26. Compassion

26. Compassion

chapter 217. Compassion

462.’A’isha, the wife of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, “A group of Jews came to the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and said, “Poison (‘sam’ instead of ‘salam’) be upon you.” ‘A’isha said, “I understood it and said, ‘And poison be upon you and the curse of Allah!’ The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, ‘Easy, ‘A’isha! Allah loves compassion in everything.’ I said, ‘Didn’t you hear what they said?’ The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, replied, ‘I already said, “and upon you”.'”
Grade: Saheeh (Authentic)
Commentary: It exhorts towards being gentle and eschewing harshness and coarseness; one should still be mannerly even while responding to an offensive from an adversary. The Prophetﷺ cautioned against being excessive in response to the non-Muslims in this hadeeth, not being excessive 213 with respect to the Muslim is therefore, with a greater need. Basically, the eminent may not invest time and energy to counteract inconsequential statements and dispositions from the stupid

463.Jarir ibn ‘Abdullah reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, “Whoever is denied compassion is denied good.”
Grade: Saheeh (Authentic)

464. Abu’d-Darda’ reported that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, “Whoever has been given his portion of compassion has been given his portion of good. Whoever is denied given his portion of compassion has been denied his portion of good. Good character will be the weightiest thing in the believer’s balance on the Day of Rising. Allah hates a coarse, foul-mouthed person.”
Grade: Saheeh (Authentic)
Commentary: Showing sincere kindness and mercy to people is innately endearing. Thus, in addition to earning Allah’s love, such a person is liked by the people, and drawn nearer to benefits from them and protection from their evil. On the other hand, the coarse and abusive, like the plague, is avoided by everyone while he earns the wrath of the Most-Merciful!

465.’A’isha reported that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, “Forgive right- acting people their slips.”
Grade: Saheeh (Authentic)
Commentary: This hadeeth appears forgotten by or unknown to many today, including the people of knowledge and its students. Thus, Muslims, known basically for righteousness are harshly scolded for every slip; the students and scholars berate each other as if they had never known themselves upon righteousness! Some are even glad when a person not known for other than righteousness errs; they throw every courtesy to the winds to publicize such slips! Allah alone grants refuge. In another wording of the hadeeth, it adds, “…except for those of legal punishment.” See Silsilat al-Ahaadeeth isSaheehah (638).

466. Anas reported that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, “If there is roughness in anything it is bound to disgrace it. Allah is compassionate and loves compassion.”
Grade: Saheeh (Authentic)

467. Abu Sa’id al-Khudri said, “The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was more modest than a virgin in her tent. When he disliked something, we recognised that in his face.”
Grade: Saheeh (Authentic)
Commentary: It encourages being modest; and refutes the wrong notion that modesty is from the attributes of the weak minded.

468. Ibn ‘Abbas reported that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, “Right guidance, good behaviour and aiming for what is just and correct is a seventieth part of prophethood.”
Grade: Da’eef (Weak)

469.’A’isha, may Allah be pleased with her, said, “I was on a camel which was somewhat intractable and the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, remarked, ‘You must be compassionate. Whenever there is compassion in something, it adorns it, and when it is removed from something it disgraces it.”
Grade: Saheeh (Authentic)
Commentary: When kindness and carefulness are taken out of any affair, there is awkwardness, idiocy and hardness, humiliation and disgust! The hadeeth also proves that husbands should guide their wives at the most beneficial time with good words, and so should the teacher guide the students. In another version of the same hadeeth, A’isha (عنها الله ريض (said, “…a camel that was somewhat troublesome and I began to beat it…”

470. Sa’id al-Maqburi reported from his father that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, “Beware of avarice. It destroyed those before you. They shed one another’s blood and broke off relations with their relatives. Injustice will appear as darkness on the Day of Rising.”
Grade: Saheeh (Authentic)
Commentary: The hadeeth warns strongly against greed. Excessive and reprehensible desire to possess more than one needs or deserves could cause its victim to commit destructive sins: spilling the other’s blood, severing the ties of kinship, cheating the people and taking their possessions unlawfully! Imam Abdur-Rauf al-Munaawee caps it all, “Avarice in all its forms, contradicts Eemaan (faith).” In recompense, a person who does that, or the nation in which such is widespread is met with perdition.

chapter 218. Compassion in livelihood

471. Kathir ibn ‘Ubayd said, “I visited ‘A’isha, the Umm al-Mu’minin, may Allah be pleased with her. She said, ‘Wait until I sew up my garment.’ So I waited and said, ‘Umm al-Mu’minin, when I go out, I will tell them that your enemy is miserliness.’ She said, ‘Look to your own business. There are no new clothes for anyone who does not wear shabby clothes.'”
Grade: Hasan (Sound)
Commentary: Words that assist the one perceived to be making a mistake should be employed during correction. Wearing new clothes at all times may be considered from extravagance. The narration demonstrates the humility of the pious predecessors and their moderate, non-extravagant lifestyle.

chapter 219. What a slave is given for compassion

472. ‘Abdullah ibn Mughaffal reported that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, “Allah is compassionate and loves compassion. He gives for compassion what He goes not give for harshness.”
Grade: Saheeh (Authentic)
Commentary: From the Attributes of Allah is Ar-Rafeeq (The Gentle); His bringing about creation gradually in stages with His Wisdom and Perfection also demonstrates this Attribute. This is even when He is Able to bring it into existence as sudden as He wills – the Mighty and Exalted. So He enjoined gentleness and loves the gentle. Conversely, He prohibits harshness and dislikes the harsh. The gentle, therefore, gets what the harsh gets not. Imam Ibn al-Atheer (الله رحمه (said, “For every good found in gentleness, harshness contains an equivalent evil”!

chapter 220. Calming

473. Anas ibn Malik reported that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, “Make things easy and do not make things difficult. Calm people and do not arouse their aversion.”
Grade: Saheeh (Authentic)
Commentary: It contains the order to be easy in affairs and gentle with people, endearing Eemaan to them, rather than being harsh so that the hearts are not alarmed. This should be given greater consideration when it has to do with an individual who has just accepted Islam or children who are been encouraged to do good deeds. Similarly, one should not be hard upon himself in doing good deeds so that he is not worn-out which may lead to the complete abandonment of the deed. It prohibits unnecessarily raising alarms and worst still, when they are false.

474. ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Amr said, “A guest stayed among the tribe of Israel and there was a dog in the house. They said, ‘Dog, do not bark at our guest. The puppies were suckling from it. They mentioned it to one of their Prophets who said, ‘This is like a community which will come after you and whose fools will overcome its men of knowledge.”
Grade: Da’eef (Weak)
Commentary: It is also reported with a weak chain as a statement from the Prophetﷺ

chapter 221. Harshness

475. ‘A’isha said, “I was on a camel that was somewhat intractable and I began to beat it. The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, ‘You must be compassionate. Whenever there is compassion in something, it adorns it, and whenever it is removed from something it disgraces it.”
Grade: Saheeh (Authentic)
Commentary: When kindness and carefulness are taken out of any affair, there is awkwardness, idiocy and hardness, humiliation and disgust! The hadeeth also proves that husbands should guide their wives at the most beneficial time with good words, and so should the teacher guide the students. In another version of the same hadeeth, A’isha (عنها الله ريض (said, “…a camel that was somewhat troublesome and I began to beat it…”