Waqar Akbar Cheema
Abstract
Why was the house lizard/gecko mentioned in connection with the fire of Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham), and does the hadith imply punishment for an ancient act? This essay argues that it does not. By reading the reports together and in context, it becomes clear that the instruction to kill the gecko arose from concern about harm, while the Abraham episode serves only as an illustrative description. Far from violating Qur’anic justice, the hadith reflects a consistent ethical logic rooted in prevention, transmission, and Companion understanding.
1. Introduction
Among the reports that have repeatedly attracted misunderstanding is the account of the killing of the house gecko (wazagh/ lizard). Read in isolation, the report appears to suggest punitive reasoning that conflicts with core Qur’anic principles. A closer examination of the hadith corpus, however, considered in sequence and context, reveals a more coherent and ethically consistent picture.
2. Moral Difficulty and Qur’anic Objection
A key report on the topic in the most celebrated hadith collection, Sahih Bukhari, goes as:
عن أم شريك رضي الله عنها، أن رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم، ” أمر بقتل الوزغ، وقال: كان ينفخ على إبراهيم عليه السلام “
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Umm Sharīk narrated that the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) commanded that geckos be killed, saying, “It blew on Ibrahim’s fire, peace be upon him.”[1]
Read in isolation, this report raises an immediate moral difficulty. Why should a small lizard be ordered to be killed for something that occurred thousands of years ago, in a specific historical setting? If geckos seen today were to be killed for the act of one of them long ago, would this not contradict the Qur’anic dictum: “No one shall bear the burden of another” (Qur’an 6:164; 17:15; 35:18; 39:7; 53:38)? Moreover, how could such a creature meaningfully contribute to, or be blamed for, the fire set by a tyrant?
The force of this objection is not trivial. It appeals directly to Qur’anic moral logic and to intuitive notions of justice. Any satisfactory reading of the hadith must therefore preserve coherence with both.
3. The Prophetic Context: A Ruling Arising from Practical Harm
A crucial clarification emerges when the report is read alongside another narration:
أن أم شريك، أخبرته أنها استأمرت النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم، في قتل الوزغان «فأمر بقتلها»
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Umm Sharīk said she consulted Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) in regard to the killing of geckos, and he commanded to kill them.[2]
In one version, there is a further qualification that the Prophet (ﷺ) commanded her to kill them (fa-amarahā bi-qatli al-wizghān)[3]
This detail is significant. It shows that the instruction to kill geckos did not arise as an abstract pronouncement tied to an ancient event, but as a response to a practical concern. Apparently, Umm Sharīk had been troubled by geckos and, noting the hazards they posed, sought the Prophet’s (ﷺ) guidance. His response permitted their killing.
This episode also illustrates the ethical transformation effected by the Prophet (ﷺ). Even when dealing with small reptiles, people did not act reflexively but sought moral clarity. The permission to kill thus functions as a preventive ruling, grounded in harm, not as a symbolic punishment. The point here is not merely asserted as a moral principle; the framing and circulation of the reports themselves bear it out.
This concern for restraint in execution is further reflected in reports that link greater reward to killing the gecko swiftly rather than through repeated blows, indicating that even where killing was permitted, unnecessary prolongation of suffering was discouraged.[4]
4. Transmission, Not Legislation: How the Ibrahim Episode Enters the Narrative
Another cluster of reports preserves the same theme through ‘Aisha. One such narration states:
عن سائبة مولاة الفاكه بن المغيرة: أنها دخلت على عائشة فرأت في بيتها رمحا موضوعا، فقالت: يا أم المؤمنين، ما تصنعين بهذا؟ قالت: نقتل به هذه الأوزاغ، فإن نبي الله – صلى الله عليه وسلم – أخبرنا: أن إبراهيم لما ألقي في النار لم تكن في الأرض دابة إلا أطفأت النار، غير الوزغ، فإنها كانت تنفخ عليه، فأمر رسول الله – صلى الله عليه وسلم – بقتله
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It was narrated from Sa’ibah, the freed slave woman of Fakih b. Mughira, that she entered upon ‘Aisha and saw a spear in her house. She said: “O Mother of the Believers, what do you do with this?” She said: “We kill these house lizards (geckos) with it, for the Prophet of Allah (ﷺ) told us that when Ibrahim was thrown into the fire, there was no beast on earth that did not try to put it out, apart from the house lizard that blew on it. So the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) commanded that they should be killed.”[5]
Independently of questions about isnād evaluation, it is important to note that:
عن عائشة رضي الله عنها، أن النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم، قال: «للوزغ الفويسق» ولم أسمعه أمر بقتله وزعم سعد بن أبي وقاص أن النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم أمر بقتله
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Narrated ‘Aisha: The Prophet (ﷺ) said that the gecko was ‘a small harmful creature’ (al-fuwaisiq), but I did not hear him command that it be killed. Sa‘d b. Abi Waqqas claimed that the Prophet (ﷺ) had ordered that it be killed.[6]
This distinction is critical. ‘Aisha carefully differentiates between what she personally heard and what she knew through others. The mention of the gecko’s conduct at the fire of Ibrahim, which appears after the allowance to kill, was therefore something she likely learned through another Companion. None of Saʿd’s preserved narrations mentions the Ibrahim episode, which makes it plausible that ‘Aisha received this detail from Umm Sharīk.
