Sunan Abi Dawud

AbdurRahman ibn AbuUqbah quoted his father AbuUqbah who was a client from the people of Persia as saying: I was present at Uhud along with the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ), and on smiting one of the polytheists I said: Take this from me who is the young Persian. The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) then turned to me and said: Why did you not say: Take this from me who is the young Ansari?

The Prophet (ﷺ) said: When a man loves his brother, he should tell him that he loves him.

A man was with the Prophet (ﷺ) and a man passed by him and said: Messenger of Allah! I love this man. The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) then asked: Have you informed him? He replied: No. He said: Inform him. He then went to him and said: I love you for Allah's sake. He replied: May He for Whose sake you love me love you!

Messenger of Allah! A man loves some people, but he cannot do work like their work. He replied; Yes, Abu Dharr, will be with those whom you love. Abu Dharr then repeated it. The Messenger of Allah (May peace be upon him) also repeated it.

I never saw the Companions of the Messenger of Allah (May peace be upon him) so happy about anything as I saw them happy about this thing. A man said : Messenger of Allah! A man loves another man for the good work which he does, but he himself cannot do like it. The Messenger of Allah (May peace be upon him) said: A man will be with those whom he loves.

The Prophet (ﷺ) said: He who is consulted is trustworthy.

A man came to the prophet (May peace be upon him) and said: Messenger of Allah! I have been left without a mount. So give me a mount. He replied: I have no mount to give, but go to so and so; he may perhaps give you a mount. He then went to him and he gave him a mount. He came to the Messenger of Allah (May peace be upon him) and informed him about it. Thereupon the Messenger of Allah (May peace be upon him) said: if anyone guides someone to a good (deed), he will get the reward like the reward of the one who does it.

The Prophet (ﷺ) said: Your love for a thing causes blindness and deafness.

Make intercession to me, you will be rewarded, for Allah decrees what he wishes by the tongue of his prophet.

Make intercession, you will be rewarded, for I purposely delay a matter so that you intercede and then you are rewarded. The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: If you make intercession, you will be rewarded.

A similar tradition has also been transmitted by Abu Musa from the prophet (May peace be upon him) through a different chain of narrators.

Some of the children of al-Ala' ibn al-Hadrami said: Al-Ala' ibn al-Hadrami was the governor of the Prophet (ﷺ) at al-Bahrayn, and when he wrote to him he began with his won name.

Al-Ala b. al-Hadrami wrote to the prophet (May peace be upon him), and he began with his name.

The Prophet (ﷺ) wrote a letter to Heraclius: "From Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah, to Hiraql (Heraclius), Chief of the Byzantines. Peace be to those who follow the guidance." Ibn Yahya reported on the authority of Ibn Abbas that AbuSufyan said to him: We then came to see Hiraql (Heraclius) who seated us before him. He then called for the letter from the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ). Its contents were: "In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful, from Muhammad the Messenger of Allah, to Hiraql, chief of Byzantines. Peace be to those who follow the guidance. To proceed."

A son does not repay what he owes to his father unless he buys him and emancipates him if he finds him in slavery.

A woman was my wife and I loved her, but Umar hated her. He said to me: Divorce her, but I refused. Umar then went to the Prophet (ﷺ) and mentioned that to him. The Prophet (ﷺ) said: Divorce her.

I said: Messenger of Allah! to whom should I show kindness? He replied: Your mother, next your mother, next your mother, and then comes your father, and then your relatives in order of relationship. The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: If a man asks his slave whom he freed for giving him property which is surplus with him and he refuses to give it to him, the surplus property which he refused to give will be called on the Day of resurrection as a large bald snake. Abu Dawud said: Aqra' means a snake whose hair of the head were removed on account of poison.

Messenger of Allah! to whom should I show kindness? He said: Your mother, your sister, your brother and the slave whom you set free and who is your relative, a due binding (on you), and a tie of relationship which should be joined.

A man’s reviling of his parents is one of the grave sins. He was asked : Messenger of Allah! How does a man revile his parents? He replied: He reviles the father of a man who then reviles his father, and he reviles a man’s mother and he reviles his.

While we were with the Messenger of Allah! (ﷺ) a man of Banu Salmah came to Him and said: Messenger of Allah is there any kindness left that I can do to my parents after their death? He replied: Yes, you can invoke blessings on them, forgiveness for them, carry out their final instructions after their death, join ties of relationship which are dependent on them, and honour their friends.

One of the finest acts of kindness is for a man to treat his father’s friends in a kindly way after he has departed.

I saw the Prophet (ﷺ) distributing flesh at Ji'irranah, and I was a boy in those days bearing the bone of the camel, and when a woman who came forward approach the Prophet (ﷺ), he spread out his cloak for her, and she sat on it. I asked: Who is she? The people said: She is his foster-mother.

One day when the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) was sitting, his foster-father came forward. He spread out of a part of his garment and he sit on it. Then his mother came forward to him and he spread out the other side of his garment and she sat on it. Again , his foster-brother came forward. The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) stood for him and seated him before himself.

The Prophet (ﷺ) said: If anyone has a female child, and does not bury her alive, or slight her, or prefer his children (i.e. the male ones) to her, Allah will bring him into Paradise. Uthman did not mention "male children".

The Prophet (ﷺ) said: If anyone cares for three daughters, disciplines them, marries them, and does good to them, he will go to Paradise.

“three sisters, or three daughter, or two daughter, or two sisters”.

The Prophet (ﷺ) said: I and a woman whose cheeks have become black shall on the Day of Resurrection be like these two (pointing to the middle and forefinger), i.e. a woman of rank and beauty who has been bereft of her husband and devotes herself to her fatherless children till they go their separate ways or die.

