494 – ʿAbd Allah narrated to us; my father narrated to me; Abu Muʿawiyah narrated to us; al-Aʿmash, from Salim ibn Abi al-Jaʿd, reported:

“There was a man among the people of Salih—peace be upon him—who used to harass them. They said, ‘O Prophet of Allah, supplicate against him for us!’ Salih replied, ‘Go; he has already been kept from harming you.’

That man would go out every day to gather firewood. On this day he set out carrying two loaves; he ate one and gave the other away in charity. He gathered his wood and returned unharmed.

The people came to Salih and said, ‘He came back safely with his wood; nothing touched him.’ Salih summoned the man and asked, ‘What did you do today?’ He answered, ‘I went out with two loaves; I gave one in charity and ate the other.’

Salih said, ‘Untie your bundle of wood.’ When he untied it, inside was a black serpent as thick as a tree trunk, clamped onto one of the sticks. Salih said, ‘It was kept from harming him because of that’—meaning because of the charity he had given.”