I came to the Prophet when he was sitting in the shade of the Ka'ba, and when he saw me he said,
“By the Lord of the Ka'ba, they are the ones who suffer the greatest loss."
I asked, “Who are they, you for whom I would give my father and my mother as ransom?"
He replied, “Those who have most property, except those who say, ‘Take this and this and this,’ before them, behind them, on their right and on their left; but they are few."
Abu Huraira told that when a man asked God’s messenger which sadaqa produced the greatest reward he replied,
“That which you give when you are healthy and inclined to be mean, fearing poverty and hoping for a competence. Do not put it off and then say when you are about to die that you give such and such to so and so and such and such to so and so when it has already become the property of so and so.”*
Abu Huraira reported God’s messenger as saying,
“The generous man is near God, near paradise, near men and far from hell, but the miserly man is far from God, far from paradise, far from men and near hell. Indeed, an ignorant man who is generous is dearer to God than a worshipper who is miserly."
Haritha b. Wahb told that God's messenger exhorted the people to give sadaqa, for the time was coming when a man would go with his sadaqa and find no one to accept it. A man would say, “If you had brought it yesterday I would have accepted it, but I have no need of it today."
