Encyclopedia of Prophetic Hadiths

"You have asked about something grave, but it is easy for whomever Allah makes it easy for. Worship Allah, without associating anything with Him, offer the prayer, pay Zakah, fast Ramadan, and perform Hajj. Then, he said: Shall I not guide you to the gates of goodness? Fasting is a shield, charity extinguishes sins as water extinguishes fire, and a man's prayer in the middle of night. Then, he recited: {Their sides forsake their beds} until he reached {what they used to do.} Then he added: Shall I tell you of the essence of the matter, its pillar, and its peak? I replied: Yes, O Messenger of Allah. He said: The essence of this matter is Islam, its pillar is the prayer, and its peak is Jihad. Then he said: Shall I tell you of what holds all these things? I said: Yes, O Messenger of Allah. He took hold of his tongue and said: Keep this under control. I asked: O Prophet of Allah, shall we be held accountable for what we say? He replied: May your mother lose you! What else can cast people on their faces—or on their noses—except the harvest of their tongues?!"

"Islam is built on five: testifying that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger, establishing prayer, giving Zakah, performing Hajj to the (Sacred) House, and fasting Ramadān."

"I have been commanded to fight people until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, establish prayer, and pay Zakah; if they do so, they protect their blood and properties from me, except through the right of Islam; and their reckoning is with Allah."

He said to the Messenger of Allah (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him): What if I meet a man from the disbelievers and we both fight? He strikes one of my hands with the sword and cuts it off, then he seeks refuge from me in a tree and says: I have submitted to Allah. O Messenger of Allah, should I kill him after saying it? The Messenger of Allah (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) said: "Do not kill him." He said: O Messenger of Allah, he cut off one of my hands, then he said this after cutting it off. The Messenger of Allah (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) said: "Do not kill him, for if you kill him, he will be in the same position as yours before you kill him, and you will be in the same position as his before saying the word that he said."

I said: "O Messenger of Allah, Ibn Jud‘ān used to uphold kinship ties and feed the poor during the Jāhiliyyah (pre-Islamic era of ignorance). Will this benefit him?" He said: "It will not benefit him, for he did not ever say: My Lord, forgive my sins on the Day of Judgment."

"Any person who says to his brother: O disbeliever, it will, indeed, fall upon one of them; if he is as he said, or else it will return to him."

"The believers, in their mutual love, compassion, and sympathy, are like a single body; if one of its organs suffers, the whole body will respond with sleeplessness and fever."

"The most burdensome prayers for the hypocrites are the ‘Ishā’ and Fajr prayers. If they were to know the virtue of them, they would come to them, even if they had to crawl. I have almost intended to order for the prayer to be established, and appoint a man to lead the people in prayer, and then I would go along with some men having bundles of firewood, to the people who are not attending the prayer and burn their houses upon them with fire."