Arba'un 24 — O My servants, I have forbidden injustice to Myself

الأربعون 24 — يا عبادي إني حرمت الظلم على نفسي

The great sacred hadith, from Abu Dharr from the Prophet ﷺ among what he relates from his Lord: 'O My servants, I have forbidden injustice to Myself and made it forbidden among you, so do not wrong one another', followed by the declarations that His servants are all astray except whom He guides, hungry except whom He feeds and naked except whom He clothes, that they err night and day while He forgives all sins, that they can neither reach His harm to harm Him nor His benefit to benefit Him, that were the first and last of them, human and jinn, upon the purest heart of one man it would add nothing to His dominion nor upon the most wicked subtract, that were they to stand on one plain and ask and He gave each his request it would diminish what is with Him only as a needle dipped into the sea diminishes it, and that it is their works which He counts for them then repays — whoever finds good let him praise God and whoever finds otherwise let him blame none but himself; the twenty-fourth of al-Nawawi's Forty and of Ibn Rajab's commentary; transmitted by Muslim (2577) through Sa'id ibn Abd al-Aziz from Rabi'a ibn Yazid from Abu Idris al-Khawlani from Abu Dharr — Abu Idris would kneel on his knees when narrating it — and through Qatada from Abu Qilaba from Abu Asma' al-Rahbi from Abu Dharr in like wording though Abu Idris's is more complete, and by Ahmad, al-Tirmidhi (2495, graded hasan) and Ibn Majah through Shahr ibn Hawshab from Abd al-Rahman ibn Ghunam from Abu Dharr in a fuller wording containing 'the most God-fearing heart', 'would not add a mosquito's wing to My dominion', 'I am Generous, Resourceful, Glorious, doing what I will; My giving is speech and My punishment is speech; My command to a thing when I will it is only to say to it Be, and it is', while al-Tabarani's parallel from Abu Musa al-Ash'ari has a weak chain on account of Abd al-Malik ibn Harun ibn Antara — called 'abandoned in hadith' by Abu Hatim and 'a liar' by Yahya ibn Ma'in — and the Imam Ahmad called it the noblest hadith of the people of Syria; Ibn Rajab explains 'I have forbidden injustice to Myself' as His restraining it from His servants, citing the Qur'anic negations of injustice from Him, notes that for many scholars injustice is placing things outside their place — so the hadith shows God is able to do injustice but does not, out of grace, bounty, generosity and beneficence — while those who define it as disposing of another's property without permission, a sense transmitted from Iyas ibn Mu'awiya, hold it impossible for Him since all He does is disposal within His own dominion, in the manner of Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali's answer to Imran ibn al-Husayn when asked about the divine decree; Ibn Rajab also transmits, halted at Ubayy ibn Ka'b and similarly from Ibn Masud and Zayd ibn Thabit (may God be pleased with him), 'were God to punish the people of His heavens and earth He would do so without injustice to them', remarking that its chain is open to question on account of Wahb ibn Khalid, and that God's creating His servants' deeds — injustice among them — does not mean He is described by injustice, for He is described only by His own acts, not theirs; and the injustice forbidden between servants is of two kinds: injustice to one's own soul, whose greatest form is association — 'association is indeed a tremendous injustice' (Luqman 13) — followed by sins great and small, and injustice to others, the subject of this hadith, witnessed by the Farewell Pilgrimage sermon declaring blood, property and honour sacred, by 'injustice will be darknesses on the Day of Resurrection', and by 'God grants respite to the wrongdoer until, when He seizes him, He does not let him escape' read with Hud 102 (Jami' al-Ulum wal-Hikam pp. 511–532).