ABU ‘UBAYD SAID: In hadith it is recorded that the Prophet, God's blessings and peace be upon him, said: "God's throne rests on the shoulders of Israfil, who is humble as a waṣa‘ in His presence."
Ahmad ibn ‘Uthman reported this hadith to me on the authority of Ibn al-Mundhir, who heard it from ‘Abd Allah ibn al-Mubarak, who heard it from Layth ibn Sa‘d, who heard it from ‘Uqayl on the authority of Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri, who reported it with full isnad.Al-waṣa‘ is said to be the runt of a sparrow's brood of chicks, or a species of bird resembling the sparrow, only smaller.
ABU ‘UBAYD SAID: In hadith it is recorded that the Prophet, God's blessings and peace be upon him, was asked by Abu Razin al-‘Uqayli: "Before our Lord created the heavens and the earth, where was He?" He answered: "He was in [the type of cloud called] an ‘amā’, with a void below it and a void above."
Ya‘qub ibn Ishaq al-Farisi and others have related this hadith to me on the authority of Hammad ibn Salama, who heard it from Ya‘la ibn ‘Ata’, who heard it from Waqi‘ ibn Hudus (Hushaym corrects this name to ‘Udus in the isnad of a separate hadith), who was the nephew of Abu Razin and heard it from him directly.According to al-Asma‘i and others, in the speech of the Arabs al-‘amā’ is a white cloud with horizontal extension. Al-Harith ibn Hilliza said (a variant of his Mu‘allaqa's 25th verse, meter: khafīf):
Against the blows of fate, we're like the stony fastness
whose summit the ‘amā’ leaves open space for.
He means by this a high mountain peak that parts the clouds. The "fastness" of al-Harith's people is their unassailability and security in strength, meaning that their defenses are stronger than whatever fate throws at them. And Zuhayr said, describing gazelles or oryx (meter: wāfir):
They spy the lightning, and their brows are wetted
when the South Wind's path is showered by the ‘amā’.
We interpret this hadith according to the speech of the Arabs, and defer to their understanding. Only God knows the size and scale of His ‘amā’ and what it was like. The ‘amā that is "blindness" has nothing to do with the meaning of the hadith.
From Uncommon Vocabulary of Prophetic Hadith by
Abu ‘Ubayd al-Qasim ibn Sallam