A further report helps us see how this explanatory detail circulated.
عن سعيد بن المسيب، أن امرأة دخلت على عائشة وبيدها عكاز، فقالت: ما هذا؟ فقالت: لهذه الوزغ لأن نبي الله صلى الله عليه وسلم حدثنا أنه «لم يكن شيء إلا يطفئ، على إبراهيم عليه السلام إلا هذه الدابة فأمرنا بقتلها، ونهى عن قتل الجنان، إلا ذا الطفيتين، والأبتر، فإنهما يطمسان البصر، ويسقطان ما في بطون النساء»
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It was narrated from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib that a woman entered upon ‘Aisha while she had in her hand an iron-footed stick. ‘Aisha asked: “What is this?” She replied: “It is for these geckos, for the Prophet of Allah (ﷺ) told us that there was nothing that sought to extinguish the fire for Ibrahim except this creature, so he commanded us to kill it. And he forbade us to kill harmless snakes, except the snake with two stripes and the short-tailed snake, for they impair eyesight and cause what is in women’s wombs to miscarry.”[7]
The report admits of more than one grammatical reading with respect to pronoun reference. It may be read in line with the report of Saʾiba, in which ‘Aisha herself explains the matter to the visiting woman, but it also permits the alternative reading given above.
This alternative reading gains contextual support from the separate reports of Umm Sharīk’s consultation with the Prophet (ﷺ), which likewise come through Saʿīd b. al-Musayyib. The variation in implements across the two reports – an iron-footed stick held in hand in one narration and a spear kept in the house in another – also indicates different moments in time and, accordingly, different roles assumed by ʿAisha in the reception and later practice of the ruling, as noted by the Ethiopian hadith master, Muhammad b. Ali al-Wallawī (d. 2020) in his commentary on Sunan al-Nasa’i.[8]
This takes us back to the hadith of Umm Sharik in which the Prophet (ﷺ) mentions the act of geckos around the fire of Ibrahim, while making an allowance to kill them, responding to a query about their hazards.
5. Ethical Coherence and ‘Aisha’s Corrective Method
Nevertheless, ‘Aisha did kill geckos.[9] What these variations indicate is not contradiction, but temporal development, from initial learning, to onward transmission, to settled household practice. It may also be noted that although the report from her could be read in a way that places the instruction to kill geckos alongside their conduct at the fire of Ibrahim and thereby suggests a causal linkage, ‘Aisha was known to correct precisely such mistaken impressions when they conflicted with the Qur’anic principle in focus. She famously resisted readings that implied unearned liability, as in the case of the report concerning the punishment of the dead due to the wailing of relatives,[10] and in the case where the wrongdoing of a particular individual born out of wedlock was treated as a stain upon all those born thus.[11] That she did not raise such an objection here indicates that the Ibrahim episode did not create, in her understanding or that of other Companions, an impression of inherited guilt or punitive burden.
6. Fuwaisiq and the Logic of Harm
This is further clarified by the Prophet’s (ﷺ) use of the term fuwaisiq. He applied the same label to the mouse in a context explicitly tied to a domestic hazard:
عن جابر بن عبد الله رضي الله عنهما، قال: قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم: «خمروا الآنية، وأجيفوا الأبواب، وأطفئوا المصابيح، فإن الفويسقة ربما جرت الفتيلة فأحرقت أهل البيت»
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Narrated Jabir b. ‘Abdullah: the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said, “Cover vessels, close doors, and put out lamps. Sometimes the mouse (fuwaisiqa, lit., a small harmful creature) will pull away the wick and burn up the people of the house.”[12]
The mouse and the gecko are thus grouped under a shared functional category. The term does not attribute intention or moral agency; it designates small creatures whose ordinary behaviour can lead to serious harm.
7. Reading the Ibrahim Episode as Description, Not Punishment
Even without claiming a specific mechanism, the description becomes intelligible if one recalls that large fires attract insects and that geckos remain active around such swarms. While other animals, distressed by the blaze, might instinctively retreat or behave in ways perceived as mitigating the fire, geckos, drawn by insects, would remain active, darting and lunging. In such a setting, their movement could aptly be described as “blowing,” without implying causal responsibility for the fire or moral blame.
The report thus highlights a pattern of behaviour, not an ancestral crime.
