Thus the money became his; for that reason the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Maʿn, you shall have what you took.”

From this ḥadīth we learn the very point for which the author quoted it: actions are judged by intentions, and a person is granted the reward of whatever he meant, even when the actual outcome differs from what he intended. This principle gives rise to many subsidiary rulings:

• If someone pays his zakah to a person he assumes is eligible, and it later turns out that the recipient is wealthy and therefore not entitled, the zakah is still valid and his obligation is discharged, because he intended to give it to one who qualified; he is rewarded according to that intention.

• Suppose a man wishes to endow a small house but, while making the declaration, says, “I endow my such-and-such house,” pointing to a large one. Since his heart intended the smaller house, the endowment applies to what he meant, not to what slipped from his tongue.

• If an uninformed person who cannot distinguish between ʿumrah and ḥajj travels with the pilgrims and proclaims, “Labbayka ḥajjan” (“Here I am for ḥajj”) while he actually intends to perform an ʿumrah that he will later combine with ḥajj, he is judged according to his intention; the inadvertent wording does him no harm.

• Likewise, if a man says to his wife, “You are ṭāliq,” intending only, “You are released from a constraint, not from the marriage,” he is held to what he intended, and the marriage is not dissolved.

This ḥadīth, then, carries many benefits and legal ramifications dispersed throughout various chapters of jurisprudence.

Among its lessons is that it is permissible for a person to give charity to his own child. The proof is that the Prophet ﷺ commanded and encouraged charitable giving, and Zaynab wished