Abu Dawud was asked: “Does al-Qa‘nabi narrate anything other than this hadith from Shu‘bah?” He said: “No.”(1)

8 – Chapter on Good Character

4798 – Qutaybah ibn Sa‘id narrated to us, Ya‘qub—meaning the Alexandrian—narrated to us, from ‘Amr, from al-Muttalib, from ‘A’ishah, who said: I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say: “Indeed, the believer attains through his good character the rank of the one who fasts and stands in prayer.”(2)

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= Indeed, He is All-Seeing of what you do} [Fussilat: 40], and His saying {So worship whatever you wish besides Him} [Az-Zumar: 15], and the saying of the Prophet ﷺ: “Whoever sells wine, let him slit the pigs,” meaning let him cut them—either for their sale or for their consumption—and his examples are numerous.

The second way: that it is a command whose meaning is informative, and the meaning is that whoever does not feel shame does whatever he wishes, for the deterrent from committing vile deeds is shame. So whoever has no shame plunges into every obscenity and wrongdoing, and nothing of that sort is refrained from by one who has shame.

Al-Nawawi said in “Sharh al-Arba‘in”: The command in it is for permissibility, meaning: if you intend to do something, then if it is something you would not be ashamed of doing before Allah or before the people, do it; otherwise, do not. And upon this the whole of Islam revolves. The explanation of that is that what is commanded—the obligatory and the recommended—one is ashamed to abandon it, and what is prohibited—the unlawful and the disliked—one is ashamed to do it. As for the permissible, shame from doing it is allowed, and likewise from abandoning it. Thus the hadith encompasses the five rulings.

(1) This statement of Abu Dawud we have established from (H), and it is indicated there that it is in the narration of Ibn al-A‘rabi. It appears in “Siyar A‘lam al-Nubala’” 10/261: Al-Hafiz Abu ‘Amr Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Hiri said: I heard my father say: I said to al-Qa‘nabi: “Why do you not narrate from Shu‘bah other than this hadith?” He said: “Shu‘bah found me burdensome, so he would not narrate to me.” Meaning the hadith: “If you do not feel shame, then do as you wish.”

(2) A sound hadith due to corroborating evidence, and this chain is weak due to its discontinuity. Al-Muttalib—who is Ibn ‘Abdullah ibn Hanthab—did not meet ‘A’ishah, and ‘Amr: he is Ibn Abi ‘Amr, the freed slave of al-Muttalib, truthful and good in hadith, and the rest of its narrators are trustworthy.