Some laypeople maintain that if a child nurses from a woman he becomes her son and that all of his siblings born after him likewise become her children. This is simply incorrect; none of his brothers or sisters are attached to her in any way at all.

Al-Hasan ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (Allah be pleased with him) related that he once heard the Prophet (Allah bless him and grant him peace) utter a succinct, far-reaching maxim that has become a foundational rule in scrupulous piety: “Leave what causes you doubt for what causes you no doubt.” In other words, whatever arouses misgivings or uncertainty in you—leave it, and act only on that which you are certain about or, where sound probability suffices, that which you judge more likely to be correct.

Anything that remains doubtful to you, avoid it; this is one of the cornerstones of wary God-consciousness. For that very reason the Prophet, upon spotting a date lying in the road, refrained from eating it and said, “Had I not feared that it might be from charity, I would have eaten it.” This incident falls squarely under the same principle: “Leave what causes you doubt for what causes you no doubt.”

The rule also applies when you and another person are settling accounts and an excess appears in your favor as a result of the reckoning: if you are uncertain about its legitimacy, leave it. Should your counterpart likewise doubt it and forgo it, then give the amount away in charity—either outright, to rid yourself of it, or as a conditional offering by saying: “O Allah, if this money rightfully belongs to me, I offer it as charity seeking closeness to You; and if it does not belong to me, then I part with it as charity to free myself from its punishment.”