The Prophet's (peace and blessings be upon him) response to the three men who asked the Mothers of the Believers about the Prophet's (peace and blessings be upon him) worship and sought to be excused from it.

The Shaykh : He said, (peace be upon him): He mentioned the words of the three men, then he said, (peace be upon him): This is a response to their statement: The Messenger (peace be upon him) responded to them by saying: In this response, he refers to another statement of his (may Allah's prayers and peace be upon him) when some of his noble companions saw him (may Allah's prayers and peace be upon him) standing in prayer through the night until his feet cracked, meaning his feet split from the length of standing. They said: "O Messenger of Allah, Allah has forgiven you what has passed of your sin and what is to come"; meaning: why do you strain yourself? Why do you tire it? Why do you afflict it? Until your feet split from the length of standing, since our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) has forgiven you what has passed of your sin and what is to come? His answer (peace be upon him) was: ; meaning: that the Prophet (may Allah's prayers and blessings be upon him), despite Allah having given him the glad tidings of forgiveness, as if He said to him: do what you wish; for I have forgiven you, just as the Prophet (may Allah's prayers and blessings be upon him) said in the story of Hatib ibn Abi Balta'ah when he committed that error and wrote a letter to his tribe and family in Mecca, when Hatib learned that the Prophet (may Allah's prayers and blessings be upon him) intended to campaign against the people of Mecca, he was overcome by affection and the emotion of kinship, so he wrote a letter to his relatives there informing them that the Messenger (peace be upon him) was about to campaign against them, so let them take heed. Then revelation descended from the sky upon the heart of the Messenger of Allah (may Allah's prayers and blessings be upon him) and informed him of what Hatib had done with the letter, and that he had handed it to a woman, and that she had mounted her camel and was on her way to Mecca. So the Messenger (peace be upon him) sent two horsemen from among his companions, one of them being Ali ibn Abi Talib and the other likely al-Zubayr. The Messenger (peace be upon him) said to them: , and indeed they caught up with her and found her as the Prophet (may Allah's prayers and blessings be upon him) had described, so they dismounted her camel and said to her: , knowing that the Messenger (peace be upon him), as stated in the Qur'an regarding him: , and if she had insisted that she had no letter with her, the Messenger had informed them that the letter was with her, so they threatened her and said to her: When she realized their determination in what they said and their truthfulness in it, she took the letter out of her hair and they returned to the Prophet (may Allah's prayers and blessings be upon him) and delivered the letter to him, and it was the letter we mentioned, written to his relatives in Mecca that the Messenger intends to campaign against you. And 'Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) was present in the assembly, and when he learned and heard what was in the letter, he was filled with anger and said to the Prophet (may Allah's prayers and peace be upon him): "Let me, O Messenger of Allah, cut the throat of this hypocrite." He said, (peace be upon him): . Thus, the Messenger (peace be upon him), although Allah said to him in the explicit Qur'an: , if anyone other than the Messenger (peace be upon him) had received such glad tidings from the sky, he would have relied upon it and become negligent, and not performed any of those acts of worship. But the Prophet (may Allah's prayers and blessings be upon him), due to his perfection, said: "Should I not be a grateful servant?" I do not deserve from my Lord to increase in worship and gratitude for this forgiveness by which Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) has favored me . So this is a response to the group who assumed that the Prophet's (may Allah's prayers and blessings be upon him) little worship was because he relied on this promise of forgiveness. He said the opposite: ; and therefore he said in the second hadith: . And this is the main point, as they say, of this hadith: a response to their extremism in religion when each of them intended to exaggerate in worship; that one in standing in prayer all night, the second in fasting all the time, and the third in abstaining from marrying women. He said: . Here is the point, our brothers: . The entire goal of this hadith is the last sentence: .