حَدَّثَنَا بِشْرُ بْنُ مُحَمَّدٍ، أَخْبَرَنَا عَبْدُ اللَّهِ، أَخْبَرَنَا مَعْمَرٌ، عَنْ هَمَّامٍ، عَنْ أَبِي هُرَيْرَةَ ـ رضى الله عنه ـ عَنِ النَّبِيِّ صلى الله عليه وسلم نَحْوَهُ يَعْنِي “ لَوْلاَ بَنُو إِسْرَائِيلَ لَمْ يَخْنَزِ اللَّحْمُ، وَلَوْلاَ حَوَّاءُ لَمْ تَخُنْ أُنْثَى زَوْجَهَا ”.
Narrated Abu Huraira:
The Prophet (S) said, “If it was not for the Israelites, meat would not decay. And if it was not for Eve, wives would never betray their husbands.”
Saheeh Bukhari – Chapter: The creation of Adam and his offspring
وَحَدَّثَنَا مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ رَافِعٍ، حَدَّثَنَا عَبْدُ الرَّزَّاقِ، أَخْبَرَنَا مَعْمَرٌ، عَنْ هَمَّامِ بْنِ مُنَبِّهٍ، قَالَ هَذَا مَا حَدَّثَنَا أَبُو هُرَيْرَةَ، عَنْ رَسُولِ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم فَذَكَرَ أَحَادِيثَ مِنْهَا وَقَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم “ لَوْلاَ بَنُو إِسْرَائِيلَ لَمْ يَخْبُثِ الطَّعَامُ وَلَمْ يَخْنَزِ اللَّحْمُ وَلَوْلاَ حَوَّاءُ لَمْ تَخُنْ أُنْثَى زَوْجَهَا الدَّهْرَ ” .
Allah’s Messenger said: Had it not been for Bani Isra’il (the Israelites), food would not have become stale, and meat would not have gone bad; and had it not been for Eve, a woman would never have acted unfaithfully towards her husband.
Saheeh Muslim – Chapter: Were it not for Hawa’ (Eve), no female would ever betray her husband
So we see that Muhammad has made clear that meat didn’t spoil prior to the time of the accursed Israelites. And since we know that these Israelites lived less than 4,000 years ago, it means that the meat-spoiling organisms could not possibly have existed more than 4,000 years ago either. But in reality these organism are up to 3 billions years old.
You could see the list of these organism here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat_spoilage
These are of 4 kinds:
(1) Aerobic bacteria : They are about 101 million years old (link).
(2) Yeasts and Molds: They are about 1 billion years old (link).
(3) Anaerobic bacteria: They are about 3 billions years old (لنک)
Excuses by Islam Apologists:
As usual, Islam apologists again came to defend it to. Islamweb.Net is one of the largest Islamic Fatwa website, and it presented the following excuse for this hadith (link):
This Hadeeth is authentic; it was recorded by Al-Bukhari and Muslim. As regards its meaning, An-Nawawi said about the interpretation of the saying of the Prophet : ” The scholars said: “It means that when Allaah sent down manna and quails to the Children of Israel, Allaah prohibited them from storing it, but they stored it; so it went bad and rotted, and this has continued since then.”
As you could see that Islam apologists have no other explanation other than their stubbornness, where they again claim that meat started to get spoiled only after Bani Israel stored manna and salwa.
Another excuse that has been presented is this (link):
Ibn Hajar writes:
ال وهب بن منبه فِي بَعْضِ الْكُتُبِ لَوْلَا أَنِّي كَتَبْتُ الْفَسَادَ عَلَى الطَّعَامِ لَخَزَنَهُ الْأَغْنِيَاءُ عَنِ الْفُقَرَاءِ
Wahb ibn Munabbih said: It is written in some books that had I (Allah) not decreed that meat would spoil, the rich would have hoarded it from the poor.
Source: Fatḥ al-Bārī 3152
- Firstly, which are these books that Muslims could not even provide their names?
- Secondly, every Tom, Dick and Harry could make the similar claims that he made the meat to spoil so that rich people could not hoard it from the poor.
- Thirdly, what that has to do with our topic? Our question is not about spoilage of meat, but it is about "START" of spoilage of meat only due to "Bani Israel". Thus it proves that Islam apologists have no answer to this, and they are now only trying to mislead the original question.
Hassan Radwan