Question:
Is the story of the spider’s web and the two doves authentically reported regarding the day the Prophet ﷺ hid in the Cave of Thawr?
Answer:
No. Historians mention that when the Prophet ﷺ hid in the Cave of Thawr, a spider spun a web over it and a dove perched on the branch of a tree—but this is a fabrication and is not authentic.
Furthermore, there is no miracle in it for the Messenger ﷺ. For any ordinary human being, if a spider spun a web and a dove was around him, anyone who sees it would simply say, ‘There is no one there.’
But [as for] the Messenger ﷺ, Allah blinded their vision from him, and that is why Abu Bakr said, ‘O Messenger of Allah, if one of them looked at his foot he would have seen us,’ because there was no barrier.
Therefore, the story of the spider and the dove having occurred when the Prophet ﷺ hid in the Cave of Thawr is unauthentic.
Because of this, many people respect the spider, saying, ‘Do not kill it, because it spun a web over the Prophet ﷺ.’ So, [they reason that] if the gecko is killed because it used to blow into the fire against Ibrahim (Abraham), then this one [the spider] should be honored.
To this we say: No, the spider is to be killed if it causes harm or a nuisance, just like any other creature. It does sometimes cause harm by spinning webs on books and walls, so it can be killed. In fact, there is a Hadith—albeit a daif (weak) one—that commands the killing of spiders, but it is daif.
Shaykh Al-Albani
Shaykh Al-Albani (may Allah have mercy on him) said:
Here, it must be mentioned that what is cited in some books of Hadith and books of Seerah (prophetic biography)—claiming that what turned away the disbelievers of Quraysh, after their tracking of footprints led them to realize the wanted men were inside the cave, was that they allegedly saw a dove had nested and laid eggs, and a spider had also spun its webs, leading them to say, “It is impossible for anyone to be here in the cave,” and so they turned away—this is not authentic according to the methodology of the scholars of Hadith.
First of all, it is not authentic. Furthermore, there is a strong narration stating that Allah, the Mighty and Sublime, commanded an angel to cover the mouth of the cave with his wing, and that is why they did not see him.