8/288 — Usamah ibn Zayd reported that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “I have not left behind me any trial more harmful to men than women.” Agreed upon.

[Explanation]
The author—may Allah have mercy on him—cites the narration from Usamah ibn Zayd in which the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “I have not left behind me any trial more harmful to men than women.”

The meaning is that the Prophet is informing us that, after him, no temptation is more detrimental to men than the temptation posed by women. This is because people, as Allah the Exalted says, “Beautified for mankind is the love of desires: women, children, heaped-up treasures of gold and silver, fine-branded horses, livestock, and tilled land” (Āl ʿImrān 3:14). All of these have been adorned for people in this world and have become a source of temptation for them, yet the severest of these temptations is women. Hence Allah began the verse with them, saying: “Beautified for mankind is the love of desires: women …” (Āl ʿImrān 3:14).

By conveying this, the Prophet intended to warn us against the temptation of women so that people remain vigilant, for a human being, when confronted with trials, is liable to fall into them.

One also learns from the ḥadīth the necessity of blocking every avenue that leads to temptation through women; therefore, every path that—