Did the Prophet (peace be upon him) say: "Apostasy or disbelief will emerge from my house," and he pointed to the house of Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her)?

What constrains the minds of some Muslims is the dragging up of historical issues that belong to the past, while forgetting major contemporary events. This makes them live an incomplete life and hold a distorted creed. We must not allow history—even if true—to be a reason for neglecting the objectives of Islam, which are the Oneness of the Creator, the pillars of faith and Islam, and the ethical and value-based objectives brought by the Prophet, peace be upon him.

It was not narrated that the Prophet, peace be upon him, said: "Apostasy or disbelief will emerge from my house," while pointing to the house of Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her. Rather, this is false and has no chain of narration. Some hateful individuals have distorted the meaning of the hadith (definition): "There are earthquakes and tribulations, and from there will emerge the horn of Satan," which refers to the direction of the East (Najd or Iraq), taking advantage of the fact that Aisha’s chamber was in that direction. The reference was to the direction, not to Aisha herself, may Allah be pleased with her. This distortion originated from some Shiite books.

Several points confirm the falsity of this distortion: all authentic narrations refer to the East as a general direction; the Prophet, peace be upon him, resided in Aisha’s house and passed away there; and the Companions did not understand the hadith in this sickly meaning. How could the house of his wife, the place where revelation descended, and where he was buried, be a place for the horn of Satan? The narrators of the hadith from among the Companions and the Tabi'un understood that the intended meaning was Najd in Iraq, as narrated by Salim ibn Abdullah ibn Umar from his father. This is also confirmed by the historical reality of the tribulations that occurred in Iraq.