 

Shaykh
al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah (may Allah have mercy on him) said: 

It is not
possible for there to be in Islam two reports that contradict one another in
all ways, without one of them being stronger and thus taking precedence. 

Al-Musawwadah,
306 

Ibn al-Qayyim
(may Allah have mercy on him) said: 

As for there
being two clear saheeh hadeeths that contradict one another in all aspects
without one of them abrogating the other, this does not exist in the first
place. Allah forbid that such a contradiction should be found be in the
words of the most truthful one (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him),
from whose lips nothing but the truth came. 

Zaad
al-Ma‘aad,
4/149 

Ibn al-Qayyim
(may Allah have mercy on him) also said: 

Blessings and
peace of Allah be upon the one whose words confirmed one another and
testified to one another. Any conflict or confusion can only stem from
misunderstandings, not from the words of the Prophet (blessings and peace of
Allah be upon him). What every believer must do is confirm his beliefs in
the words of the most truthful one (i.e., the Prophet (blessings and peace
of Allah be upon him)), and he should realise that above every man of
knowledge, there is someone more knowledgeable.

Miftaah Dar
as-Sa‘aadah,
3/383 

Ash-Shaatibi
(may Allah have mercy on him) said: 

Anyone who is
well versed in the fundamentals of sharee‘ah would realize that the shar‘i
texts could hardly contradict one another and anyone who examines the basis
of different shar‘i issues would see any confusion therein, because there
are no contradictions at all in sharee‘ah. So the one who is well versed in
it is aware of the subtle differences between one text and another, he will
never find any contradiction. Therefore you can never find two texts that
all Muslim scholars agree contradict one another. But because the scholars
are not infallible, it is possible that there may be a contradiction between
texts in the opinion of some of them. 

Al-Muwaafaqaat,
4/294. 

There are some
scholars who challenged those who claimed that there are contradictions
between the texts of the revelation, such as Imam Ibn Khuzaymah (may Allah
have mercy on him) who used to say – as we see in Tadreeb ar-Raawi,
2/176: I do not know of any two hadeeths that contradict one another; if
anyone has two hadeeths that contradict one another, let him bring them to
me so that I may reconcile between them. 

Thirdly: 

With regard to
what the questioner mentioned about there being an apparent contradiction
between the words of Allah, may He be exalted, “Allah will protect you
from mankind” and the words of the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah
be upon him), “and this time I feel that my aorta is being cut” and the fact
that he died from the poison that the Jews put in his food – there is no
contradiction between them, because the protection of which the verse speaks
is protection from fitnah and misguidance, and from being killed before
having conveyed the message, and all of that was fulfilled for him
(blessings and peace of Allah be upon him). His Lord, may He be exalted,
protected him from all of that and he (blessings and peace of Allah be upon
him) did not die until after he had conveyed the message of his Lord. Allah,
may He be exalted, said (interpretation of the meaning):

“This day,
I have perfected your religion for you, completed My Favour upon you, and
have chosen for you Islam as your religion”

[al-Maa’idah 5:3].

Some of the
scholars mentioned a subtle meaning here, which is that Allah, may He be
exalted, insisted that for our Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon
him), Prophethood and martyrdom should be combined. 

Allah, may He
be exalted, protected His Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him)
from the kuffaar of Quraysh when they wanted to kill him in Makkah, and his
Lord protected him from being killed in Madinah in the campaigns in which he
was present. And even when the Jews attempted to kill him with poison, Allah
protected him from that, and the mutton told him that it was poisoned. The
Sahaabi who was with him and ate some of it – namely Bishr ibn al-Bara’ ibn
Ma‘roor – died but the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him)
did not die. But this does not contradict the fact that that there was some
effect from that poison or his belief that he would die because of it. What
he (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said does not mean that the
poison was the cause of his death; rather the report indicates that he was
feeling it and that that might coincide with the end of his life. 

Whatever the
case, protection from being killed came before he finished conveying the
message of his Lord, and he (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) did
not die until he had conveyed it in the most complete manner. The context of
the verse indicates that, as his Lord, may He be exalted, instructed him to
convey the message and told him that He would protect him from the people. 

This idea is
also supported by what the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon
him) said to the Jewish woman: “Allaah would not have given you the power to
do that.”
That was after she told him that she had wanted to kill him. This is either
a statement that refers to his being protected against being killed by
poison until he departed this world, or it is a statement indicating that
that would not happen before the message was conveyed. 

To sum up: it
may either be said that the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon
him) was protected from being killed by the poison – as we shall see below
in the words of Ibn Katheer, an-Nawawi and others – and that Allah revealed
to him that there was poison in the meat and this was part of His protection
of him, or it may be said that the protection was during his conveying of
the message of Islam, which does not mean that he could not be killed after
the message had been conveyed – as we shall see below in the words of
al-Qurtubi, Ibn Hajar and al-‘Uthaymeen – and that through this killing,
Allah granted our Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) both
Prophethood and martyrdom, and made that a reminder to us of the ongoing
enmity of the Jews towards us and our religion. 

There follow
some of the comments of the scholars on what we have mentioned above, which
will explain what we mean, in sha Allah. 

1.    

