Likewise with canes: if you are carrying a staff, keep it upright, with its tip pointing toward the sky; do not hold it crosswise, for when you carry it horizontally you harm the people behind you and may even injure those in front of you. The same rule applies to an umbrella: if you are in the marketplace with one, raise it high so that you do not harm others.

Anything that harms the Muslims, or is feared to do so, must be avoided, for harming them is no trivial matter. Allah the Exalted says, “And those who hurt believing men and believing women without their having earned it have surely shouldered slander and a manifest sin” (al-Ahzab 33:58).

Among the hadiths the author has cited is the report of Abu Hurayrah—may Allah be pleased with him—that the Prophet ﷺ kissed al-Hasan ibn ʿAli ibn Abi Talib while al-Aqraʿ ibn Ḥabis was present. Al-Hasan was the son of Fatimah, daughter of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, making the Prophet ﷺ his maternal grandfather, and his father was ʿAli ibn Abi Talib, the Prophet’s cousin. The Prophet ﷺ loved al-Hasan and al-Husayn because they were his grandsons, and he favored al-Hasan over al-Husayn, for he said of al-Hasan, “This son of mine is a leader, and perhaps Allah will reconcile through him two factions of the Muslims.” Events unfolded exactly as the Prophet ﷺ foretold: when the discord arose during the time of Muʿawiyah and the caliphate passed to al-Hasan after the death of his father ʿAli ibn Abi Talib—may Allah be pleased with them both—al-Hasan relinquished it to Muʿawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan to spare Muslim blood, knowing that among the people were evildoers and that they might