٦٨ - باب الورع وترك الشبهات

On the authority of al-Nuʿmān ibn Bashīr (may Allah be pleased with them both), who said: I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say: «The lawful is clear and the unlawful is clear, and between the two are doubtful matters which many people do not know. So whoever guards against the doubtful matters keeps his religion and his honour intact, and whoever falls into the doubtful matters falls into the unlawful, like a shepherd who grazes around a sanctuary and is about to graze within it. Indeed, every king has a sanctuary, and indeed the sanctuary of Allah is His prohibitions. Indeed, in the body there is a morsel of flesh which, if it is sound, the whole body is sound, and if it is corrupt, the whole body is corrupt. Indeed, it is the heart.» Agreed upon; and they both narrated it through various chains with closely similar wordings.

On the authority of Anas (may Allah be pleased with him): that the Prophet ﷺ found a date on the road and said: «Were it not that I fear it may be from the charity, I would have eaten it.» Agreed upon.

On the authority of al-Nawwās ibn Samʿān (may Allah be pleased with him), from the Prophet ﷺ, who said: «Righteousness is good character, and sin is that which wavers in your soul and which you would dislike people to discover.» Narrated by Muslim. «Ḥāka» — with the undotted ḥāʾ and the kāf — means: it wavered within him.

On the authority of Wābiṣa ibn Maʿbad (may Allah be pleased with him), who said: I came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and he said: «You have come to ask about righteousness?» I said: Yes. He said: «Consult your heart. Righteousness is that with which the soul is at ease and with which the heart is at ease; and sin is that which wavers in the soul and hesitates in the breast, even if people give you their verdict, and give it again and again.» A good (ḥasan) hadith, narrated by Aḥmad and al-Dārimī in their two Musnads.

On the authority of Abū Sirwaʿa — with either kasra or fatḥa on the undotted sīn — ʿUqba ibn al-Ḥārith (may Allah be pleased with him): that he married a daughter of Abū Ihāb ibn ʿAzīz. A woman then came to him and said: I have suckled both ʿUqba and the one he has married. ʿUqba said to her: I am not aware that you suckled me, nor did you tell me. So he rode to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ in Medina and asked him, and the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: «How [can it continue] when it has already been said?» So ʿUqba parted from her, and she married another husband. Narrated by al-Bukhārī. «Ihāb» is with a kasra on the hamza, and «ʿAzīz» is with a fatḥa on the ʿayn and with a repeated zāy.

On the authority of al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī (may Allah be pleased with them both), who said: I memorised from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ: «Leave what makes you doubt for what does not make you doubt.» Narrated by al-Tirmidhī, who said: «A good and sound hadith.» Its meaning is: abandon that about which you are in doubt, and take that about which you are not in doubt.

On the authority of ʿĀʾisha (may Allah be pleased with her), who said: Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq (may Allah be pleased with him) had a slave who would bring him his levy, and Abū Bakr used to eat from his levy. One day he brought something, and Abū Bakr ate from it. The slave said to him: Do you know what this is? Abū Bakr said: And what is it? He said: I once practised soothsaying for a man in the Days of Ignorance, though I was no good at soothsaying — I merely deceived him. He then met me and gave me something for that, and this is what you have eaten from. So Abū Bakr put his hand [into his mouth] and vomited up everything in his stomach. Narrated by al-Bukhārī. «Al-kharāj» is something which the master imposes upon his slave to pay each day, while the remainder of his earnings belongs to the slave.

On the authority of Nāfiʿ: that ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (may Allah be pleased with him) had assigned to the first Emigrants four thousand each, and assigned to his own son three thousand five hundred. It was said to him: He is one of the Emigrants, so why have you given him less? He said: His father only emigrated taking him along. He means: he is not like one who emigrated by himself. Narrated by al-Bukhārī.

On the authority of ʿAṭiyya ibn ʿUrwa al-Saʿdī, the Companion (may Allah be pleased with him), who said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: «A servant does not attain to being among the God-fearing until he leaves what is harmless out of caution against what is harmful.» Narrated by al-Tirmidhī, who said: «A good (ḥasan) hadith.»