We were with the Prophet when a tall pagan with long matted unkempt hair came driving his sheep. The Prophet asked him, "Are those sheep for sale or for gifts?" The pagan replied, "They are for sale." The Prophet bought one sheep from him.

Once the Prophet came to me while a man was in my house. He said, "O `Aisha! Who is this (man)?" I replied, "My foster brothers" He said, "O `Aisha! Be sure about your foster brothers, as fostership is only valid if it takes place in the suckling period (before two years of age).

A man whose face was covered with an iron mask (i.e. clad in armor) came to the Prophet and said, "O Allah's Apostle! Shall I fight or embrace Islam first? "The Prophet said, "Embrace Islam first and then fight." So he embraced Islam, and was martyred. Allah's Apostle said, A Little work, but a great reward. "(He did very little (after embracing Islam), but he will be rewarded in abundance).

Um Habiba and Um Salama mentioned a church they had seen in Ethiopia and in the church there were pictures. When they told the Prophet of this, he said, "Those people are such that if a pious man amongst them died, they build a place of worship over his grave and paint these pictures in it. Those people will be Allah's worst creatures on the Day of Resurrection . "

Abu Dawud said : Ahmad (b. Hanbal) said: It is pleasing to me that one should recite in the obligatory prayer those supplications which have occurred in the Quran.

Sa'd asked: Messenger of Allah, Umm Sa'd has died; what form of sadaqah is best? He replied: Water (is best). He dug a well and said: It is for Umm Sa'd.

Yahya related to me from Malik from Ibn Shihab from Salim ibn Abdullah that his father Abdullah ibn Umar used to say, "A man's kissing his wife and fondling her with his hands are part of intercourse. Someone who kisses his wife or fondles her with his hand must do wudu."

Yahya related to me from Malik from Rabia ibn Abi Abd ar-Rahman that al-Qasim ibn Muhammad and Urwa ibn az-Zubayr said that a man who had four wives and then divorced one of them irrevocably, could marry straightaway if he wished, and he did not have to wait for the completion of her idda.

The people passed by the Messenger of Allah (saws) with a Jew who was blackened with charcoal and who was being flogged.

He called them and said: Is this the prescribed punishment for a fornicator?

They said: Yes. He then called on a learned man among them and asked him: I adjure you by Allah Who revealed the Torah to Moses, do you find this prescribed punishment for a fornicator in your divine Book?

He said: By Allah, no. If you had not adjured me about this, I should not have informed you. We find stoning to be prescribed punishment for a fornicator in our Divine Book. But it (fornication) became frequent in our people of rank; so when we seized a person of rank, we left him alone, and when we seized a weak person, we inflicted the prescribed punishment on him. So we said: Come, let us agree on something which may be enforced equally on people of higher and lower rank. So we agreed to blacken the face of a criminal with charcoal, and flog him, and we abandoned stoning.

The Messenger of Allah (saws) then said: O Allah, I am the first to give life to Thy command which they have killed. So he commanded regarding him (the Jew) and he was stoned to death.

Allah Most High then sent down: "O Apostle, let not those who race one another into unbelief, make thee grieve..." up to "They say: If you are given this, take it, but if not, beware!...." up to "And if any do fail to judge by (the light of) what Allah hath revealed, they are (no better than) unbelievers," about Jews, up to "And if any do fail to judge by (the right of) what Allah hath revealed, they are no better than) wrong-doers" about Jews: and revealed the verses up to "And if any do fail to judge by (the light of) what Allah hath revealed, they are (no better than) those who rebel." About this he said: This whole verse was revealed about the infidels.

Yahya related to me from Malik from Zayd ibn Aslam that Jabir ibn Abdullah al-Ansari said, "We went out with the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, in the raid on the Banu Ammar tribe." Jabir said, "I was resting under a tree when the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, came. I said, 'Messenger of Allah; come to the shade.' So the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, sat down, and I stood up and went to a sack of ours. I looked in it for something and found a small cucumber and broke it. Then I brought it to the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. He said, 'From where did you get this?' I said, 'We brought it from Madina, Messenger of Allah.' "

Jabir continued, "We had a friend of ours with us whom we used to equip to go out to guard our mounts. I gave him what was necessary and then he turned about to go to the mounts and he was wearing two threadbare cloaks of his. The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, looked at him and said, 'Does he have two garments other than these?' I said, 'Yes, Messenger of Allah. He has two garments in the bag.' I gave them to him. He said, 'Let him go and put them on.' I let him go to put them on. As he turned to go, the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, exclaimed, 'May Allah strike his neck. Isn't that better for him?' He said (taking him literally), 'Messenger of Allah, in the way of Allah.' The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, 'In the way of Allah.' " Jabir added, "The man was killed in the way of Allah."

