—for it is permissible, when the absence of a part entails the absence of the whole, to name the whole by that part. Thus the prayer is sometimes expressed by saying “bowing,” “prostration,” or “Quran,” because these elements are its essential pillars; if any one of them is missing, the prayer itself is void.

• miskīnan (a needy person): from the root meaning “stillness”; it describes one whom poverty has rendered motionless, that is, someone who does not possess sufficient means for his ordinary expenses.
• ʿirq (with a fatḥah on the ʿayn and the rā’, followed by a qāf): a basket that holds either twenty sāʿs or fifteen sāʿs of dates.
• labatayhā: the dual of lābah, meaning a lava field—land covered with black volcanic stones. Its plural is lābāt. The city of Medina lies between two such fields, one to the east and one to the west; the eastern field is called Ḥarra al-Wabrah, and the western Ḥarra Wāqim.
• “his canine teeth became visible”: the plural of nāb, the teeth adjacent to the incisors—four in total. The Prophet’s canines ﷺ showed because of the man’s circumstance: he had come in fear of ruin, but when he found a concession he hoped he might be allowed to eat the food given as expiation.

Lessons drawn from the ḥadith:
1 – The man who had intercourse during the daytime of Ramadan was Salamah ibn Ṣakhar al-Bayāḍī of Banū Bayāḍah, one of the Ansār.
2 – Intercourse while fasting in Ramadan is among the major, ruinous indecencies; the Prophet ﷺ confirmed the man’s admission that his act was destructive.
3 – Deliberate intercourse obliges the severe expiation in the following order: emancipating a believing slave; if that is not possible, fasting two consecutive months; if one is unable, feeding sixty needy people.
4 – What counts is the span of months, not the tally of individual days; therefore, if the fast begins on the fifteenth of Rabīʿ al-Awwal, it concludes at the end of the fifteenth of Jumādā al-Ūlā.
5 – A person is considered trustworthy regarding his physical and financial acts of worship, for the Prophet ﷺ accepted his statement that