Jami' at-Tirmidhi
Jami` at-Tirmidhi 2480
حَدَّثَنَا الْجَارُودُ بْنُ مُعَاذٍ، حَدَّثَنَا الْفَضْلُ بْنُ مُوسَى، عَنْ سُفْيَانَ الثَّوْرِيِّ، عَنْ أَبِي حَمْزَةَ، عَنْ إِبْرَاهِيمَ النَّخَعِيِّ، قَالَ الْبِنَاءُ كُلُّهُ وَبَالٌ قُلْتُ أَرَأَيْتَ مَا لاَ بُدَّ مِنْهُ قَالَ لاَ أَجْرَ وَلاَ وِزْرَ .
Unreviewed translation. All hadiths in this collection are available in five languages. Titles and introductions may remain in Arabic.
Ibrahim al-Nakha‘i said, ‘Building is all a liability.’ I asked him, ‘What about what one cannot do without?’ He replied, ‘There is neither reward nor sin.’
Notes and open questions — unreviewed
This is a statement attributed to the early scholar Ibrahim al-Nakha‘i, not a saying of the Prophet. The phrase about building is terse; ‘a liability’ preserves its negative sense without specifying a legal ruling beyond the Arabic wording. The exact scope of ‘building’ and the sense of wabāl are not explained further in the source.