The Denotations of Command and Prohibition in the Hadiths about the Right of the Neighbor (an Applied Fundamental Study)

Abstract

The Sharia provisions and Sunnah have great cultural dimensions aiming to achieve social peace and human progress. One of these cultural dimensions is the care of the neighbor and the neighborhood. Hence, the Qur'anic and the Prophet's hadiths assert on the rights of a neighbor that vary according to proximity or remoteness. The neighbor deserves these rights among the general rights guaranteed to a Muslim from a Muslim brother.

This research focuses on what is stated of these rights in the Sunnah that contains orders for charity, honoring and support to the neighbor.  Moreover, there are texts forbidding harming, offending and infringement of the neighbor's rights.

These texts aimed at in totality to achieve civil peace and social security and in return community conservation from anything threatening its safety and stability. On the other hand,  they represent an aspect of the rights of a human to live a safeguarded life that is not affected by the loss of his/her clan or relatives and does not feel lonely and isolated. Thus, they also aim at human and humanitarian unity.

As command and forbidding have denotations according to scholars and fundamentalists, the basic principle in the matter is that they have obligatory and binding as well as they embody inducement and desirableness with presumption. On the other hand, the basic principle in forbidding is prohibition and it demonstrates detestation and transcendence with presumption. The research addressed some of the texts of the Sunnah which contain the rights of a neighbor or the forbiddance of anything that contradicts these rights in these two formulas – i.e.,  the two formulas of command and forbidding – in addition to identifying the significance of the ruling in them.