The Date of Charity

Dates collected as zakah were piled in the mosque to be given out to the poor. The little al-Hasan picked one up and put it in his mouth.

The Prophet ﷺ said, "Kikh, kikh!" — the sound one makes to a small child — so that he would spit it out, and said: "Do you not know that we do not eat charity?" (Sahih al-Bukhari 1491).

Charity was forbidden to the Prophet ﷺ and his household. Their honour was not to receive from the people, and the Prophet ﷺ taught that to his grandson before he was old enough to understand why.

01Why it matters

The Prophet ﷺ trained his family in principle from their earliest years, gently but without exception.

02Reflection

What principles are you teaching the children around you before they can explain them?

03Sources

Sahih al-Bukhari 1491 Sahih · in the two Sahihs
Sahih Muslim 1069 Sahih · in the two Sahihs

What the hadith grades mean

Sahih (authentic): an unbroken chain of trustworthy, precise narrators, free of hidden flaws or contradiction. It is acted upon.
Hasan (good): like sahih, but a narrator's precision is slightly lighter. It is also accepted and acted upon. "Hasan sahih" means it reaches sahih by its routes.
Da'if (weak): a break in the chain or a narrator who is not reliable enough. It is not used to establish beliefs or rulings.
Very weak (munkar, matruk): a seriously flawed chain or a narrator accused of lying. It is not relied on at all.
Mawdu' (fabricated): falsely attributed to the Prophet ﷺ. It may not be narrated as his words except to warn against it.
The two Sahihs: every hadith with a full chain in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim is accepted as sahih by the scholars of hadith.
Historical report: biographies and histories (Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabari) record events with chains that are often incomplete. They are used for the story, not for rulings.
Hadith scholars grade a narration; the four madhhabs do not. Where a hadith carries a ruling, the page shows which schools act on it.

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