when a man of high rank among them stole, they let him go, but when a lowly person stole, they enforced the prescribed punishment. By Allah, were Fatimah the daughter of Muhammad to steal, I would cut off her hand!’ He ﷺ thus swore that even if his own daughter – the noblest of women in lineage – committed theft, he would amputate her hand.

Imam al-Nawawi, may Allah have mercy on him, cites this ḥadith in Riyāḍ al-Ṣāliḥīn together with the report, ‘He steals an egg and his hand is cut off; he steals a rope and his hand is cut off.’ An ordinary egg does not reach the legal threshold for theft, for that threshold is a quarter of a dinar. How, then, does the narration state that the thief’s hand is severed for an egg or for a rope?

Some scholars replied that the ‘egg’ here is the battle-helmet a warrior places on his head to protect himself from arrows; it is valuable and worth a quarter of a dinar or more. The ‘rope,’ they say, refers to a ship’s mooring rope used to secure it at the harbor so the waves do not carry it away; this too has significant value.

Other scholars maintained that the ‘egg’ is quite literally a chicken’s egg, for the Prophet ﷺ mentioned it without qualification, and when the word ‘egg’ is used on its own people naturally understand a chicken’s egg. The ‘rope,’ in that reading, is the common rope used to tie firewood and the like. Even so, the Messenger ﷺ ruled that the thief’s hand be cut off, because once a person becomes accustomed to stealing trivial items he will soon dare to steal valuable and costly ones; therefore his hand is amputated. This interpretation is nearer to the mark: a thief – Allah’s refuge is sought – who begins with minor thefts grows emboldened and proceeds to major thefts, so his hand is cut off.

Third: the Prophet ﷺ pronounced a curse upon anyone who curses his own parents, whether mother or father, saying to his father, ‘May Allah curse you,’ or to his mother. But the Companions asked, ‘O Messenger…’