the pupil of the eye, called locally “the grain.” This is unquestionably life-threatening; if a person dies from it, that would not be considered unusual. Ordinary eye pain, however, is not life-threatening.

His statement, “or a mild headache”: a headache is pain in the head, but the author stipulates that it be mild. A severe headache, on the other hand, is among life-threatening illnesses, because it would not be unusual to attribute death to it.

“His disposition is binding, like that of a healthy person, even if he dies from it. But if it is life-threatening, such as barsām (pleurisy), dhāt al-janb (a side infection), heart pain, persistent standing, nosebleeding, the initial stage of paralysis, the final stage of tuberculosis, continuous fever, or quartan fever, …”

His statement, “his disposition is binding, like that of a healthy person,” means that the disposition of one afflicted with this illness is binding, just like that of a person who has no illness.

For example, if a man develops a toothache and endows all his wealth as a charitable endowment, his disposition is valid. If he gives away all his wealth as a gift, his disposition is likewise valid, because the illness is not life-threatening, so he is like a healthy person. This is due to the Prophet’s ﷺ statement: “The best charity is that which you give while you are healthy and miserly, hoping to live and fearing poverty” (1). The point of evidence is his statement, “hoping to live”; a person suffering from these mild illnesses hopes to live.

His statement, “his disposition is binding,” may raise a question for some students: how can the predicate be introduced by the letter fa? In answer to this question, we say that man, which is the subject, is a relative pronoun, and a relative pronoun resembles a conditional noun in its generality. For this reason, the letter fa occurs in its predicate, since the clause “his disposition is binding” is the predicate of the subject. An often-cited example of this is: