Sun Setting in a Spring Hadith: Weakness and Meaning
The hadith describing the sun setting in a hot spring is weak and unauthentic, while the authentic narrations describe the sun’s prostration beneath the Throne in figurative, not literal, terms. The claim that this hadith contradicts science rests on a defective narration that the classical scholars of hadith and tafsir never accepted.
Uthman bin Abi Shaybah and Ubaydullah bin Umar bin Maisarah narrated to us, meaning: Yazid bin Harun narrated to us, on the authority of Sufyan bin Husayn, on the authority of Al-Hakam bin Utaybah, on the authority of Ibrahim Al-Taymi, on the authority of his father, on the authority of Abu Dharr, who said: I was riding behind the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, while he was on a donkey, and the sun was setting. He said: Do you know where this sets? I said: Allah and His Messenger know best. He said: It sets in a hot spring, then it sets until it prostrates to its Lord beneath the Throne. When the time for it to rise comes, He gives it permission to come out and it rises. When Allah wants it to rise from where it sets, He holds it back, and it says: O Lord, my journey is far. He says to it: Rise from where you set.
(1) This hadith confirms that the sun prostrates in a hot spring in reality.
(2) This hadith contradicts science, as it indicates that the sun goes and moves at sunset to prostrate under the throne.
The response proceeds on five foundations: the hadith containing “hot spring” is weak due to a confused narrator; the authentic versions in Bukhari and Muslim omit this phrase entirely; the classical mufassirun rejected this addition; the phrase “sets in a spring” internally contradicts “prostrates under the Throne”; and the authentic hadith employs figurative language confirmed by the wording “as if.”
The Weakness of the “Hot Spring” Wording
First: This hadith with that wording is weak and is not authentically attributed to the Prophet ﷺ. The defect in it is Sufyan ibn Husayn.
Yaqub ibn Shaybah said: He is truthful and trustworthy, but his hadith is weak. Al-Nasa’i said: There is nothing wrong with him except in Al-Zuhri. Uthman ibn Abi Shaybah said: He was trustworthy, but he was a little confused in hadith. Al-Ajli said: He is trustworthy. Ibn Sa’d said: He is trustworthy, but he often makes mistakes in his hadith. Abu Dawud said on the authority of Ibn Ma’in: He is not a hafiz. Tahdhib al-Tahdhib 4/190.
As we see, he was confused and mixed up in hadith and had a poor memory, may God have mercy on him. It was weakened by more than one of the people of knowledge and hadith. It is one of the only narrations he transmitted, and the hadith was mixed up with the verse of the Holy Qur’an. In Bukhari and Muslim, the hadith is narrated other than through Sufyan, and it does not contain the phrase “the sun sets in a hot spring” at all.
The authentic versions in the Sahihs omit the “hot spring” addition entirely:
Abu Na’im told us: Al-A’mash told us, on the authority of Ibrahim al-Taymi, on the authority of his father, on the authority of Abu Dharr, may God be pleased with him, who said: I was with the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, in the mosque at sunset, and he said: “O Abu Dharr, do you know where it sets?” (The sun). I said: Allah and His Messenger know best. He said: “Then it goes until it prostrates under the Throne, so that is the saying of Allah the Most High: {And the sun runs to its resting place. That is its resting place. That is the determination of the Almighty, the Knowing.}”
The narration in Sahih Muslim adds the detail of the sun’s daily cycle and the future rising from the west:
Yahya bin Ayyub and Ishaq bin Ibrahim narrated to us, both on the authority of Ibn Ulayyah. Ibn Ayyub said: Ibn Ulayyah narrated to us. Yunus narrated to us on the authority of Ibrahim bin Yazid al-Taymi (heard it as far as I know) on the authority of his father, on the authority of Abu Dharr; that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said one day, “Do you know where this sun goes?” They said: Allah and His Messenger know best. He said, “This sun runs until it reaches under the Throne. Then it falls prostrate. It remains like that until it is told: Rise. Return from where you came. Then it rises from its rising place. Then it runs until it reaches its resting place, under the Throne. Then it falls prostrate. It remains like that until it is told: Rise. Return from where you came. Then it returns. Then it rises from its rising place. Then it runs, and people do not find anything strange about it until it reaches its resting place, under the Throne. Then it is told: Rise. It is rising from your west. So it becomes rising from its west.”
Classical Tafsir Rejection of the Weak Addition
Secondly: The great imams of interpretation were aware of the weakness of this addition and did not rely on it in interpreting the noble verse in Surat Al-Kahf.
