the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) against fasting on the Day of Arafah while at Arafah.” Its chain of transmission is open to question, because Mahdī ibn Harb al-Jazarī (1) is unknown, and the report hinges on him. However, it is established in al-Sahīh (2), through a report from Umm al-Fadl, “that some people disagreed in her presence on the Day of Arafah about whether the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) was fasting. Some said, ‘He is fasting,’ while others said, ‘He is not fasting.’ She therefore sent him a cup of milk while he was observing the standing at Arafah on his camel, and he drank it.”
There is disagreement over the wisdom behind recommending that one not fast on the Day of Arafah while at Arafah. One group said that this enables a person to have greater strength for supplication. This is the view of al-Khiraqī and others (3). Others—including Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah—said that the wisdom is that it is a day of Eid for those at Arafah, so fasting on it is not recommended. He said: The evidence for this is the hadith (4) in al-Sunan (5), in which the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said:
(1) This is the reading in all the manuscripts. In the margin of Nūn: “The correct reading is al-Hajarī, as in al-Khulāsa and al-Taqrīb.” This is indeed correct. The manuscript reading may be a corruption of “al-Hajarī.” The printed editions read: “al-‘Abdī.”
(2) Al-Bukhārī (1661) and Muslim (1123).
(3) See al-Mughnī (4/444).
(4) Jīm reads: “the well-known hadith.”
(5) Abū Dāwūd (2419), al-Tirmidhī (773), and al-Nasā’ī in al-Mujtabā (3004) and al-Kubrā (4167). Also reported by Ibn Abī Shayba (9863), Ahmad (17379, 17383), and al-Dārimī (1805). It was graded authentic by al-Tirmidhī, Ibn Khuzayma (2100), Ibn Hibbān (3603), and al-Hākim (1/434). All their versions include “and the days of Tashrīq,” but this phrase is absent from Ibn Abī Shayba’s version.
Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr said in al-Tamhīd (21/163): “This hadith was narrated solely by Mūsā ibn ‘Alī from his father, and what he narrates alone is not strong. The mention of ‘the Day of Arafah’ in this hadith is not reliably preserved. Rather, what is reliably preserved from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), through several chains, is: ‘the day of Eid al-Fitr, the Day of Sacrifice, and the days of Tashrīq.’” Ibn Rajab responded to this in Fath al-Bārī (1/173), as had Shaykh al-Islām before him, as the author will mention. Al-Nasā’ī placed this hadith in al-Kubrā under the chapter heading: “The prohibition of fasting on the Day of Arafah while at Arafah.”