We came to visit Khabab during his illness. He had been cauterized, and he said, "Our companions who passed on before us departed without the world diminishing any of their reward, but we have come upon wealth for which we find no place except the dust. Were it not that the Prophet ﷺ forbade us from praying for death, I would have prayed for it."Then we came to him another time, and he was building a wall of his. He said, "A Muslim is rewarded for everything he spends, except for what he puts into this dust."
دخلنا على خباب نعوده، وقد كيات، فقال: إن أصحابنا الذين سلفوا مضوا ولم تنقصهم اكتوي سبع الدنيا، وإنا أصبنا ما لا نجد له موضعا إلا التراب، ولولا أن النبي ﷺ نهانا أن ندعو بالموت لدعوت به، ثم أتيناه مرة أخرى، وهو يبني حائطا له، فقال: إن المسلم يوجر في كل شيء ينفقه إلا في شيء يجعله في هذا التراب.
Bukhari narrated it in the Book of the Sick (5672), and Muslim in the Book of Remembrance and Supplication (2681), both of them from Ismail bin Abu Khalid, from Qays bin Abu Hazim, who related it, and the wording given is Bukhari's. As for Muslim, he did not mention the statement of Khabab, "The Muslim is rewarded for everything." In a version found in Tirmidhi (970), from Haritha bin Mudarrib, who said, I went in to see Khabab, and he had been cauterized on his stomach, and he said, "I do not know of anyone among the companions of the Prophet ﷺ who has met with the trial that I have met with. There was a time when I could not find even a single dirham in the time of the Prophet ﷺ, and yet in a corner of my house there are forty thousand now. Had the Messenger of Allah ﷺ not forbidden us, or forbidden that we wish for death, I would have wished for it."He narrated it by way of Shubah, from Abu Ishaq, from Haritha bin Mudarrib, in the same manner.His statement, "except in something he puts into this soil," means undertaking in building what he does not need.