[Commentary]
The author—may Allah have mercy on him—cites the report from Abu Hurayrah in which the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, asked: “Do you know who the bankrupt one is?” Here the question is posed to elicit information for the purpose of teaching. A questioner may sometimes ask out of ignorance, genuinely unaware and seeking an answer, and at other times he questions merely to alert the audience to what is about to be conveyed or to affirm a ruling. The latter is illustrated by the Prophet’s reply when he was consulted about selling fresh dates for dried dates: “Do they lose weight when they dry?”—referring to the fresh dates. When they answered, “Yes,” he prohibited the sale.

In the present ḥadīth the Prophet intended to inform the Companions of something they did not know, or at least did not grasp what he meant by the term. He asked, “Do you know who the bankrupt one is?” They said, “Messenger of Allah, among us the bankrupt is the person who possesses neither a dirham nor any goods,” meaning he has no cash and no merchandise—no material assets at all. In common usage, then, “bankrupt” simply means poor.

The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, replied, “The bankrupt of my community is the one who will come on the Day of Resurrection with prayer, fasting, and zakah,” and in another wording, “with good deeds as massive as mountains.” He will thus arrive holding an enormous fortune of righteous deeds, yet he will also have insulted this person, struck that one, and taken another’s wealth