Hadees 4 — The Three Men Trapped in the Cave أصحاب الغار

1 · Where we are — the third class in Kitāb al-Adab

• We are still inside Kitāb al-Adab of Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī; this is the third class within that book, continuing the theme of birr al-wālidayn from the last lesson.
• The chapter here is بَاب إِجَابَة دُعَاء مَنْ بَرَّ وَالِدَيْهِ — Bāb ijābat duʿāʾ man barra wālidayhi, "the answering of the supplication of one who is dutiful to his parents."
• Why this hadith sits in this chapter: its first episode is about serving one's parents — that is why Imam al-Bukhārī records it here, even though the hadith also contains two deeds that have nothing to do with parents.
• The Prophet ﷺ is here relating an incident that happened among an earlier community (umam before us). He often taught by recounting such past events so that lessons could be drawn from them.
• On the narrations: the transmitters (ruwāt) differ a little in wording. The Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī wording is the main matn; some other narrations and other collections carry a few extra phrases that make the meaning clearer — but it is the same hadith, not different events.

2 · The setting — the rain, the cave, the rock

The hadith opens: "Kharaja thalāthatu nafarin…" — three men from an earlier community set out.

Baynamā thalāthatu nafarin yatamashshawna akhadhahumu-l-maṭar, fa-mālū ilā ghārin fī-l-jabal — "While three men were walking along, rain overtook them, so they turned aside into a cave in the mountainside."

Then the way out closed:

Fa-nḥaṭṭat ʿalā fami ghārihim ṣakhratun mina-l-jabali fa-nṭabaqat ʿalayhim — "A rock came down from the mountain onto the mouth of their cave and closed them in." A boulder rolled down and sealed the entrance completely, trapping all three inside.

Their position: no one on earth knew where they were. The place was remote; nobody had seen them go in; nobody was coming. Only Allah could relieve them — that is the setting in which each man turned to his own record of sincere deeds.

3 · "Call on Allah by the best deed you have done"

Shut in, they said to one another:

Unẓurū aʿmālan ʿamiltumūhā ṣāliḥatan lillāhi fa-dʿū-llāha taʿālā bihā laʿalla-llāha yafrujuhā ʿankum — "Think of the righteous deeds you have done purely for Allah, and call upon Allah by them; perhaps Allah will relieve you of this." In another wording: udʿū-llāha bi-afḍali ʿamalin ʿamiltumūh — "supplicate to Allah by the best deed you ever did."

So each man was to put forward a deed done with sincerity (ikhlāṣ) and make it his wasīlah — his means of approach — in supplicating Allah. This sentence is the hinge of the whole hadith.

4 · The first deed — the milk, the sleeping parents, the crying children

The first man said:

Allāhumma innahu kāna lī wālidāni shaykhāni kabīrān, wa lī ṣibyatun ṣighārun kuntu arʿā ʿalayhim — "O Allah, I had two aged parents, and I had small children, and I used to graze [my flock] for them."

• He went out early to pasture the animals and milked them on returning in the evening.
• His fixed habit, in the well-known wording: wa kuntu lā aghbiqu qablahumā ahlan wa lā mālan — "I never gave the evening drink to family or servants before them." The milk went first to his father and mother; only after those two had drunk did his own children and wife get any.

The night he came home late. Searching for pasture and trees for the animals he wandered far — fa-naʾā bī-sh-shajar — and missed his usual hour. He got back only at nightfall, milked as always, carried the vessel in — and found both parents asleep.

He stood at their heads with the milk in his hands:

Fa-qumtu ʿinda ruʾūsihimā akrahu an ūqiẓahumā min nawmihimā, wa akrahu an asqiya-ṣ-ṣibyata qablahumā, wa-ṣ-ṣibyatu yataḍāghawna ʿinda qadamayya — "I stood at their heads, hating to wake them from their sleep, and hating to give the children a drink before them — while the children were crying out at my feet."

