some pretty relevant info on this topic here - see post#5 --- Stars, Clouds, Crops Significance of the Pleiades in pre-Islamic Arabia
i received a clip on whatsapp to confirm or deny the statement of a speaker who claims that "all pandemics will end with the rising of the pleiades" which according to him is on 12th may this year and the hadith is mentioned in musnad ahmad. i do not know about the speaker and i am told he is a deobandi. --- the hadith in question is found in musnad imam ahmad, in the musnad of abdullah ibn umar, #5012 (ahmad shakir, ed.) narrated to us yazid ibn harun, who said: ibn abi dhiyb informed me, narrating from uthman ibn Abdullah ibn suraqah that he said: we were in a journey and (abdullah) ibn umar was with us and i asked him. he replied: "i have seen RasulAllah sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam. and he did not pray supererogatory (nafl) prayers while travelling, neither before or after the [obligatory] prayer". i asked ibn umar about sale of fruits (produce). he replied: "RasulAllah sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam forbade the sale of produce until the blight passes. i asked: "o abu abd al-raHman (i.e. ibn umar) what makes the blight to pass? or what is blight? he replied: "the rise of pleiades". ---- يسبح yusabbiH: means supererogatory or voluntary prayer. see fat'H al-bari under #1097: "this term is used repeatedly in many places. it means pray nafl. أي يصلى النافلة --- this a composite of two different hadith: first on not praying nafl during travel; second, not to sell fruit/produce/crop before it is time or wait until a period has passed when the crop is good enough to harvest and there is no fear of blight. عاهة `aahah means crop blight or chlorosis or some sort of plant disease. see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blight https://web.extension.illinois.edu/focus/index.cfm?problem=chlorosis https://www.britannica.com/science/plant-disease https://cropwatch.unl.edu/soybean-management/plant-disease --- now, the first portion of the hadith is present in many other hadith of bukhari and muslim; the musnad (of imam ahmad) itself (#4761) has the hadith: ibn aaSim narrates from his father who said: we were (in a journey) with ibn umar and we prayed obligatory prayer (farD); one of his sons wanted to pray supererogatory prayer. ibn umar said: "i have prayed with the Prophet SallAllahu alayhi wa sallam" and abu bakr and umar and uthman while travelling - (none of them) prayed (nafl) either before or after the (obligatory prayer). ---- the second portion is also found in various narrations in the musnad itself. it is also present in other books such as muslim #1535, abu dawud #3368, tirmidhi #1227, nasa'i #4551, muwatta imam malik #1809, #1812. and in musnad ahmad #4943, #4493, #4525, #4869, #4998: ibn umar said: RasulAllah SallAllahu alayhi wa sallam forbade selling dates (or date palms) until the dates were ripe and and the ear, until it was white and free from blight - he forbade both buying and selling. ibn umar said: the prophet SallAllahu alayhi wa sallam forbade sale of fruit (crop, produce) until it was clear that it was fit (and free from disease or blemish thereby rendering it unfit or poor). nafiy reports from ibn umar: that RasulAllah SallAllahu alayhi wa salla forbade sale of crop (fruit, produce) until its fitness was apparent. he forbade both the seller and buyer (from doing so). forbade to travel to enemy country with the Qur'an fearing that the enemies would disrespect it. salim ibn abdullah ibn umar reports from his father that he said RasulAllah sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam said: "it is not appropriate to sell produce until its good condition is apparent". from ibn umar: "RasulAllah sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam forbade selling produce until its fitness was apparent." (the companions asked): "O Messenger of Allah. what is the definition of fitness?" he replied: "when the plant disease has passed, and only the good (unaffected) produce remains". ====== notice, that the 'rise of pleiades' was the explanation given by hazrat ibn umar. this was only an indication of the time of the year and nothing to do with stars themselves having any effect on the plant disease. nor is it a generalisation that ALL diseases, pandemics will vanish after the rise of pleiades. as one can see it is an outright nonsensical and utterly ignorant reading of hadith. --- however, we pray Allah ta'ala to give us relief from this pandemic - whether on may 12th, before or after. نسأل الله العافية ==== update: links on how the heliacal rising of pleiades was used as a marker for agriculture etc. https://www.lcas-astronomy.org/articles/display.php?filename=a_starry_calendar&category=observing https://astrosim.univie.ac.at/Projectse2_en.html https://www.britannica.com/place/Pleiades-astronomy https://earthsky.org/tonight/november-is-the-month-of-the-pleiades https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliacal_rising https://www.astronomyedinburgh.org/2018/11/18/winters-coming-the-pleiades-rise/ https://in-the-sky.org/whatsup_times.php
