Jāmiʿ al-ʿUlūm wa'l-Ḥikam: ‹Indeed, Allah Has Prescribed Excellence in Everything›

Occasion: Transcription of a Fajr khatira delivered on 13 September 2026 Source: A transcription of a video khatira by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

With the seventeenth hadith of the book «Jāmiʿ al-ʿUlūm wa'l-Ḥikam»,^[1] which is the hadith of Abū Yaʿlā Shaddād ibn Aws (may Allah be pleased with him) from the Prophet ﷺ, who said: «إنّ اللهَ كتبَ الإحسانَ على كلِّ شيءٍ، فإذا قتلتم فأحسنوا القِتلة، وإذا ذبحتم فأحسنوا الذِّبحة، وليُحِدَّ أحدُكم شفرتَه، وليُرِحْ ذبيحته» ("Indeed, Allah has prescribed excellence in everything. So when you kill, kill well; and when you slaughter, slaughter well; let each of you sharpen his blade and let him spare suffering to his animal"). Narrated by Muslim,^[2] and it has different narrations; among them what al-Ṭabarānī recorded from the hadith of Anas from the Prophet ﷺ: «إذا حكمتم فاعدلوا، وإذا قتلتم فأحسنوا، فإن الله محسنٌ يحبّ المحسنين» ("When you judge, be just; and when you kill, do so excellently, for Allah is One who does excellence and loves those who do excellence").

From Meeting a Need to Dealing with Things in Themselves

This hadith, with its different narrations, moves the Muslim to a level much higher than the level of the people around him. For people's purpose with things is the fulfillment of their needs: he wants only to meet his need. So if he takes a cup of water he drinks from it what he wants and then throws away the rest; and if food is brought before him he takes of it what he desires and leaves the remainder. But our Prophet ﷺ moves you to the level of dealing with things in themselves, as though they were a living being you address and who addresses you. So if you speak to a person, you do not take a part of his arm and leave the rest; and if you greet him, you return his hand as you received it, you do not take it with you and leave. So it is as though the Prophet ﷺ moves the Muslim from dealing with his own self when he takes things to dealing with the things themselves, and so he tells us about the station of iḥsān (excellence).

Excellence Even in Killing

And he gave an example of this station with slaughtering. If one of us slaughters an animal, he has been commanded by the Sharia to treat it with excellence, and in the books of fiqh there are very many etiquettes of excellence at the time of slaughter: sparing the animal suffering, sharpening the blade, pronouncing the name of Allah over it, giving it water before it is slaughtered, and other things.

But before slaughter there is another matter, the matter of killing: «إذا قتلتم فأحسنوا القِتلة، وإذا ذبحتم فأحسنوا الذِّبحة» ("when you kill, kill well; and when you slaughter, slaughter well"). If slaughter is in its proper place — it is legislated to sustain human life in that body and the survival of the human being, because he feeds so as to subsist, and subsists so as to worship, and worships so as to meet Allah, Glorified is He — then why do we see the word "killing"? And what killing is this that is intended in the hadith?

It is as though the Prophet ﷺ is telling you that when you deal with things and people, in times of pleasure or displeasure, the dealing must proceed from the principle of excellence. So even if the one before you is an enemy who deserves to be killed, or a sinner whose sin requires the prescribed punishment, dealing with excellence is a principle that is not divisible and does not break, and a person does not exceed his limits in dealing with people in any circumstance.

Excellence in Obligations, Prohibitions and Permissible Things

And we move with excellence to another group of principles: there is excellence in dealing with obligations, excellence in dealing with prohibitions, and excellence in dealing with permissible things.

The permissible. We gave an example of it: that you eat part of the food and throw away the rest; this is not excellence. Or that you buy something and wear it once and then throw it away, and you do not know which colors are repeated among yours and which sizes get mixed up for you. We were in a society where perhaps one of us, instead of washing his shirt, buys another cheaper one, at sale times, so that washing is harder for him than buying a new one, though this has lessened today from what it was. The point is that a mindset which deals with this excessive mentality has no place in the religion of the Lord of the worlds, Glorified is He.

