al-Fath (4/123). After citing this report through al-Nasaʾī’s route—in which the narrator says, “…and I was fasting, so he kissed me”—he wrote:

“This supports what we stated earlier: the criterion here is whether or not a person is stirred by touching and kissing, not a hard-and-fast distinction between the young and the old, for ʿĀʾishah herself was young. Admittedly, because a young man is usually subject to the arousal of desire, some scholars did draw that distinction.”

220 – “He would kiss while fasting and engage in physical intimacy while fasting, and he was the one among you who had the strongest command over his desire.”

This was recorded by al-Bukhārī (4/120–121, Fath), Muslim (3/135), al-Shāfiʿī in his Sunan (1/261), Abū Dāwūd (2/284, ʿAwn), al-Tirmidhī (2/48, Tuḥfah), Ibn Mājah (1/516–517), al-Ṭaḥāwī (1/345), al-Bayhaqī (4/230), and Aḥmad (6/42, 126), all through various chains from ʿĀʾishah.

Al-Tirmidhī remarked: “A ḥadīth that is ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ (good and authentic).”

The narration conveys another benefit in addition to the preceding ḥadīth, namely the permissibility of physical intimacy by