In some narrations the phrase appears as “his bāʾdil quivered,” its singular being bāʾdilah. Others read bāʾdal, the area between the neck and the collarbone; still others say it is the root of the breast, or the flesh of the two breasts—and other views exist besides these.
He then cried, “Wrap me up! Wrap me up!”
When the terror subsided he said to Khadījah, “What is wrong with me? What has happened to me?” and he related to her all that had occurred. Then he added, “I feared for myself,” because he had witnessed something wholly unfamiliar to him—something that had never crossed his mind before.
Khādījah replied, “Rejoice! By Allah, Allah will never disgrace you.” Some say her word means “disgrace,” others, “sorrow.” She spoke thus because she knew the consistent way Allah deals graciously with His creation: anyone who possesses noble qualities is not disgraced in this life or the next. She then reminded him (1) of the lofty traits that were part of his noble character:
“You maintain the bonds of kinship, and you always tell the truth”—and he ﷺ was renowned for that among friend and foe alike—“you bear the burdens of others,” that is, you relieve them, giving the head of a hard-pressed household (2) what lightens the cost of supporting his family; “you secure provision for the destitute,” meaning that you are the first to do good, hastening to give to the poor and thereby gaining the reward before anyone else. The poor man is called maʿdūm, “non-existent,” because his life is diminished—his presence or absence are the same—just as one of the poets said:
Not everyone who dies and finds repose is truly dead;
The dead is the one who is dead among the living.
Abū al-Ḥasan al-Tihāmī, as cited by Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ in his commentary on Muslim, wrote:
Count the pauper a dead man, his worn-out shroud upon him;
His abode is but a grave.
Al-Khaṭṭābī (5) said: the correct text is “and you acquire for the maʿdūm,” that is, you give to him, or you obtain for the destitute money by which he can live. Our teacher, the ḥāfiẓ Abū al-Ḥajjāj al-Mizzī, preferred the view that maʿdūm here refers to the wealth that is given—meaning, you grant money to the one who lacks it.
As for those who say the meaning is that you acquire through trade rare, precious, hard-to-find wealth, they have strayed far from the mark and over-strained the text (6), claiming knowledge they do not possess. Such an interpretation is seldom praised. This view was weakened by ʿIyāḍ, al-Nawawī, and others. Allah knows best.