Did Prophet Muhammad Die From Poison?

I want to stress on the fact that the hadith do not clearly indicate that the Prophet did die from poison. The Prophet was aging and was getting sick and the Prophet just simply said that he still tastes the poison in his mouth. That does not necessarily imply that the poison killed him. Personally, I do not think that the Prophet died from the poison. However, I only wrote this article in response to show that this argument actually reaffirms the Prophethood of Muhammad (peace be upon him) and so that anti Islamics wont think that we are running away from the issue. 

Apparently there are some Christians who have a problem with the Prophet Muhammad’s (peace be upon him) death. Lets see if this truly is a problem.

Jews have tried to kill the Prophet (PBUH) a number of times and they failed

The Jews wanted to kill the Messenger (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) on several occasions, including the following: 

1 – When he was a child. Ibn Sa’d narrated in al-Tabaqaat, with an isnaad going back to Ishaaq ibn ‘Abd-Allaah that when the mother of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) gave him to the Sa’di woman who breastfed him, she said to her, “Keep him safe,” and she told her what she had seen. Haleemah al-Sa’diyyah passed by some Jews and said, “Will you not tell me about this son of mine? I conceived him in such and such a manner, and I gave birth to him in such and such a manner, and I saw such and such,” and she repeated what his mother had told her. They said to one another, “Kill him!” They asked her, “Is he an orphan?” She said, “No, this is his father and I am his mother.” They said, “If he had been an orphan we would have killed him.” Haleemah (his wet nurse) took him and said, “I nearly lost that which had been entrusted to me.”  This report is mursal, but the men of its isnaad are thiqaat (trustworthy). 

2 – They tried to kill him (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) after Badr. Banu al-Nadeer sent for him to come out to them with thirty of his companions, and said “We will send out thirty of our rabbis, to meet in such and such a place, halfway between us and you, so that they can listen to you. If they believe in you then we will all believe in you.” Then they said: “How can we reach an understanding when there are sixty of us? Send out three of your companions and we will send out three of our scholars to listen to you. They were carrying concealed daggers and they wanted to kill the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him). A sincere woman from among Banu al-Nadeer sent word to her nephew (her brother’s son) who was a Muslim man from among the Ansaar, and told him about that, and he told the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him). The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) went back, and the following day he brought his troops and besieged them, and the Jews of Banu al-Nadeer were expelled. This story was narrated by ‘Abd al-Razzaaq in his Musannaf, and by Abu Dawood in his Sunan(3004), via ‘Abd al-Razzaaq, but he does not mention the details of the story, rather he says, “… ‘They will listen to you and if they believe in you, we shall believe in you.’ The narrator then narrated the whole story. When the next day came, the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) went out in the morning with an army, and besieged them.” This hadeeth was classed as saheeh by al-Albaani in Saheeh Abi Dawood. 

3 – Ibn Ishaaq mentions another reason for the expulsion of Banu al-Nadeer, which is that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) went to Banu al-Nadeer to ask them for help in paying the diyah of two men of ahl al-dhimmah who had been killed by mistake by ‘Amr ibn Umayyah al-Dumari. The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) sat by a wall belonging to Banu al-Nadeer, and they plotted to throw a rock on him and kill him. The Revelation informed him of that and he rushed back to Madeenah, then he issued orders that they should be besieged. (Source)

Some people try to argue that the Prophet died by being poisoned by a Jewish lady and therefore he could not have been a true Prophet. Here are the narrations, which indicate that the Prophet died from poison.

Saheeh Bukhari

Volume 003, Book 047, Hadith Number 786.

Narated By Anas bin Malik : A Jewess brought a poisoned (cooked) sheep for the Prophet who ate from it. She was brought to the Prophet and he was asked, "Shall we kill her?" He said, "No." I continued to see the effect of the poison on the palate of the mouth of Allah's Apostle.

Volume 004, Book 053, Hadith Number 394.

Narated By Abu Huraira: When Khaibar was conquered, a roasted poisoned sheep was presented to the Prophets as a gift (by the Jews). The Prophet ordered, "Let all the Jews who have been here, be assembled before me." The Jews were collected and the Prophet said (to them), "I am going to ask you a question. Will you tell the truth?'' They said, "Yes.' The Prophet asked, "Who is your father?" They replied, "So-and-so." He said, "You have told a ie; your father is so-and-so." They said, "You are right." He siad, "Will you now tell me the truth, if I ask you about something?" They replied, "Yes, O AbuAl-Qasim; and if we should tell a lie, you can realize our lie as you have done regarding our father." On that he asked, "Who are the people of the (Hell) Fire?" They said, "We shall remain in the (Hell) Fire for a short period, and after that you will replace us." The Prophet said, "You may be cursed and humiliated in it! By Allah, we shall never replace you in it.'' Then he asked, "Will you now tell me the truth if I ask you a question?" They said, "Yes, O Ab Li-AI-Qasim." He asked, "Have you poisoned this sheep?" They said, "Yes." He asked, "What made you do so?" They said, "We wanted to know if you were a liar in which case we would get rid of you, and if you are a prophet then the poison would not harm you."

Volume 005, Book 059, Hadith Number 713.

Narated By Ibn Abbas : 'Umar bin Al-Khattab used to let Ibn Abbas sit beside him, so 'AbdurRahman bin 'Auf said to 'Umar, "We have sons similar to him." 'Umar replied, "(I respect him) because of his status that you know." 'Umar then asked Ibn 'Abbas about the meaning of this Holy Verse: "When comes the help of Allah and the conquest of Mecca..." (110.1)

Ibn 'Abbas replied, "That indicated the death of Allah's Apostle which Allah informed him of." 'Umar said, "I do not understand of it except what you understand."

Narrated 'Aisha: The Prophet in his ailment in which he died, used to say, "O 'Aisha! I still feel the pain caused by the food I ate at Khaibar, and at this time, I feel as if my aorta is being cut from that poison."

That had an impact in causing his death, so he (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) died as a martyr (shaheed), as Ibn Mas’ood (may Allaah be pleased with him) said: “If I were to swear by Allaah nine times that the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) was killed, that is more beloved to me than swearing once, because Allaah made him a Prophet and made him a martyr.” Narrated by Ahmad, 3617. The editors said, its isnaad is saheeh according to the conditions of Muslim. 

Al-Sindi said: The words “he was killed” mean by the poison in the meat of the sheep’s foreleg that he ate, when the effects of that appeared when he was dying. 

Quoted from Haashiyat al-Musnad, 6/116

The conquest of Khaybar took place in Muharram or Rabee’ al-Awwal of the year 7 AH. So this event took place four years before the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) died. 

[By Bassam Zawadi | Answering Christianity]