And we also know that every incentive existed to transmit the Book of Allah and His religion, for it is impossible for the ummah to conceal anything that people must receive as a universally binding proof. Since no mass-transmitted report has ever established a sixth daily prayer or an additional surah, we are certain that neither exists.

The texts of threat (waʿīd), however, do not belong to this category. A threat attached to an act does not have to be conveyed by uninterrupted mass transmission, just as the legal ruling of that act itself need not be.

It therefore stands proven that the hadiths containing a threat must be acted upon according to their purport: one must hold that whoever commits the deed in question is threatened with the stated punishment, while realizing that the actual infliction of the punishment depends on particular conditions and may be blocked by various impediments.

This principle becomes clear through examples. One such example is the rigorously authenticated statement of the Prophet ﷺ: “Allah has cursed the one who consumes usury, the one who pays it, its two witnesses, and its scribe” (1). It is likewise soundly reported through several routes that he said—about someone who sold two measures for one measure on the spot—“Alas! That is the very essence of usury,” and that he declared, “Wheat for wheat is usury unless it is hand to hand” (2).