Narrated Sa'd said that when God’s messenger took the oath of allegiance from the women, a woman of high rank who seemed to be one of the women of Mudar rose and said, “Prophet of God, we are dependent* on our parents, our sons and our husbands, so with what part of their property can we do what we like?” He:
My patron ordered me to cut some meat in strips and spread it in the sun to dry, and when a poor man came to me I gave him some of it to eat. My patron got to know of that and beat me, so I went to God’s messenger and mentioned the matter to him. He summoned him and asked, “Why did you beat him?” He replied, “He gives away my food without instruction from me.” Then he said, “The reward is shared between you.”
In a version he said: I was a slave and I asked God’s messenger whether I could give any sadaqa from my patron’s property. He replied, “Yes, and the reward will be shared equally between you.”
Abu Umama said he heard God’s messenger say in the course of his sermon in the year of the Farewell Pilgrimage,
“A woman must not give anything away from her husband’s house without her husbnnd’s permission.”
He was asked whether she might not even give away food and replied, “That is the most excellent property we possess.”
I provided a man with a horse to ride in God’s path, but as the one who had it did not look after it well, I wanted to buy it and thought he would sell it at a cheap price. I therefore asked the Prophet, but he said,
“Do not buy it, and do not take back what you gave as sadaqa even if he gives it to you for a dirham, for the one who takes back what he gave as sadaqa is like a dog which returns to its vomit.”
A version has, “Do not take back what you gave as sadaqa, for the one who does so is like one who takes back what he has vomited.”
