The Devil Urinates in the Ear — Understanding the Hadith Mocked by Critics
A hadith recorded in both Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim states that the devil urinates in the ear of the one who sleeps through Fajr prayer. Critics have presented this as an occasion for ridicule. The mockery exposes not a weakness in Islam, but an ignorance of classical Arabic rhetorical convention.
The Hadith
Grade: Sahih · Bukhari
Grade: Sahih · Muslim
The Objection
The Prophet of Islam claimed that Satan physically urinates in the ear of a Muslim who misses Fajr. This is scientifically absurd and religiously undignified — proof that Muhammad ﷺ was not a true prophet.
The Response
First: The Hadith Is a Classical Arabic Metaphor — The Scholars Are Explicit
The astonishment here belongs to the reader of Arabic, not the critic. The expression used in the hadith is a well-established Arabic rhetorical figure. The critics’ confusion is a product of reading classical Arabic idiom with a literal foreign lens.
[!scholar] Ibn Hajar Al-Asqalani — Fath Al-Bari
It was said: It is a metaphor for the one who is heedless of getting up due to heavy sleep — like someone who has something in his ear making it heavy and corrupting his senses. The Arabs use urine as a metaphor for corruption.
[!scholar] Imam Al-Nawawi — Sharh Sahih Muslim
It was said: Its meaning is that he belittled him, looked down on him, and acted arrogantly towards him. It is said of someone who belittles and deceives a person: he urinated in his ear. The origin of that expression comes from an animal that does this to a lion to humiliate it. Al-Harbi said: Its meaning is that he prevailed over him and mocked him.
The hadith describes a spiritual and psychological reality using the Arabic rhetorical convention of kinayah — indirect expression through an established figure of speech. The devil’s domination over the sleeping person who abandons Fajr is expressed through the most contemptuous image available in classical Arabic rhetoric: that of being urinated upon. This is a statement about humiliation and defeat — not a statement of physiology.
Second: Even If Taken Literally — What Prevents It?
Setting aside the metaphorical reading entirely and granting the literal for the sake of argument:
Is there any revelation from Allah — in any book on the face of the earth — that explicitly states the devil does not urinate? The answer is no. The devil is a creation with a private existence whose full nature is part of the unseen. He eats, drinks, reproduces, and has offspring — this is established in Islamic theology. What rational principle prevents him from also having a physiology that includes the equivalent of urination?
The ignorant objection would be: “But the person who misses Fajr does not wake up to find urine in his ear!” This objection assumes that the devil’s physiology and its effects must be identical to human or animal biology — an assumption with no basis in reason or revelation. The unseen world is not constrained by the observable mechanics of the physical world.
The correct position — and what the scholars have long held — is that the hadith is metaphorical. But even the literal reading raises no rational objection that has any grounding.
Third: The Comparative Reversal — The Critics’ Own God Urinates and Defecates
Those who mock this hadith believe in the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation — that God became fully human in the person of Jesus (AS).
A fully human being eats, drinks, sleeps, urinates, and defecates. If the critics believe that God took on complete human nature — as classical Christian theology insists — then their God by their own theology urinated and defecated throughout his earthly life.
The question that remains for those who mock the devil urinating metaphorically in an ear:
Does a God who — by your own theology — urinated and defecated as a human being deserve to be worshipped and prayed to?
The Muslim position is that Allah is far above all such descriptions. He does not eat, drink, sleep, urinate, or defecate. He has no body, no needs, and no physical existence. Tanzih — the absolute transcendence of Allah — is a cornerstone of Islamic theology.
The hadith of the devil urinating in the ear is a classical Arabic metaphor for humiliation, domination, and corruption — confirmed explicitly by Ibn Hajar and Al-Nawawi. The critics’ mockery is a product of linguistic ignorance, not theological insight. Even granting a literal reading for argument’s sake, no rational or scriptural principle prevents a creation of the unseen from having a physiology unknown to us. And those who mock this hadith while believing in a God who took on full human nature — with all its biological functions — have a far more serious question to answer about the object of their own worship.