then he supported his point with the words of Allah, Most High: “Show excellence to parents, relatives, orphans, the needy, the neighbor who is a kinsman, the neighbor who is a stranger, the companion at your side, the wayfarer, and those whom your right hands possess. Surely Allah does not love anyone who is arrogant and vainglorious” (Q 4:36). All of these people have claims upon you.

“Show excellence to parents” – your mother and father are the human beings with the greatest right over you. “Relatives, orphans, and the needy” – relatives, whether on the mother’s side or the father’s; orphans are the young whose fathers have died; the needy are the poor. “The neighbor who is a kinsman” is the neighbor who is also a relative, while “the neighbor who is a stranger” is the neighbor with whom you share no kinship. “The companion at your side”: some said this refers to one’s spouse, others that it is the companion on a journey. “The wayfarer” is the traveler who has been cut off from his means. “Those whom your right hands possess” is the key point here: it includes both human slaves and animals. A person is commanded to treat them well: if they are human, he must feed them from what he himself eats, clothe them from what he wears, house them appropriately, and not burden them with what they cannot bear.

The author next mentioned the hadith of Ibn ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with him) that a woman entered Hell because of a cat she had confined. She shut the cat up without providing water or food until it died, so she entered the Fire on account of that cat and was punished through it – and we seek refuge with Allah. Although a cat is of little material worth, she wronged it so grievously by imprisoning it until it starved to death.

From this hadith it is understood that had she placed food and water before it