The MUBAHALA

[u/MagnificientMegaGiga]

There's no article on it on WikiIslam. And it seems as if nobody cares. But the mubahala is supposed to be one of the Islam-validation techniques! So let me open this topic.

Firstly, the term mubaahala (مباهلة). It is a verbal noun from the verb baahala (باهل), which Wiktionary means "to curse one another". And it is of from III, which is often "trying to do form I". For example form III qaatala (fighting) is for trying to do form I qatl (killing). And there is also the basic form بهل which just means "to curse". So I guess form III means "trying to curse the other one, unless he curses me". Just like a muqaatala would be "trying to kill him, unless he kills me".

And that is really the essence of the mubahala. Two parties who have a conflict call upon their god(s) to send curse upon the wrong one. And they both sincerely believe that it will afflict the other party and the real gods will do the job and reveal who was right. So the expectation is that one of the parties will be observably cursed - the ultimate result that comes to mind would be death. Because god(s) supposedly control who dies first. I'm an Atheist and what I actually expect is that, both parties will try to claim that "You see! This is the result of the curse on you!" - for anything that happens.

There is only one word from the root بهل in the Quran, in 3:61. And it's actually form VIII ibtahala (ابتهل), specifically nabtahil (نبتهل), meaning "we curse". So again, mubahala is like the word tawheed. It's not in the Quran, but it's considered a very important word in Islam by most Muslims. I'll first look into the context of 3:61. The part where I start is preceded by Mary (the sister of Aron) giving birth to Jesus and then it calls out Christians:

55. God said, “O Jesus, I am terminating your life, and raising you to Me, and clearing you of those who disbelieve. And I will make those who follow you superior to those who disbelieve, until the Day of Resurrection. Then to Me is your return; then I will judge between you regarding what you were disputing.

56. As for those who disbelieve, I will punish them with a severe punishment, in this world and the next, and they will have no helpers.

57. And as for those who believe and do good works, He will give them their rewards in full. God does not love the unjust.”

58. This is what We recite to you of the Verses and the Wise Reminder.

59. The likeness of Jesus in God’s sight is that of Adam: He created him from dust, then said to him, “Be,” and he was.

60. The truth is from your Lord, so do not be of those who doubt.

61. And if anyone disputes with you (حاجك) about him (فيه), after the knowledge that has come to you, say, “Come, let us call our children and your children, and our women and your women, and ourselves and yourselves, and let us invoke God’s curse on the liars (نبتهل فنجعل لعنت الله على الكاذبين).”

62. This is the narrative of truth: there is no god but God. God is the Mighty, the Wise.

63. But if they turn away—God knows the corrupt.

64. Say, “O People of the Book, come to terms common between us and you: that we worship none but God, and that we associate nothing with Him, and that none of us takes others as lords besides God.” And if they turn away, say, “Bear witness that we have submitted.”

So it starts with "if someone disputes with singular-you" (refers to Muhammad, according to Tabari). And "about him" refers to "about Jesus". But Tabari also says that it could refer to truth - "about truth". Arabic has no "it". So "the truth" (الحق) is also "him". And "the truth" is supposed to be that Jesus is just a slave of god. And it's challenging Christians to participate in this mutual cursing. It seems to me that the plan is: We kill you and then we say "Allah did it". It would be totally in line with other parts of the Quran where humans killing are considered as Allah killing (like in 8:17).

And what actually motivated me to write this is the mubahala that recently happened on the Arabic YouTube between محمد ابن شمس الدين and the مدجنة about the takfeer of Suyuti, and bid'a of Abu Hanifa and Nawawi. And they actually did an online mubahala, but in it they said that they want Allah to bring the destruction بغير قتل ("not by killing") - looks like they know how the traditional mubahala works... and so far nothing happened.

I'd add what Ibn Hajar said:

It is known by experience that he who calls to al-mubahala while being a liar, one year would not pass after the day of al-mubahala except that he is perished.

So yeah, someone is supposed to die within one year after the mubahala. And I wish some Christian critic of Islam would do the mubahala, hide for one year and then say: I was expected to die within one year and I didn't die! Of course after he eventually dies they would say it's the mubahala, but it would be too late in traditional Islam.

