nor any swooning—neither he nor his Companions—when they heard the Quran; rather, their hearts would quake, their skins would shiver, and their eyes would overflow with tears. During his lifetime and the time of his successors, no thrice-divorced woman was ever returned to her former husband by means of a marriage contracted solely to make her lawful for him; instead, he cursed the intermediary husband (al-muḥallil) and the man for whom the facilitation is done, because such arrangements were sometimes carried out in secret.

He commanded the visiting of the sick, the escorting of funerals, the spreading of the greeting of peace, and the answering of invitations. When he prayed over a deceased person he would pronounce four takbīrs, and on occasion he pronounced five or even seven. He ordered that the dead be washed, shrouded, prayed over, and buried.

He forbade every intoxicant. He also forbade the sale of one dirham for two, one dinar for two, and one sāʿ for two sāʿs of wheat, barley, dates, or raisins. He prescribed the charity of al-fiṭr as one sāʿ of dates or one sāʿ of barley, since the people of Madinah lived on dates and barley.

He permitted the use of medicine and said:

“Seek treatment, O servants of Allah, for no illness is sent down without a cure being sent down for it—except al-sām.”

Al-sām is death.