1033 – Abu Rimthah (may Allah be pleased with him) said: “I came to the Prophet ﷺ accompanied by my son. He asked, ‘Who is this?’ I replied, ‘My son, for whom I bear witness.’ He said, ‘Indeed, he will not be answerable for your crime, nor will you be answerable for his.’” Related by al-Nasāʾī and Abū Dāwūd, and declared authentic by Ibn Khuzaymah and Ibn al-Jārūd (1).

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Grade of the ḥadith:
The report is ḥasan (sound).

Al-Talḵīṣ states: It was transmitted by Aḥmad, Abū Dāwūd, al-Nasāʾī and al-Ḥākim through the chain of Abu Rimthah; by Aḥmad, Abū Dāwūd, al-Tirmidhī and Ibn Mājah from ʿAmr ibn al-Aḥwaṣ; by Aḥmad, Ibn Mājah and Ibn Ḥibbān through al-Khashkhāsh al-ʿAnbarī; and Aḥmad and al-Nasāʾī also reported its meaning from Thaʿlabah ibn Zuhdam. Ibn Khuzaymah and Ibn al-Jārūd authenticated it.

These narrations corroborate and reinforce one another, and they exemplify the Almighty’s words: “No bearer of a burden shall bear the burden of another” (Al-Anʿām 6:164).

Vocabulary:
– “He will not be answerable for you, nor you for him.” The term jināyah (crime, offence liable to punishment or retaliation) indicates that no one is held responsible for another person’s wrongdoing.

Points derived from the ḥadith:
1 – The ḥadith shows that no one may be held liable for another’s offence, whether the relationship is close or distant—even a father for his son or a son for his father. The perpetrator alone is pursued for his own crime, and no one else is sought