A man came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and asked, "Messenger of Allah, which charity carries the greatest reward?"He replied, "By your father, you shall be informed. It is that you give in charity while you are healthy and tight-fisted, fearing poverty and hoping for long life. Do not delay until, 'when it reaches the throat', you say, 'So much goes to so-and-so, and so much to so-and-so,' when it has already become the property of so-and-so."
حدثنا محمد بن فضيل عن عمارة عن أبي زرعة
جاء رجل إلى رسول الله ﷺ فقال يا رسول الله أي الصدقة أعظم أجرا قال أما وأبيك لتنبأنه أن تصدق وأنت صحيح شحيح تخشى الفقر وتأمل البقاء ولا تمهل حتى {إذا بلغت الحلقوم} قلت لفلان كذا ولفلان كذا وقد كان لفلان
Its isnad is sahih. Bukhari related it 3:226, through the route of Abdul-Wahid bin Ziyad, and 5:279–280, through the route of Sufyan. Muslim related it 1:282, through the route of Jareer, and through the route of Ibn Fudayl, and through the route of Abdul-Wahid. Abu Dawud related it 3/2865:72 in Awn al-Mabud, through the route of Abdul-Wahid as well. All of them narrated it from Umara, with this isnad, in a similar wording. It will come again at 7401 through the narration of Jareer, and at 9367 through the narration of Abdul-Wahid.His saying, "wa la tumhil," may be read with damma on the ta with sukun on the mim and kasra on the ha, or it may be read with fatha on the ta, the mim, and the doubled ha. As for its grammatical analysis, Hafiz said in al-Fath, with sukun it functions as a prohibition, and with the raf ending it functions as a negation, and the nasb ending is also permissible, that is, by connecting it to his saying "an tasaddaqa" and his saying "wa taamal al-baqaa," in a manuscript in the margin of copy M of al-Ghina, which agrees with some of the narrations we have pointed to, but not with the narration of Ibn Fudayl, its narrator here.