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What is the meaning of the Hadith: "There is no contagion" and "A sick person should not be brought to a healthy one"? And did Abu Hurayrah forget the first Hadith, or did one of the two sayings abrogate the other?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

Abu Hurayrah forgot the hadith "there is no 'Adwa (contagion)," so they reminded him of it. The apparent contradiction between "there is no 'Adwa (contagion)" and "a sick (owner of camels) should not bring his camels to mix with the healthy (owner of camels)" is not considered a real contradiction. Scholars reconciled the two hadiths by stating that the negation of 'Adwa (contagion) refers to the pre-Islamic (Jahiliyyah) belief that disease transmits by its nature, not by the فعل of Allah. As for the prohibition of bringing a sick person near a healthy one, it is a matter of avoiding the causes of harm that Allah has decreed, and the servant is commanded to avoid them, just as one is commanded to avoid entering a place afflicted with plague. Abu Hurayrah's forgetting of the hadith does not affect its authenticity because it was narrated by others.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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