“It is not lawful for you to eat the domestic donkey, nor any carnivore that has fangs, nor to take the found property of a treaty-holder, unless its owner has clearly relinquished it. Whoever stays as a guest with a people, it is their duty to host him; if they fail to do so, he may requite them with an amount equal to his due hospitality.”

al-Khaṭṭābī said:

His words, “I have been given the Book and something like it along with it,” admit two possible explanations. First, that he received inward, unrecited revelation parallel to the outward, recited revelation. Second, that he was given the Book—revelation that is recited—and was also given an equal measure of elucidation: he was authorized to clarify what is in the Book, to generalize and particularize, to add to it, and to legislate concerning it. The obligation to act upon and accept this clarification is therefore identical to the obligation that pertains to the manifest, recited Qur’an.

Regarding his words, “Soon there will come a well-fed man …” in this ḥadīth he warns against opposing the Sunan he established that are not explicitly mentioned in the Qur’an, as the Khārijites and Rāfiḍites have done; they clung to the literal text of the Qur’an and abandoned the Sunan that guarantee the Qur’an’s elucidation, and so they became bewildered and went astray.

He said: al-arīkah is a couch; some say it is not called arīkah unless it is set beneath a canopy. By “the couch” he intended the people of comfort and ease who remain in their homes and do not seek knowledge from its proper sources.

His words, “unless its owner has relinquished it,” mean that the owner leaves it to whoever finds it because he no longer needs it—like the Almighty’s saying, “Yet they disbelieved and turned away, and Allah was independent of them,” that is, He left them, being free of need for them.

His words, “he may requite them with an amount equal to his hospitality,” apply to someone in dire need who finds no food and fears for his life; he may take from their wealth an amount equal to the hospitality they withheld from him. The verb yuʿqibuhum is transmitted both with and without the doubled consonant, deriving from muʿāqabah (“reprisal”), as in the Almighty’s saying, “And if you retaliate …” meaning, if you prevail and take spoils from them. Likewise, such a person may take from their property goods equal in value to his lost hospitality.

The ḥadīth indicates that a prophetic report has no need to be measured against the Book, for whatever is soundly established from the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, is proof in and of itself. As for the narration some report—“When a ḥadīth comes to you, present it to the Book of Allah; if it accords with it, accept it, and if not, reject it”—that report has no basis.

The Prophet’s elucidation, peace and blessings be upon him, is of two kinds. One is clarification of what is summarized in the Book, such as his explanation of the five daily prayers—their times, prostrations, bowings, and other rulings—and his clarification of the obligatory amount of Zakāh, its due time, and what