Sahl (b. Sa’d) reported the prophet (May peace be upon him) as saying; I and the one who takes the responsibility of an orphan will be in Paradise thus, and he joined his middle finger and forefinger.

Gabriel kept on commending the neighbor to me so that I thought he would make him an heir.

Mujahid said that Abdullah ibn Amr slaughtered a sheep and said: Have you presented a gift from it to my neighbour, the Jew, for I heard the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) say: Gabriel kept on commending the neighbour to me so that I thought he would make an heir?

A man came to the prophet (May peace be upon him) complaining against his neighbor. He said: go and have patience. He again came to him twice or thrice. He then said : Go and throw your property in the way. So he threw his property in the way and the people began to ask him and he would tell them about him. The people then began to curse him; may Allah do with him so and so! Then his neighbor came to him and said: Return, you will not see from me anything which you dislike.

He who believes in Allah and in the last day should honour his guest; he who believes in Allah and in the last day should not harm his neighbor; he who believes in Allah and in the last day should speak good or keep silence.

I asked : apostle of Allah! I have two neighbors. With which of them should I begin? He replied: Begin with the one whose door is nearer to you. Abu Dawud said: Shu’bah said this tradition : Talhah is a man of the Quraish.

The last words which the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) spoke were: Prayer, prayer; fear Allah about those whom your right hands possess.

I saw Abu Dharr at Rabadhah. He was wearing a thick cloak, and his slave also wore a similar one. He said : the people said: Abu Dharr! (it would be better) if you could take the cloak which your slave wore, and you combined that with, and it would be a pair of garments (hullah) and you would clothe him with another garment. He said: Abu Dharr said : I abused a man whose mother was a non-Arab and I reviled him for his mother. He complained against me to the apostle of allah (May peace be upon him). He said: Abu Dharr! You are a man who has a characteristic of pre-Islamic days. He said: they are your brethren; Allah has given you superiority over them; sell those who do not please you and do not punish Allah’s creatures.

We called on Abu Dharr at al-Rabadhah. He wore a cloak and his slave also wore a similar one. We said; Abu Dharr! If you took the cloak of your slave and combined it with your cloak, so that it could be a part of garments (hullah) and clothed him in another garment, (it would be better). He said; I heard the Messenger of Allah (May peace be upon him) say; They are your brethren. Allah has put them under your authority; so he who has his brother under his authority must feed him from what he eats and clothe him with what he wears, and not impose on him work which is too much for him, but if he does so, he must help him. Abu Dawud said: Ibn Numair transmitted it from al-A'mash in a similar way.

when I was beating a servant of mine, I heard a voice behind me saying: know, Abu Mas’ud-Ibn al-Muthanna said: “twice”-that Allah has more power over you than you have over him. I turned round and saw that it was that it was the prophet (May peace be upon him). I said : Messenger of Allah! He is free for Allah’s sake. He said : If you had not done it, fire would have burned you or the fire would have touched you.

The tradition mentioned above has also been transmitted by al-A’mash in a similar way to same way to the same effect through a different chain of narrators.

The Prophet (ﷺ) said: Feed those of your slaves who please you from what you eat and clothe them with what you clothe yourselves, but sell those who do not please you and do not punish Allah's creatures.

The Prophet (ﷺ) said: Treating those under one's authority will produce prosperity, but an evil nature produces evil fortune.

The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: Treating those under one's authority well produces prosperity, but an evil nature produces evil fortune.

A man came to the Prophet (ﷺ) and asked: Messenger of Allah! how often shall I forgive a servant? He gave no reply, so the man repeated what he had said, but he still kept silence. When he asked a third time, he replied: Forgive him seventy times daily.

Abu al-Qasim, the Prophet of Atonement (ﷺ) said to me: If anyone reviles his slave when he is innocent of what he said, he will be beaten on the Day of Resurrection. The transmitter Mu'ammal said: 'Isa narrated it to us from al-Fudial, that is, Ibn Ghazwan.

We were staying in the house of Suwaid b. Muqarrin. There was among us an old man who was hot-tempered. He had a slave-girl with him. He gave a slap on her face. I never saw Suwaid more angry than on that day. He said: there is no alternative for you except to free her. I was the seventh child in order of Muqarrin and we had only a female servant. The youngest of us gave a slap on her face. The prophet (May peace be upon him) commanded us to set her free.

I slapped a freed slave of ours. My father called him and me and said: Take retaliation on him. We, the people of Banu Muqarrin, were seven during the time of the Prophet (ﷺ),and we had only a female servant. A man of us slapped her. The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: Set her free. They said: We have no other servant than her. He said: She must serve them till they become well off. When they become well off, they should set her free.

I came to Ibn ‘Umar when he set his slave free. He took a stick or something else from the earth and said; for me there is no reward even equivalent to this. I heard the Messenger of Allah (May peace be upon him) say: If anyone slaps or beats his slave the atonement due from him is to set him free.

when a slave acts sincerely towards his master and worship Allah well, he will have a double reward.

The Prophet (ﷺ) said: If anyone corrupts (instigates) the wife of a man or his slave (against him), he is not from us.

A man peeped into some of the apartment of the prophet (May peace be upon him). The prophet (May peace be upon him) got up taking an arrowhead or arrowheads. He said: I can still picture myself looking at the Messenger of Allah (May peace be upon him) when he was exploring to pierce him.

The Prophet (ﷺ) said: If anyone peeps into the house of a people without their permission and he knocks out his eye, no responsibility is incurred for his eye.