Ibn
Katheer (may Allah have mercy on him) said: 

Part of
Allah’s protection of His Messenger (blessings and peace of Allah be upon
him) was His protection of him from the people of Makkah and their leaders,
those who bore malicious envy towards him, and those who were stubborn,
despite the intensity of their enmity and resentment, and their drawing up
plans to oppose him night and day, through the means that He created by His
decree and wisdom. At the beginning of his mission, He protected him by
means of his paternal uncle Abu Taalib, who was an important leader who was
obeyed among Quraysh. Allah created in his heart a natural love for the
Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him), not love as
ordained by Allah; if he had become Muslim, the kuffaar and their leaders
would have had the audacity to harm the Prophet (blessings and peace of
Allah be upon him). But because he (Abu Taalib) and they had in common the
fact that they were not believers, the kuffaar feared and respected him. But
when Abu Taalib died, the mushrikeen caused him some harm, then Allah, may
He be glorified and exalted, brought him the Ansaar, who swore allegiance to
him as Muslims, who arranged for him to move to their land – namely Madinah.
When he joined them, they protected him against the red and the black (i.e.,
all people). Whenever any of the mushrikeen or people of the Book wanted to
do him harm, Allah opposed them and turned their plots against them. When
the Jews plotted against him by means of witchcraft, Allah protected him
from them and revealed to him the Mi‘wadhatayn (Soorat al-Falaq and an-Naas)
as a remedy for this disease. When the Jews poisoned the leg of mutton in
Khaybar, Allah informed him of that and protected him from it. And there are
many similar cases which it would take too long to mention here.

Tafseer
an-Nawawi,
3/154 

2.    

an-Nawawi said, in his commentary on the hadeeth about the poisoned mutton: 

This shows how
he (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) was protected from all the
people, as Allah said (interpretation of the meaning): “Allah will
protect you from mankind”[al-Maa’idah 5:67]. This is a miracle of the
Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him), as he was
protected from the poison that killed others, and Allah, may He be exalted,
informed him that it was poisoned, and the leg of mutton itself spoke to
him. Elsewhere than in Muslim it is narrated that the Prophet (blessings and
peace of Allah be upon him) said: “The leg (of mutton) is informing me that
it is poisoned.” 

Sharh
Muslim,
14/p. 179 

3.    

Ibn
al-Jawzi (may Allah have mercy on him) said: 

With regard to
the words of Allah (interpretation of the meaning): “Allah will protect
you from mankind”[al-Maa’idah 5:67], Ibn Qutaybah said: That is, He will
protect you against them. The protection of Allah means that He prevents him
from committing sin. 

If it is said:
Where is the guarantee of protection when his cheek was cut, his tooth was
broken and other kinds of harm reached him? There are two answers to this. 

The first is
that he was protected against being killed or captured or extensive harm.
With regard to regular harm, that was possible. 

The second is
that this verse was revealed after those things happened to him, because
al-Maa’idah is one of the last soorahs to be revealed. 

Zaad
al-Maseer,
2/397 

4.    

Shaykh ‘Abd al-‘Azeez ibn Baaz (may Allah have mercy on him) said: 

With regard to
what befell the Messengers of different kinds of harm, the Prophet
(blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) was not protected from that;
rather some such things did happen to him. He was wounded on the day of
Uhud, his helmet was broken on his head, some of the links of chainmail were
embedded in his cheek and he fell into one of the holes that were dug there.
They also put great pressure on him in Makkah where he encountered some of
that which had befallen previous Messengers, that Allah had decreed for him,
and Allah raised him thereby in status and multiplied his rewards. But Allah
protected him against them and they were not able to kill him or to stop him
conveying the message; they did not come between him and what he was obliged
to do of conveying the message. He conveyed the message and fulfilled the
trust, may the blessings and peace of Allah be upon him. 

Fataawa
ash-Shaykh Ibn Baaz,
8/p. 150 

5.    

Al-Qurtubi (may Allah have mercy on him) said: 

There is
nothing in this verse that contradicts the idea that he should take
precautions to protect himself, just as the fact that Allah declared that
His religion would be victorious and prevail does not contradict the command
to fight and make all necessary preparations for the fight. 

Al-Mufhim
lima Ashkila min Talkhees Kitaab Muslim,
6/280 

6.    

al-Haafiz Ibn Hajar (may Allah have mercy on him) said, after quoting these
words of al-Qurtubi: 

Based on this,
what is meant is protection against fitnah and misguidance, or being killed.
And Allah knows best. 

Fath
al-Baari,
6/82 

Fourthly: 

Among the
practical examples of the Prophet’s being protected from being killed before
the message had been conveyed is the following: 

It was
narrated that Jaabir ibn ‘Abdullah said: We went out on a campaign with the
Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) in the
direction of Najd. The Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be
upon him) caught up with us in a valley where there were a lot of trees. The
Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) dismounted
beneath a tree and hung up his sword of one of its branches, and the people
scattered in the valley seeking the shade of the trees. The Messenger of
Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: “A man came to me
whilst I was sleeping and took the sword. I woke up to see him standing over
my head and he took me surprise when I saw that the sword was unsheathed in
his hand. He said to me: Who will protect you from me? I said: Allah. Then
he said a second time: Who will protect you from me? I said: Allah. Then he
put the sword back in its sheath, and there he is, still sitting here.” Then
the Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) did not
take the matter any further. 

Narrated by
al-Bukhaari, 2753; Muslim, 843 

According to
another report, he said: O Muhammad, who will protect you from me? The
Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: “Allah
will protect me from you; put down the sword.” And he put it down. 

An-Nawawi
said: 

This shows
that the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) put his trust in
Allah and that Allah, may He be exalted, protected him from the people, as
Allah, may He be exalted, says (interpretation of the meaning): “Allah
will protect you from mankind”[al-Maa’idah 5:67]. 

Sharh
Muslim,
15/44 

And Allah knows best.