233 – Ibn ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with them both) reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “A Muslim is the brother of a Muslim; he neither wrongs him nor hands him over. Whoever occupies himself with the need of his brother, Allah will occupy Himself with his need; whoever relieves a Muslim of a hardship, Allah will relieve him, on account of it, of a hardship among the hardships of the Day of Resurrection; and whoever conceals a Muslim’s fault, Allah will conceal his faults on the Day of Resurrection.” Agreed upon.

[Explanation]
The author—may Allah have mercy on him—narrates from ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with them both) that the Prophet ﷺ said, “A Muslim is the brother of a Muslim,” meaning: a brother to him in faith, as Allah the Exalted says, “and you became, by His favor, brothers” (Aal ʿImran 3:103); and He says, “If you do not know their fathers, then they are your brothers in faith and your allies” (Al-Ahzab 33:5). This brotherhood is the strongest of all bonds, even stronger than the bond of blood-relations, for the demands of kinship can fail: your blood brother may become an enemy who detests you, and that can occur in this world and in the Hereafter. Allah the Exalted says: “Close friends on that Day will be foes to one another—except for the righteous” (Az-Zukhruf 43:67).

As for the brotherhood of faith, it is a firm and lasting bond in both this life and the next; it benefits a person during his lifetime and after his death. Yet this religious brotherhood does not carry the worldly legal consequences that attach to blood-relations, such as inheritance, obligatory maintenance, and the like.

He ﷺ then said, “He does not wrong him nor abandon him,” meaning that he does not wrong him in his wealth, in his person, or