The children were screaming from hunger at his feet, and still he would neither disturb his sleeping parents nor serve the children ahead of them. That is the greatness the hadith is showing — not looking to the children first. The children eventually cried themselves to sleep, and he stayed standing, bowl in hand:

Fa-lam yazal dhālika daʾbī wa daʾbahum ḥattā ṭalaʿa-l-fajr — "That remained my condition and theirs until dawn broke." He stood the whole night until his parents woke of themselves in the morning and drank.

Then he prayed:

Allāhumma in kunta taʿlamu annī faʿaltu dhālika-btighāʾa wajhika fa-frij ʿannā furjatan narā minhā as-samāʾ — "O Allah, if You know that I did that seeking Your Face, then open for us an opening through which we can see the sky."

فَفَرَجَ اللَّهُ مِنْهَا فُرْجَةً — fa-faraja-llāhu minhā furjah: Allah opened a gap in the rock — but only a little: enough to see through, not enough to get out.

What deed 1 establishes

• Birr al-wālidayn — serving one's parents and giving them precedence over one's own children and wife — is an enormous deed.
• Ordinarily we do the opposite: people look after the children and leave the parents behind, pleasing the children while neglecting the parents.
• Kindness to children is natural and easy — instinct, and no great virtue in itself. To put your parents first, ahead of children, wife and household, and serve them — that is a truly great ʿamal ṣāliḥ. It was this man's first claim before Allah.

5 · The second deed — the cousin, and getting up out of fear of Allah

The second man said:

Allāhumma kānat lī ibnatu ʿammin aḥbabtuhā ka-ashaddi mā yuḥibbu-r-rijālu-n-nisāʾ — "O Allah, I had a paternal cousin whom I loved as intensely as men can love women." Whatever the most extreme love a man can have for a woman is — that is how he loved her.

• Several narrations add the context: a time of famine and drought (sanah) — economic hardship, a year in which people had nothing to eat.
• Under that pressure of hunger she said she would not yield to him unless he brought a hundred dinars. He toiled until he had gathered a hundred dinars and brought them to her.

Fa-lammā qaʿadtu bayna rijlayhā qālat: ittaqi-llāha wa lā tafuḍḍa-l-khātama illā bi-ḥaqqih — "And when I sat between her legs, she said: Fear Allah, and do not break the seal except by its right." That is: this may be reached only through a marriage contract the sharīʿah permits — through nikāḥ, and by no other way.

فَقُمْتُ عَنْهَا — fa-qumtu ʿanhā: "So I got up and left her." The hundred dinars were already paid and every opportunity was in his hands — and he rose and walked away out of fear of Allah. He then prayed: in kunta taʿlamu annī faʿaltu dhālika-btighāʾa wajhika fa-frij ʿannā mā naḥnu fīh — "If You know that I did this seeking Your Face, relieve us of what we are in."

فَانْفَرَجَتْ — the rock opened further: two-thirds of the mouth now stood clear. Still they could not get out.

What deed 2 establishes

It is one thing to do good; it is another when every facility and opportunity for a sin lies open before a man and he fears Allah and abandons it. That abandonment is itself a great deed — guarding one's chastity (ʿiffah) at the moment when nothing external prevented him.

6 · The third deed — the labourer's wage returned in full

وَقَالَ الْآخَرُ — and the third said:

Allāhumma innī staʾjartu ajīran bi-faraqin min aruzz — "O Allah, I hired a labourer for a faraq of rice." A faraq is a fixed measure of grain — the agreed quantity that was his wage.

• When the work was done and the measure of grain was offered, the labourer was displeased with it and went off angry, leaving the wage behind: فَرَغِبَ عَنْهُ — fa-raghiba ʿanhu, "he refused it." He felt it did not match the work he had put in, and walked away with nothing.
• The employer planted the grain:

Fa-lam azal azraʿuhu ḥattā jamaʿtu minhu baqaran wa riʿāʾahā — "I kept cultivating it until from it I had gathered cattle and their herdsmen." He sowed the abandoned wage year after year; the returns accumulated, and out of them he bought a large herd of cattle along with the herdsmen tending them.

