General Behavior (Kitab Al-Adab)

كتاب الأدب

Chapter 134: The rights of neighbors

‘A’ishah reported the Messenger of Allah (May peace be upon him) as saying

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

Narrated Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-'As

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?

Abu Hurairah said

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.

Abu Hurairah reported the Messenger of Allah (May peace be upon him) as saying

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.

‘A’ishah said

Abu Dawud said: Shu’bah said this tradition : Talhah is a man of the Quraish.

Chapter 135: Regarding the rights of slaves

Narrated Ali ibn AbuTalib

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

Ma’rur b. Suwaid said

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.

Ma’rur b. Suwaid said

Abu Dawud said: Ibn Numair transmitted it from al-A'mash in a similar way.

Abu Mas’ud al-Ansari said

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.

Narrated AbuDharr

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.

Narrated Rafi' ibn Makith

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

Narrated Rafi' ibn Makith

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

Narrated Abdullah ibn Umar

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 Hurairah said

The transmitter Mu'ammal said: 'Isa narrated it to us from al-Fudial, that is, Ibn Ghazwan.

Hilal b. Yasaf said

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.

Narrated Mu'awiyah ibn Suwayd ibn Muqarrin

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.

Zadhan said

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.

Chapter 136: If a slave is sincere

‘Abd Allah b. ‘Umar reported the Messenger of Allah (May peace be upon him) as saying

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

Chapter 137: The one turns a slave against his master

Narrated AbuHurayrah

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