8. Excursus: al-Jāḥiẓ and the Possibility of Ta’wīl
This reading is not a modern imposition. In Kitāb al-Ḥayawān, Al-Jahiz (d. 255/869) sharply criticises those who treat the Ibrahim episode as punitive causation, asking whether geckos today are to be punished for the act of an ancestor, and whether animals reproduce only those that “share their creed.”[13] As highlighted by Hātim al-ʿAwnī, al-Jāḥiẓ treats such reports as requiring taʾwīl, not rejection, implicitly distinguishing between what is illustrative, what is operative, and what is narrated for descriptive emphasis.[14]
What al-Jāḥiẓ articulates polemically is already implicit in the narrative structure of the reports themselves. The sequencing, transmission, and application of the hadiths naturally lead away from punitive readings and toward functional interpretation. Al-Jāḥiẓ’s polemical framing thus converges with, rather than corrects, the internal logic of the transmitted reports.
9. Conclusion
When the reports concerning the geckos are read together rather than in isolation, the moral difficulty dissolves. The Prophet (ﷺ) responded to a concrete concern about a harmful creature by permitting its killing. The reference to the fire of Ibrahim serves as an illustrative description, not as the basis of liability. The Companions, especially ‘Aisha, did not understand the report in a way that conflicted with the Qur’anic principle that no soul bears the burden of another. Instead, the gecko, like the mouse, was classified as fuwaysiq (harmful) because of the real hazards its behaviour could pose, particularly in environments involving fire.
This same understanding is explicitly articulated in contemporary scholarship. Mufti Taqi Usmani writes:
What appears to me – and Allah knows best – is that the Prophet (ﷺ) mentioned this account only to demonstrate the creature’s vile nature and base disposition. The actual reason for commanding its killing is that it is harmful. Otherwise, it is evident that the geckos of this time are not punished for what the geckos of Ibrahim’s time did. The primary cause for the command to kill it is its harmfulness and aggression, exemplified by the manner in which members of its kind behaved toward our master Ibrahim.[15]
The controversy, therefore, arises not from the hadiths themselves but from reading them without attention to their internal sequencing, transmission pathways, and Companion practice. Taʾwīl here is not an appeal to external reasoning imposed upon the tradition, but fidelity to the internal logic of the transmitted reports.
References & Notes:
[1] Al-Bukhari, al-Sahih, Hadith 3359
[2] Muslim b. Hajjaj, al-Sahih, Hadith 2237-143
[3] Ahmad b. Hanbal, al-Musnad, Hadith 27365
[4] Muslim b. Hajjaj, al-Sahih, Hadith 2240-146
[5] Ibn Majah, al-Sunan, Hadith 3231; Ahmad b. Hanbal, al-Musnad, Hadith 24534. Al-Albānī and Shuʿayb al-Arnaʾūṭ have judged the report weak on the grounds that Saʾība’s reliability is not explicitly established, while other scholars, including Zubair ʿAlī Zaiʿī, have considered it ḥasan. As for ‘Aisha’s phrasing, “the Prophet of Allah told us,” it need not necessitate her inclusion among the direct audience; rather, it may denote communication to the body of Companions from whom she received the report. Comparable usage is noted from other earlier scholars as well. See, Al-‘Asqalani, Ibn Hajar, Fath al-Bari bi Sharh Sahih al-Bukhari, (Beirut: Dar al-Ma‘rifa, 1379 AH) Vol. 6, 354
One narration has that ‘Aisha said, “The frog sought to extinguish the fire from Ibrahim …” See, Al-San‘ani, Abdul Razzaq, al-Musannaf (Dabhel: Majlis al-‘Ilmi, 1983) Hadith 8392;
[6] Al-Bukhari, al-Sahih, Hadith 1831, 3306 cf. Muslim b. Hajjaj, al-Sahih, Hadith 2238-144
[7] Al-Nasa’i, al-Sunan, Hadith 2831
[8] al-Athyubi al-Wallawi, Muhammad ibn ‘Ali, Dhakhirat al-ʻUqba fi Sharḥ al-Mujtaba, (Makkah: Dar Ale Barum, 2003) Vol.25, 7;
[9] Al-San‘ani, Abdul Razzaq, al-Musannaf, Hadith 8400; Ibn Abi Shaiba, al-Musannaf, (Beirut: Dar Qurtuba, 2006) Hadith 20254-55; Ahmad b. Hanbal, al-Musnad, Hadith 25643
[10] Al-Bukhari, al-Sahih, Hadith 1288
[11] Al-San‘ani, Abdul Razzaq, al-Musannaf, Hadith 13860-61
[12] Al-Bukhari, al-Sahih, Hadith 6295
[13] Al-Jahiz, ‘Amr b. Bahr, al-Hayawan, (Beirut: DKI, 1424 AH) Vol.4, 402
[14] Al-‘Awni, al-Sharif Hatem b. ‘Arif, Facebook post, October 17, 2022, “ذكر الجاحظ أحاديث قتل الوزغ …,” Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/Al3uny/posts/pfbid0ftDusoyKP6whpnvLRJbBnxFuirs4cQnnDBmusxqMFvz2CYFdXuf5JRodxZSDXzzGl.
[15] Usmani, Muhammad Taqi, Takmila Fath al-Mulhim, (Beirut: Dar Ihya’ al-Turath, 2006) Vol.4, 350
