On the authority of ʿImrān ibn Ḥuṣayn: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ saw a man wearing a brass ring on his hand and said, “What is this?” The man replied, “It is for al-wāhinah.” The Prophet said, “Remove it, for it will only add to your weakness. If you were to die while it was on you, you would never attain success, ever.” (1) Reported by Aḥmad with a chain whose narrators are unobjectionable.

ʿImrān: ʿImrān ibn Ḥuṣayn ibn ʿUbayd ibn Khalaf al-Khuzāʿī, a Companion whose father was also a Companion. He embraced Islam in the year of Khaybar and died in 52 AH in Basra.

“What is this?”: an interrogative of censure.

Al-wāhinah: a kind of ailment that strikes the hand.

“Remove it”: cast it away; removal here means pulling it off forcefully.

“Weakness”: feebleness.

“Would never attain success”: success refers to triumph, victory, and true happiness.

Overall meaning of the hadith: ʿImrān ibn Ḥuṣayn  recounts an episode from the Messenger of Allah’s ﷺ struggle against shirk and his effort to free people from it. He observed a man wearing a ring made of brass and asked what had prompted him to do so. The man replied that he wore it to ward off pain, whereupon the Prophet ordered him to cast it aside at once, informing him that it would not benefit him but would rather harm him, and that it