The obligatory. Take the prayer that Allah commanded: do we deal with it by the principle of excellence, and perfection in everything? Does a person perfect his purification in his toilet, and perfect his ablution as he stands before the water, and perfect the conclusion of this ablution and the reception of the prayer? Do we perfect what is in our hands, or do we cut corners? In this hadith the Prophet ﷺ makes you stand before your conscience: you stand before your conscience when you deal with persons and things, so in what language and by what method do you deal?

And in fasting specifically, we make absolutely sure of the times when the fast begins and the times when it ends, and in between we transgress: idle talk, lying, bad words, and sometimes cheating or theft or fraud. As for the time of beginning and the time of ending, we magnify them to the utmost, so none of us goes past the adhan of Fajr with a sip of water or a morsel in his mouth, but he may exceed the limits of Allah during the day — we seek refuge in Allah. So where is excellence in this?

And likewise in Hajj: you see people extremely strict about the time of beginning, a person trembling as he speaks to you: where shall I enter ihram? What shall I wear? How shall I sleep, how shall I cover my face or not cover it? Take it easy, for it is nothing but an eased training for a life that comes after it in which more precision in performance and conduct is demanded. Calm down a little, for with the rest of life we exceed the limits.

The forbidden. And if we say there is excellence in obligations, there is likewise excellence in dealing with the forbidden. For in these stages — we seek refuge in Allah — a tragic matter in the case of close relatives has become well known, so that you see a man who does not feel safe about the women of his household from his brother or his nephew or his maternal uncle or his paternal uncle, indeed you see in some homes someone who transgresses against his female relative. We seek refuge in Allah, the Most High, the Almighty, from hearing this, let alone witnessing its effects, and we ask Him for safety and well-being. And a man of the Jāhiliyya came telling that if his neighbor woman appeared to him he would lower his gaze because she was his neighbor and had inviolability; then you come today and see the lived reality, and the brow of a free man sweats with shame.

The decreed. And there is excellence in patience with what is decreed: what has Allah, Exalted is He, decreed for you? And what excellence comes over your soul and heart when you deal with the decree of Allah, Mighty and Majestic, and His destiny?

Hearts That Comprehend the Rights of Things

And it is as though I see the Prophet ﷺ, at the close of the discourse, raising us to have in our souls hearts that comprehend the rights of the things around us. And he teaches us a very important lesson: among the etiquettes of the road is that you not see filth on it, and if you see filth on it, you must remove this harm; the Prophet ﷺ tells you that removing harm from the road is a charity.^[3] And it is not your task alone, but the task of everyone; and it is not a cause of wasting your time, for your time is more precious than that; and it is not your responsibility, for there is a mayor or a guard of the place. But the Prophet ﷺ makes of you a conscience that does not merely observe, but observes and acts, and its action is in the proper place: so you do not remove this harm from this place to put it in another place on the road, but you remove it to put it in its proper place.

It is the stage of building the mindset, repairing consciences, and training bodies. It is the mindset of the hand shared among all the individuals of society, carrying away the foul and bringing the good, lifting harm and bringing well-being; leaving no gap of corruption in society or on earth without closing it as far as it is able, and no opening of good without bringing it in as far as it is able.

We ask Allah, Glorified is He, to teach us and make us attentive to the places of goodness and guidance. O Allah, amen, O Lord of the worlds.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: The transcription has "the seventeenth hadith" and then "number 16"; what is given is what the speaker pronounced first. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: The hadith is in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim from the hadith of Shaddād ibn Aws (may Allah be pleased with him). As for the narration of al-Ṭabarānī from Anas, I have transmitted it as the speaker cited it, without verifying its authenticity. ^[3]: Editor's documentation: The origin of the meaning is in the two Ṣaḥīḥs from the hadith of Abū Hurayra (may Allah be pleased with him): "and removing harm from the road is a charity"; the speaker cited it by meaning.