Book of Inheritance
Chapter: The Financial Dispositions of a Sick Person

A person’s legal capacity to dispose of his wealth differs in sound health from that in sickness. While he is healthy and of sound judgment, every transaction he makes with his property is effective within the limits set by the Sharia, and in that state charity carries greater merit than charity offered during illness, earning a loftier reward.

Allah, Exalted is He, says: “Spend from that with which We have provided you before death comes to one of you and he cries, ‘My Lord, if only You would delay me for a short while, I would give in charity and become one of the righteous.’ But Allah will never grant respite to a soul when its appointed time has come; and Allah is fully aware of what you do” (Quran 63:10–11).

In the two Ṣaḥīḥs it is related that when the Prophet ﷺ was asked, “Which charity is best?” he replied: “That you give in charity while you are healthy and tight-fisted, hoping for wealth and fearing poverty. Do not delay until the soul reaches the throat and you say, ‘Give such-and-such to so-and-so,’ when it has already become his.”

Illness falls into two categories:

First: A non-life-threatening illness, one from which death is not normally feared, such as a toothache, mild eye pain, or a slight headache. In this type of illness a person’s financial acts are treated