Life-of-Muhammad

226Life of Muhammad saIn his anxiety to fully safe-guard the interests of thepoor and the needy he went so far as to lay down thatno charity should ever be bestowed upon hisdescendants, fearing lest Muslims out of their love forand devotion towards himself should in course of timemake his descendants the principal objects of theircharity and thus deprive the poor and needy of their dueshare. On one occasion somebody brought to him aquantity of dates and offered them as charity. Hisgrandson Imam Hasan ra , who was then only two and ahalf years of age, happened to be sitting with theProphet sa . He picked up one of the dates and put it intohis mouth. The Prophet sa immediately put his finger intothe child's mouth and forced the date out of it saying:"We have no right in this. This belongs to the pooramong God's creatures" (Bukhari, Kitabul Kusuf ).TREATMENT OF SLAVESHe constantly exhorted those who owned slaves totreat them kindly and well. He had laid down that if theowner of a slave beat his slave or abused him, the onlyreparation that he could make was to set the slave free(Muslim, Kitabul Iman). He devised means for, andencouraged, the freeing of slaves on every pretext. Hesaid: "If a person owning a slave sets him free, God willin recompense save every part of his body correspondingto every part of the slave's body from the torment ofHell." Again, he laid down that a slave should be askedto perform only such tasks as he could easilyaccomplish and that when he was set to do a task, hismaster should help him in performing it so that theslave should experience no feeling of humiliation ordegradation (Muslim). If a master went on a journeyaccompanied by a slave, it was his duty to share hismount with the slave either by both riding together oreach riding in turn. Abu Huraira ra , who used to spendthe whole of his time after becoming a Muslim in the