As salamu alaikum,
Shaykh Gibril Haddad has addressed this very confusion, clearly refuting the Deobandi position mentioned above. The complete text can be found at
www.mawlid.net under the "Articles" section.
Excperpted from
Omnipresence of the Prophet by Dr. G.F. Haddad
"Al-Qadi ‘Iyad in al-Shifa, in the section titled “Concerning the places where it is desirable to invoke blessings and peace upon him” cited from ‘ Amr ibn Dinar al-Athram (d. 126) the explanation of the verse [when you enter houses salute one another] (24:61): “If there is no-one in the house then say: ‘as-salâmu ‘alâ al-Nabiyyi wa rahmatullâhi wa barakâtuh.’”[10]
Al-Qari said in his commentary on al-Shifa’: “Meaning, because his soul, sall-Allahu `alayhi wa sallam, is present in the house of the Muslims (ay li’anna rûhahu ‘alayhi al-salâmu hâdirun fî buyûti al-muslimîn).”[11]
What ‘Iyad cited from al-Athram is only narrated by al-Tabari in his Tafsir from Ibn Jurayj, from ‘Ata’ al-Khurasani (d. 135):
Hajjaj narrated to me from Ibn Jurayj: I said to ‘Ata’: “What if there is no-one in the house?” He said: “Give salâm! Say, al-salâmu ‘alâ al-Nabiyyi wa rahmatullâhi wa barakâtuh, al-salâmu ‘alaynâ wa ‘alâ ‘ibâdillah al-sâlihîn, al-salâmu ‘alâ ahli al-bayti wa rahmatullâh.” I said: “This statement you just said about my entering the house in which there is no-one, from whom did you receive it?” He replied: “I heard it without receiving it from anyone in particular.”[12]
‘Ata’ was a pious muhaddith, mufti, and wâ‘iz from whom Yazid ibn Samura heard the statement: “The gatherings of dhikr are the gatherings of [teaching] the halâl and the harâm.”[13] His trustworthiness and/or memory were contested by al-Bukhari, Abu Zur‘a, Ibn Hibban, Shu‘ba, al-Bayhaqi, al-‘Uqayli, and Ibn Hajar, but he was nevertheless declared thiqa by Ibn Ma‘in, Abu Hatim, al-Daraqutni, al-Thawri, Malik, al-Awza‘i, Ahmad, Ibn al-Madini, Ya‘qub ibn Shayba, Ibn Sa‘d, al-‘Ijli, al-Tabarani, and al-Tirmidhi, while Ibn Rajab concludes he is “thiqa thiqa.”[14]
A Deobandi's False Assertion against Mullah Ali al-Qari
Recently, a Deobandi writer forwarded the strange claim that al-Qari’s text in Sharh al-Shifa’ actually stated, “NOT THAT his soul, sall-Allahu `alayhi wa sallam, is present in the houses of the Muslims” (lâ anna rûhahu hâdiratun fî buyûti al-muslimîn) that is, the diametrical opposite of what al-Qari actually said!:
He [al-Qari] discussed the issue in the Sharh of Shifa, that lâ anna rûhahu hâdiratun fî buyûti al-muslimîn i.e. this notion is incorrect that the soul of our Master Hazrat Mohammed, sall-Allahu `alayhi wa sallam, is present in the homes of the Muslims. In some copies the word lâ has been dropped and has without any reason created confusion for some individuals, including Mufti Ahmed Yar Khan sahib (see Jaa al-Haqq p. 142). ... In all his explicit quotes Hazrat Mulla Ali al-Qari himself negates the belief of hâdir wa nâzir. Those who have relied on his brief, indistinct quotes (out of context) are absolutely and definitely wrong.[15]
That one can actually dare to make the above claim is only because of ignorance of the Arabic language since al-Qari prefaces the statement with the word “meaning (ay),” which would be grammatically incorrect if it were followed by a disclaimer such as “not that his soul is present in the houses of the Muslims.” The truth is that no such word as lâ has been dropped because there was no such word there in the first place, and the claim that there was is nothing short of tampering (tahrîf). Furthermore, the word al-Qari used for “present” is hâdir in the masculine, not hâdiratun in the feminine, as rûh can have either gender but the masculine is more appropriate here to refer to the Prophet, sall-Allahu `alayhi wa sallam."
