whereas if he does not ask, you are not obliged to advise him. Even so, offering counsel is one of Islam’s noble traits, and whoever directs another to good is rewarded as though he himself had done it.

Fourth: “If he sneezes and praises Allah, then respond to him.” The etiquette is set out in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī (6224) on the authority of Abū Hurayrah, where the Prophet ﷺ said: “When one of you sneezes, let him say: al-ḥamdu lillāh (all praise is due to Allah); let his brother say to him: yarḥamuka Allah (may Allah have mercy on you); and let him reply: yahdīkum Allah wa yuṣliḥu bālakum (may Allah guide you and set your affairs aright).”

Al-Nawawī states that the scholars unanimously regard this response as recommended.

Al-Iqnāʿ adds: “When he sneezes, he should cover his face, not turn aside, and praise Allah.”

Answering the sneezer is a communal obligation (farḍ kifāyah). It is disliked to respond to someone who has not praised Allah, though a child, a new Muslim, and the like should be taught to do so first.

A man should respond to another man and to an elderly or plainly dressed woman, but he should not respond to a young woman, nor should she respond to him.

If the sneeze occurs a second and third time, one continues to respond; at a fourth sneeze, one simply prays for the person’s recovery.

Fifth: “If he falls ill, visit him.” Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī (969) reports from ʿAlī (may Allah be pleased with him): “I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say, ‘When a Muslim visits a sick Muslim in the morning, seventy thousand angels pray for him until evening; and when he visits him in the evening, seventy thousand angels pray for him until morning, and he will have a harvest in Paradise.’” The ḥadīth is sound (ḥasan).

Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn said that the textual evidence indicates the obligation of visiting the sick, and al-Bukhārī affirmed this view. The majority of jurists, however, deem it recommended, and al-Nawawī transmitted a consensus that it is not obligatory.

The wording of the ḥadīth suggests that this right belongs to a Muslim, yet the Prophet ﷺ visited a Jewish man, as recorded by al-Bukhārī, and he visited his uncle Abū Ṭālib, as related in both Ṣaḥīḥ collections.