With the Hadith
Free the Captive
We greet you, dear listeners everywhere, in a new episode of your program "With the Hadith," and we begin with the best greeting: Peace, mercy, and blessings of God be upon you.
Narrated by Abu Musa, may God be pleased with him, that the Messenger of God, peace and blessings be upon him, said: "Free the captive, feed the hungry, and visit the sick."
Fath al-Bari bi Sharh Sahih al-Bukhari
"Free the captive," i.e., the prisoner.
Ibn Battal said: Releasing a prisoner is obligatory as a collective duty, and this is what the majority said. Ishaq ibn Rahwayh said: From the public treasury. It was also narrated from Malik, and Ahmad said: They should be ransomed with heads, but as for money, I do not know it. If the Muslims have prisoners and the polytheists have prisoners, and they agree on ransom, it is obligatory, and it is not permissible to ransom the prisoners of the polytheists with money.
Dear listeners:
We all know the origin of the jurisprudence of this hadith, in which our noble Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, urges us to free the captive, feed the hungry, and visit the sick. However, a spark flashed in my mind resulting from the reality of the Islamic nation, which is that the Islamic nation today is captive, hungry, and sick. Captive to the entrenchment of the systems of disbelief upon it militarily, politically, economically, intellectually, and in the media. And hungry because the blessings that God has bestowed upon it have been taken away from it, and these blessings have become goods for the disbeliever to enjoy. And sick because of the aggravation of the disease of capitalism in its body. So, should we not work to rid the Islamic nation of its captivity, hunger, and disease?! And let us not stop here, but let us work to save the world after saving ourselves?!
Dear listeners, until we meet you with another Prophetic hadith, we leave you in God's care, and peace, mercy, and blessings of God be upon you.