Long afterwards the worker came back:

Yā ʿAbdallāh, addi ilayya ajrī — "O servant of Allah, give me my wage."

The employer answered: اذْهَبْ إِلَى تِلْكَ الْبَقَرِ وَرِعَائِهَا فَخُذْهَا — idhhab ilā tilka-l-baqari wa riʿāʾihā fa-khudhhā — "Go to those cattle and their herdsmen and take them — all of that is your wage."

The man, having left behind a small measure of grain and now being pointed at an entire herd and a cattle station, assumed he was being ridiculed: اتَّقِ اللَّهَ وَلَا تَسْتَهْزِئْ بِي — ittaqi-llāha wa lā tastahziʾ bī — "Fear Allah and do not mock me."

The employer replied: إِنِّي لَا أَسْتَهْزِئُ بِكَ، وَلَكِنَّهُ لَكَ — innī lā astahziʾu bik, walākinnahu lak — "I am not mocking you; it is all yours." فَأَخَذَهُ كُلَّهُ فَاسْتَاقَهُ فَلَمْ يَتْرُكْ مِنْهُ شَيْئًا — fa-akhadhahu kullahu fa-stāqahu fa-lam yatruk minhu shayʾā — "so he took the whole of it and drove it away, and left nothing of it behind."

What deed 3 establishes

• The growth came from his own labour — his effort, his sweat, his years of investment turned a token measure into wealth. Legally he could have argued the increase was his.
• His judgment instead: the principal was the worker's right (ḥaqq), and therefore so was everything grown from it — and he handed over the entire estate without keeping back a single head. Giving away a whole property like that is no small matter.

He prayed the same prayer — Allāhumma in kunta taʿlamu annī faʿaltu dhālika-btighāʾa wajhika fa-frij ʿannā — and the rock opened completely, and the three walked out.

7 · Variant wordings among the narrations

Some narrations differ slightly in detail:

• In one they entered the cave to shelter from rain; in another they turned in to rest for the night.
• In one, the first man had gone far off seeking trees and pasture, and stood holding the vessel until dawn broke.

These are variations in the reports, not different events. The substance is the same, and the three deeds each man puts forward are the same three.

8 · The three deeds restated as three wasīlahs

By these three deeds they sought a means (wasīlah) to Allah, and He answered them.

9 · Is tawassul permitted? — the position the lecturer taught

The question follows naturally: is seeking a means (tawassul) allowed?

• Yes — the wasīlah that the sharīʿah itself sanctions is allowed, and that is precisely what this hadith teaches. The Qurʾān contains the like, believers supplicating by their faith and their deeds:

Rabbanā innanā āmannā fa-ghfir lanā dhunūbanā — "Our Lord, we have believed, so forgive us our sins" (Sūrat Āl ʿImrān 3:16).

Two conditions on the deed you put forward:

1. It must be a genuinely sincere deed you actually performed for Allah's sake.
2. It must be a deed conforming to the Islamic sharīʿah — a legitimate ʿamal ṣāliḥ, not something you invented.

In practice: you may say "O Allah, this charity (ṣadaqah) I gave for Your pleasure alone — by it I ask You…" and then present your need. Putting a sincere good deed before Allah and supplicating through it is exactly what these three men did — this is the practical point of the hadith.

10 · The second legitimate form — asking a righteous living person to pray for you

There is another legitimate form of wasīlah: asking a righteous, living person to make duʿāʾ for you.

• Ask the fasting person to supplicate for you — the fasting person's supplication is answered.
• Visit the sick and ask them to pray for you.
• Likewise the traveller — the traveller's duʿāʾ is accepted.

So when you have a need and you are among righteous people (ṣāliḥūn), ask them to supplicate for you. That too is wasīlah.

Keep to the Sunnah method. Wasīlah exists and is legitimate — but it must be done as the Sunnah prescribes; this is the point at which people go astray into innovated forms even when the Sunnah has been set out plainly. So: make your supplication putting forward your own good deeds and take them as your means, and ask righteous people to supplicate for you.