“Until, when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it [as if] setting in a spring of dark mud, and he found near it a people. Allah said, ‘O Dhul-Qarnayn, either you punish [them] or else adopt among them [a way of] goodness.’”
[!scholar] Ibn Kathir — Tafsir al-Quran al-Azim
“Until, when he reached the setting of the sun” means that he took a path until he reached the furthest point of the earth that can be traveled on from the direction of the west, which is the west of the earth. As for reaching the setting of the sun from the sky, it is impossible. What the narrators of stories and reports mention that he walked on the earth a period of time and the sun sets behind it, so it is something that has no truth to it, and most of that is from the fables of the People of the Book and the differences of their heretics and their lies. And his saying: “He found it setting in a spring of murky water,” meaning he saw the sun in his view setting in the surrounding sea, and this is the case with everyone who reaches its shore, he sees it as if it is setting in it, and it does not depart from the fourth sphere in which it is fixed. In it, do not leave it.
Ibn Kathir establishes that the sun does not depart from its celestial sphere, and that the “setting in a spring” is a visual phenomenon from the observer’s perspective. The Maliki exegete al-Qurtubi reinforces this cosmological principle with equal force.
[!scholar] al-Qurtubi — Tafsir al-Qurtubi
Al-Qaffal said: Some scholars said: What is meant is not that he reached the sun, both in the west and in the east, and reached its center and touched it. Because it revolves with the sky around the earth without sticking to the earth, and it is too large to enter into any of the springs of the earth, rather it is many times larger than the earth. Rather, what is meant is that it reached the end of the building from the direction of the west and from the direction of the east, so he found it in the view of the eye setting in a murky spring, just as we see it on the smooth ground, as if it were entering the ground. That is why He said: “He found it rising upon a people for whom We had not made any cover besides it.” He did not mean that it rose upon them by touching them and sticking to them, but rather He meant that they were the first ones upon whom it rose. Al-Qutbi said: It is possible that this spring is from the sea, and it is possible that the sun sets behind it, with it, or at it, so the adjective is used in place of its owner, and God knows best.
Al-Qurtubi’s analysis demonstrates that the sun’s magnitude renders literal entry into an earthly spring impossible, and that the description is purely optical. The tafsir tradition continues this trajectory in the concise commentary of the two Jalals.
[!scholar] al-Mahalli and al-Suyuti — Tafsir al-Jalalayn
“Until, when he reached the setting of the sun,” the place of its setting, “he found it setting in a spring of murky mud,” with murky mud, which is black mud, and its setting in the spring is in the opinion of the eye, otherwise it is greater than the world. “And he found near it,” meaning the spring, “a people,” who were disbelievers. “We said, ‘O Dhul-Qarnayn,’ by inspiration, ‘either you punish’ the people by killing, ‘or you take good care of them by captivity.’”
The Jalalayn tafsir encapsulates the position in its characteristic brevity, noting the optical nature of the phenomenon — “in the opinion of the eye, otherwise it is greater than the world.” This interpretive unanimity is echoed by the later scholar al-Saadi.
[!scholar] al-Saadi — Tafsir al-Saadi
They are many strong reasons, internal and external, through which he had a great army with a large number, equipment and organization, and through which he was able to conquer the enemies and facilitate access to the easts and wests of the earth and its regions. So Allah gave him what he reached to the setting of the sun until he saw it in the sight of the eye as if it were setting in a muddy spring. This is what is usual for someone who has water between him and the western horizon of the sun, and like a land followed by water, people set in the same water, even if they are at the highest point.
It is noticeable from these interpretations that none of them relied on this hadith, and if it were authentic, it would not be possible to deviate from it!
The Internal Contradiction: Spring vs. Throne
Thirdly: The statement that the sun sets in a spring fundamentally contradicts its going to prostrate under the Throne, because the Throne is the highest of all creation and its ceiling. If we imagine the sun setting in a real muddy spring, how would it move upwards by descending to the bottom?!
The Figurative Meaning of the Authentic Hadith
Fourthly: As for the question about how the sun goes to prostrate under the throne, with the help of God:
This hadith is authentic from the truthful and trustworthy ﷺ, but it is by way of example, and these expressive styles are widespread and palatable in the Arabic language. This is only questioned by those who have not tasted the Arabic language and their infatuation with styles and methods of expression. We are undoubtedly certain that the sun truly prostrates and addresses its Lord, but all of this is not known how, as in the Almighty’s saying:
“Have you not seen that to Allah prostrates whoever is in the heavens and whoever is on the earth and the sun, the moon, the stars, the mountains, the trees, the moving creatures and many of the people? And many have deserved punishment. And whoever Allah humiliates — for him there is no bestower of honor. Indeed, Allah does what He wills.”
