SENSITIVITY REGARDING THE PROHIBITED AND THE PERMISSIBLE

The Levy of Abu Bakr’s Slave

Our mother Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her, said, “Abu Bakr as-Siddiq had a slave who used to pay him a levy and Abu Bakr used to eat from the levy. One day he brought something and Abu Bakr ate some of it. The slave said to him, ‘Do you know what this is?’ He said, ‘What is it?’ He said, ‘In the Jahiliyya (the Period of Ignorance), I used to be a soothsayer for a man. I did not do soothsaying well. I only deceived him. He met me and gave me that from which you ate.’ So Abu Bakr inserted his hand into his mouth and vomited all that he had in his stomach.” (Sahih al-Bukhari, Manaqibu’l-Ansar, 26).

God’s Messenger and the Date

As reported by Anas, God’s Messenger once found a date as he was walking and said, “Had it not been for fear of this date’s being of charity, I would have eaten it.”

One of the most salient characteristics of God’s Messenger was his refusal to accept alms and charity. He indicated that neither he nor his household and progeny would accept charity.

One of the most striking examples of this in the life of God’s Messenger is the following:

When Hasan was still a child, he sat in his grandfather’s lap in the Prophet’s Mosque and watched, along with God’s Messenger, the distribution of the dates given in alms. He took one of the dates from in front of him and put it in his mouth. God’s Messenger cautioned him saying, “Kikh, Kikh! (Get rid of it) Do you not know that we do not eat of charity?” and thus made the child remove the date from his mouth.

The Messenger of God abstained to the utmost from eating of that which was given in charity and was thus exceedingly careful regarding the Divine commandments.

In the Prophetic Tradition in question, we see that God’s Messenger refrained from eating a date that he found in his path in case it was a date that someone had intended to give in alms and dropped accidentally. This demonstrates his meticulously observing the rules that he himself put into place and that he avoided the doubtful with a great scrupulousness.

On one occasion he ate a date that he found beside his bed so as not to waste it. After consuming it, he became doubtful of whether this was a date given in alms and could not sleep the entire night due to this suspicion preying on his mind.

The blessings with which God has favored us are too numerous to be counted. Not contenting oneself with these and inclining to those things which are likely to be of the prohibited is behavior not befitting servitude to God. On the other hand, shunning the permissible with the intention of avoiding the doubtful, or entertaining misgivings concerning blessings that are religiously lawful and rousing unnecessary hesitation, thus causing trouble to other Muslims, is not right either.