Hakim asked (the Prophet): Messenger of Allah, a man comes to me and wants me to sell him something which is not in my possession. Should I buy it for him from the market? He replied: Do not sell what you do not possess.

Yahya related to me from Malik from Ibn Shihab from Amr ibn ash- Sharid that Abdullah ibn Abbas was asked whether, if a man had two wives, and one of them nursed a slave-boy, and the other had nursed a slave-girl, could the slave-boy marry the slave-girl. He said, "No. The husband is the same."

My father got me married to a lady of a noble family, and often used to ask my wife about me, and she used to reply, "What a wonderful man he is! He never comes to my bed, nor has he approached me since he married me." When this state continued for a long period, my father told the story to the Prophet who said to my father, "Let me meet him." Then I met him and he asked me, "How do you fast?" I replied, "I fast daily," He asked, "How long does it take you to finish the recitation of the whole Qur'an?" I replied, "I finish it every night." On that he said, "Fast for three days every month and recite the Qur'an (and finish it) in one month." I said, "But I have power to do more than that." He said, "Then fast for three days per week." I said, "i have the power to do more than that." He said, "Therefore, fast the most superior type of fasting, (that is, the fasting of (prophet) David who used to fast every alternate day; and finish the recitation of the whole Qur'an In seven days." I wish I had accepted the permission of Allah's Apostle as I have become a weak old man. It is said that `Abdullah used to recite one-seventh of the Qur'an during the day-time to some of his family members, for he used to check his memorization of what he would recite at night during the daytime so that it would be easier for him to read at night. And whenever he wanted to gain some strength, he used to give up fasting for some days and count those days to fast for a similar period, for he disliked to leave those things which he used to do during the lifetime of the Prophet.

When `Ali was in Yemen, he sent some gold in its ore to the Prophet. The Prophet distributed it among Al-Aqra' bin H`Abis Al-Hanzali who belonged to Bani Mujashi, 'Uyaina bin Badr Al-Fazari, 'Alqama bin 'Ulatha Al-`Amiri, who belonged to the Bani Kilab tribe and Zaid AI-Khail at-Ta'i who belonged to Bani Nabhan. So the Quraish and the Ansar became angry and said, "He gives to the chiefs of Najd and leaves us!" The Prophet said, "I just wanted to attract and unite their hearts (make them firm in Islam)." Then there came a man with sunken eyes, bulging forehead, thick beard, fat raised cheeks, and clean-shaven head, and said, "O Muhammad! Be afraid of Allah! " The Prophet said, "Who would obey Allah if I disobeyed Him? (Allah). He trusts me over the people of the earth, but you do not trust me?" A man from the people (present then), who, I think, was Khalid bin Al- Walid, asked for permission to kill him, but the Prophet prevented him. When the man went away, the Prophet said, "Out of the offspring of this man, there will be people who will recite the Qur'an but it will not go beyond their throats, and they will go out of Islam as an arrow goes out through the game, and they will kill the Muslims and leave the idolators. Should I live till they appear, I would kill them as the Killing of the nation of 'Ad."

A man came. Uthman's version has: Sa'd ibn AbuWaqqas came. He stood at the door. Uthman's version has: (He stood) facing the door. The Prophet (saws) said to him: Away from it, (stand) this side or that side. Asking permission is meant to escape from the look of an eye.

The Prophet said, "Today a pious man from Ethiopia (i.e. An Najashi) has expired, come on to offer the funeral prayer." (Jabir said): We lined up in rows and after that the Prophet led the prayer and we were in rows. Jabir added, I was in the second row."

