Meaning of garden in the Hadeeth (narration): "Between my house and my pulpit is a garden."

25/11/2009| IslamWeb

Question

What does garden mean in the Hadeeth which says: "Between my grave and my pulpit there is a garden from the gardens of Paradise"? What should we do at that place? What is the reward for worshipping Allah The Almighty in it?

Fatwa

All perfect praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad is His Slave and Messenger.

There is a Hadeeth on the authority of ‘Abd Allah ibn Zayd Al-Maazini, may Allah be pleased with him, in which the Prophet informed us that between his house and his pulpit there is a garden from the gardens of Paradise. [Ahmad, Al-Bukhari, Muslim, An-Nasaa’i and others]. As for the narration which reads: "Between my grave…", this is only mentioned in Musnad Ahmad.

Commenting on this Hadeeth, scholars mentioned that the word garden means:

•        That it is like the gardens of Paradise where mercy descends and a person feels the happiness that is gained by attending the circles of Thikr (remembrance), especially during the time of the Prophet . In this sense, garden is a simile for Paradise;

•        That worshipping Allah The Almighty in that place leads to Paradise;

•        That the Hadeeth should be construed according to its literal meaning, so that the place is a real garden that, in the Hereafter, will be physically transferred to Paradise. This was the opinion of Ibn Hajar .

 

As for what you should do in that place, you should pray, recite the Quran and say as much as you can of the supplications and Athkaar that are established in the Sunnah.

And Allah knows best.