people in need; doing so is forbidden to them, for the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—said, “It is taken from their wealthy and returned to their poor.” Moreover, those who are nearest of kin have the strongest claim to kindness. Your relatives also know the wealth you possess and are aware that you are well-off; if they receive no benefit from your money, feelings of hostility and resentment will grow in their hearts, for which you will be the cause. Should they see you sending charity to far-off lands while they themselves are needy, they might even attack you and damage your property. Hence wisdom dictates that as long as there are people in need within your own community, you should not divert your alms elsewhere.
He—peace and blessings be upon him—then said to Muʿādh, “If they obey you in that”—meaning that they submit and comply—“then beware of taking the choicest of their property.” That is, do not select the finest of their wealth; rather, take what is of average quality, wronging no one and being wronged by no one. “And guard yourself against the supplication of the oppressed,” for if you seize the best of their possessions you will have wronged them, and they may pray against you. So protect yourself from their prayer, “for between it and Allah there is no barrier”: it rises directly to Allah, and He answers it. This is the portion of the ḥadīth relevant to the chapter the author cites here, namely, that a person must fear the supplication of the one who has been wronged.
Many other benefits may be drawn from this ḥadīth, some related to this chapter and others beyond it. One must first recognize that the Quran and the Sunnah were revealed to judge between people in whatever they dispute, and that legal rulings are extracted from the sacred texts—whether from their explicit wording, implicit meaning, or subtle allusion. Allah, exalted is He, endows some people with deeper understanding of His Book and the Sunnah of His Messenger—peace and blessings be upon him—than others. For this reason, when Abū Juḥayfa asked ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib—may Allah be pleased with him—“Did the Messenger of Allah entrust you with anything special?” he replied, “No, except…"