We all witness the trees, the moving creatures, the sun and the moon, but we do not know how they prostrate or address their Lord, glory be to Him, because each of them has learned his prayer and glorification, so we should not be forced to liken and depict stereotypes in everything, otherwise how would we understand His saying — peace and blessings be upon him — about the man who slept through the prayer: “This is a man in whose ears the devil urinated”? Does the wording carry the perceived and observed meaning? Of course not, as these are representative issues that occur in reality, but not in the manner that applies to us.
Scholars have said about this blessed hadith that prostration may be repeated at every moment whenever the sun sets over a part of God’s land, and some have said that prostration occurs after sunset over the land where the Messenger of God was specifically, which is the Arabian Peninsula, the land of the mission, where the first house established for people and the last house was, the Sacred House of God and the center of Hajj and the Qiblah of Islam.
Evidence of this is that if the sun goes to prostrate under the Throne, as the human mind imagines, does this mean that it is not under the Throne before setting? The answer is no because the hadiths are authentic that the Throne is the largest of all creation and its ceiling and it is beside it like a ring in a courtyard.
If it is said that when it sets it is closer to the Throne, this contradicts the belief of those who say that the Earth is fixed, since the closest moment for the sun to the Throne at that time will be when it is in the fourth sphere in the middle of the sky, not when it sets.
As for His permission for it to return from where it came, this is because the sun, even if it does not set by itself, is the one that causes the setting by the effect of its gravity on the movement of the Earth. The Earth rotates due to the effect of the sun’s gravity on it. Therefore, the action is for the sun and the effect is on the Earth.
On the other hand, the order is fulfilled by agreement or commitment. When a father orders his son to buy a certain product, this includes a request for the seller to sell it to him. When a person asks another to hand him the book that is in the hand of so-and-so, this is an implicit request for so-and-so to hand over this book…etc.
Thus, permission for the sun to rise includes permission for all creatures to proceed according to its predestined law, because everything is governed by His permission, and no foot is lifted from another foot except by the permission of Allah the Most High. And this universe, even though Allah the Most High has set its causative laws for it, He is the Causer of causes and the Determiner of destinies, glory be to Him.
It is sufficient for you to read the hadith with the correct wording mentioned in Musnad al-Imam Ahmad, who said: Muhammad ibn Ubayd narrated to us, on the authority of al-A’mash, on the authority of Ibrahim al-Taymi, on the authority of his father, on the authority of Abu Dharr, who said: I was with the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, in the mosque when the sun set, and he, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said: “O Abu Dharr, do you know where the sun sets? I said: Allah and His Messenger know best. He said: The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: ‘It sets until it prostrates before its Lord, the Almighty and Majestic, and asks permission to return, and it is given permission, as if it has been told to return from where you came, so it returns to its place of rising…’” Hadith. The word “as if” clearly shows the figurative meaning.
The Biblical Precedent: Scientific Errors in the Christian Scripture
Finally: I express my astonishment that the objection came from Christians, who are the last to have the right to do so, as their book is full of falsehoods and myths. Let us read some simple examples:
“The sun rises and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises.”
“And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? And the sun stopped in the midst of heaven and did not hurry to set for about a whole day.”
Our question is, is it the sun that hastens to its place from which it rose? And is it the sun that hastens to set and stands still, or is it the earth that does that?
“And you, O son of man, thus says the Lord God to the land of Israel: An end! The end has come upon the four corners of the earth.”
“He shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble.”
Does the spherical, oval earth have four corners? O God, strengthen our minds!! And does the earth, which floats in the orbit of the sky like all the other planets and suns, have pillars that shake?
“Allah is He who raised the heavens without any pillars that you can see. Then He established Himself on the Throne and subjected the sun and the moon, each running [its course] for a specified term. He directs the affair. He details the signs that you may be certain of the meeting with your Lord.”
The hadith of the sun’s prostration is authentic in its figurative sense, while the “hot spring” addition is weak and rejected by classical scholarship. The objection that it contradicts science collapses on hadith criticism, tafsir consensus, internal logic, and the irony that the objectors’ own scripture contains far cruder cosmological errors.
...cle is part of the OpenIslam Wiki — Responses to Hadith Doubts and Orientalist Critiques series._...