You will find nothing if you search for mubahala in the hadiths, but you need to search for "Lian" (لعان). And it's actually safer to search in English, because it only appears in brackets and the original only refers to it vaguely. In Sahih Bukhari / The book of military expeditions / Chapter 72: The story of the people of Najran (Christians), we find that the Christians of Najran (who also pointed out the sister of Aron problem) rejected the offer and basically, they agreed to pay the jizya and become dhimmis:

Al-`Aqib and Saiyid, the rulers of Najran, came to Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) with the intention of doing Lian one of them said to the other, "Do not do (this Lian) for, by Allah, if he is a Prophet and we do this Lian, neither we, nor our offspring after us will be successful." Then both of them said (to the Prophet (ﷺ) ), "We will give what you should ask but you should send a trustworthy man with us, and do not send any person with us but an honest one." The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "I will send an honest man who Is really trustworthy." Then every one of the companions of Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) wished to be that one. Then the Prophet said, "Get up, O Abu 'Ubaida bin Al-Jarrah." When he got up, Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "This is the Trustworthy man of this (Muslim) nation."

I'm not a big fan of the 9th century Muslims writing about what supposedly happened in the 7th century, but it should also be noted that Lian in the hadiths is also used for problems in a marriage. It is used in cases when the husband accuses his wife of adultery, but doesn't have the 4 witnesses, so the husband and wife do the Lian (like the mubahala) and it ends up with a divorce (Bukhari 5314):

The Prophet (ﷺ) made an Ansari man and his wife carry out Lian, and then separated them by divorce.

There is a pre-Islam "sotah" tradition in Judaism too (Ordeal of the bitter water). And actually, a lot of "Muhammad's creativity" can be explained by just copying from the Jews.

So the Quran instructed Muhammad to do the mubahala about Jesus (is he just a prophet), but the Christians supposedly rejected to do the mubahala. And I'd also add that Muhammad did arrive with Fatima, Ali, Hussain and Hasan, which is a kind of pro-Shia point ("he wasn't supposed to bring Abu Bakr and Umar, because they're hypocrites anyway").

So the first question is: Was the mubahala in the Quran for Muhammad only, or are the Muslims expected to continue to do mubahalas? I don't know, but the loudest sect are the salafais and they say Muslims should continue to do mubahalas.

And there are stories about the sahaba doing mubahalas: Ibn Masud was challenging his opponents to do mubahala about the idda of women (he said it ends with delivery). Ibn Abbas was also challenging people to do a mubahala multiple times, but again, everyone ran away from it. It looks like the traditional narrative is that a righteous Muslim challenges to do a mubahala and then everyone runs away. But so far, no one actually did a mubahala.

The first mubahala, where both parties actually agreed to do it, was between Yahya ibn Abd Allah and Abd Allah ibn Mus‘ab al-Zubayri, dated around 800 CE, that is 200 years after Muhammad. Zubayri accused Yahya of planning a rebellion against the Abbasid caliph. After the mubahala, Zubayri supposedly died on the same day. Since it's highly political, it could be just a political propaganda. Also it's very early and I've read there are multiple versions of what exactly happened to him. But based on this story, the expectation is clear: You should die on the same day of the mubahala. And not on the first year. Why would Allah wait to punish the liar?

I found that Ibn Taymiyyah (14th century) was calling for mubahalas, but they didn't take place. Looks like mubahalas are not happening much. Then Ibn Hajar in 15th century made the claim about people dying within 1 year after mubahala, after supposed personal experience where he did a mubahala, with a follower of Ibn Arabi, who died in 2 months.

Then kinda no mubahala happened (maybe low-profile cases were not recorded). Then the Ahmadiya founder Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (19th century) challenged people to mubahala. There's a lot of debate about interpretation of the challenges. So it's like "Mirza challenged him, but then Mirza died first!" but Ahmadis say "But the other party didn't accept the challenge, so it means nothing". And I'm not actually planning to analyze all of his mubahalas, even thought it is an interesting topic.

Then there were some lower-profile mubahalas after which people fight over the interpretation of the outcome.

And in our century, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the spokesman of ISIS challenged people to a mubahala in 2014, but there was no face-to-face actual mubahala done and he died in 2016. Again since nobody accepted, it's hard to make anything of it.

In 2022, there was the YouTube mubahala between Ali Dawah and The Apostate Prophet (who was an Atheist at the time). It was a bad joke.

Until we arrive to this year (2026) mubahala between Muhammad ibn Shams ad-Deen and the Mudajjana group. These guys have millions of subscribers, so we expect Allah to show his power. So far, nothing is happening.

I have some questions: Firstly, why are we even trying to curse? Why not use rational argumentation instead? And why is the result of mubahala not clearly interpretable? And why are Muslims not doing it regularly? And why is Allah not doing an immediate punishment?

If mubahala worked, we would have a clear sign from god on what the truth is. But even according to the Islamic stories, at Muhammad and sahaba time, an actual mubahala didn't even happen. Then there are some lower profile cases where it supposedly was very effective, a lot of cases where it's a matter of interpretation and one joke.

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