Two men informed me that they went to the Prophet (saws) when he was at the Farewell Pilgrimage while he was distributing the sadaqah and asked him for some of it. He looked us up and down, and seeing that we were robust, he said: If you wish, I shall give you something, but there is nothing spare in it for a rich man or for one who is strong and able to earn a living.

A man of Banu Harith was pasturing a pregnant she-camel in one of the ravines of Uhud, (he saw that) it was about to die; he could find nothing to slaughter it; he took a stake and stabbed it in the upper part of its breast until he made its blood flow.

He then came to the Prophet (saws) and informed him about that, and he ordered him to eat it.

The Prophet (saws) said: If a man sells (his) property and the man who buys it becomes insolvent, and the seller does not receive the price of the property he had sold, but finds his very property with him (i.e. the buyer), he is more entitled to it (than others). If the buyer dies, then the owner of the property is equal to the creditors.

The Prophet (saws) said: There will be civil strife which wipe out the Arabs, and their slain will go to Hell. During it the tongue will be more severe than blows of the sword.

Abu Dawud said: Al-Thawri transmitted it from Laith, from Tawus on the authority of Al-A'jam.

The Prophet (saws) said: Let him who hears of the Dajjal (Antichrist) go far from him for I swear by Allah that a man will come to him thinking he is a believer and follow him because of confused ideas roused in him by him.

The Prophet (saws) said: A man never did a good deed but removed a thorny branch from the road; it was either in the tree and someone cut it and threw it on the road, or it was lying in it, he removed it. Allah accepted this good deed of his and brought him into Paradise.

Yahya related to me from Malik from Ibn Shihab from Abu Bakr ibn Abd ar-Rahman ibn al-Harith ibn Hisham that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "Whenever a man sells wares and then the buyer becomes bankrupt and the seller has not taken any of the price and he finds some of his property intact with the buyer, he is more entitled to it than anyone else. If the buyer dies, then the seller is the same as other creditors with respect to it."

Malik related to me that he heard that when the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, set foot in the stirrup intending to travel, he would say, "In the name of Allah. O Allah! You are my companion in the journey and the Khalifa of my family. O Allah! Spread out the earth for us and make the journey easy for us. O Allah! I seek refuge with You from the hardship of the journey and from returning to sorrow and a distressing sight regarding property and family."

A man said to the Prophet (while he was delivering a sermon on the Day of Nahr), "I have performed the Tawaf round the Ka`ba before the Rami (throwing pebbles) at the Jamra." The Prophet said, "There is no harm (therein)." Another man said, "I had my head shaved before slaughtering (the sacrifice)." The Prophet said, "There is no harm." A third said, "I have slaughtered (the sacrifice) before the Rami (throwing pebbles) at the Jamra." The Prophet said, "There is no harm."

I was with Ibn `Umar when a man asked him, "I have vowed to fast every Tuesday or Wednesday throughout my life and if the day of my fasting coincided with the day of Nahr (the first day of `Id-al- Adha), (What shall I do?)" Ibn `Umar said, "Allah has ordered the vows to be fulfilled, and we are forbidden to fast on the day of Nahr." The man repeated his question and Ibn `Umar repeated his former answer, adding nothing more.

[Abu Dawud, with a sound chain].

The narration in At-Tirmidhi is: The Messenger of Allah (PBUH) was asked: "O Messenger of Allah! When two persons meet, who should greet the other first?'' The Messenger of Allah (PBUH) said, "The person nearest to Allah (i.e., one who is more obedient and therefore closer to Allah will say: As-Salam first)."

Yahya related to me from Malik that he had heard that one of the administrators of Umar ibn Abd al-'Aziz wrote to him mentioning that a man had refused to pay zakat on his property. Umar wrote to the administrator and told him to leave the man alone and not to take any zakat from him when he took it from the other muslims. The man heard about this and the situation became unbearable for him, and after that he paid the zakat on his property. The administrator wrote to Umar and mentioned that to him, and Umar wrote back telling him to take the zakat from him.

A man kissed a woman (unlawfully) and then went to the Prophet and informed him. Allah revealed: And offer prayers perfectly At the two ends of the day And in some hours of the night (i.e. the five compulsory prayers). Verily! good deeds remove (annul) the evil deeds (small sins) (11.114). The man asked Allah's Apostle, "Is it for me?" He said, "It is for all my followers."