The Messenger of Allah ﷺ came in to see us with a staff in his hand. A man had hung up a cluster of poor, dried-up dates as charity, so the Prophet ﷺ poked at the cluster with the staff and said, "If the owner of this charity had wished, he could have given something better than this." Then he said, "The owner of this charity will be eating these inferior dates on the Day of Resurrection."
دخل علينا رسول الله ﷺ وبيده عصا، وقد علق رجل قنا حشفا، فطعن بالعصا في ذلك القنو وقال: لو شاء رب هذه الصدقة تصدق بأطيب منها. وقال: إن رب هذه الصدقة يأكل الحشف يوم القيامة.
Reported by Abu Dawud (1608), Nasai (2495), and Ibn Majah (1821), all from the hadith of Yahya bin Saeed, from Abdul-Hameed bin Jafar, who said, Salih bin Abu Urayb narrated to me, from Kathir bin Mura Hadrami, from Awf bin Malik, and he mentioned it. Ibn Khuzayma (2467), Ibn Hibban (6774), and Hakim (2/285, 4/425-426) graded it sahih. Hafiz mentioned it in Fath al-Bari and said, its chain is sahih. I say, it is hasan due to what precedes it, because it contains Salih bin Abu Urayb, from whom a group of narrators transmitted, but no one other than Ibn Hibban declared him trustworthy. That is why Hafiz said "acceptable," meaning if corroborated, and since he was not corroborated, his hadith is weak in strength. However, there is no harm in using it as a supporting witness, and a number of scholars of knowledge have graded it sahih, as already mentioned.Imam Ahmad also reported it (23976) through this same route, adding at the end, "Then he turned to us and said, 'By Allah, people of Madinah, you will leave it for forty years to the scavengers.'" He said, "I said, Allah knows best, meaning the birds and beasts of prey." He said, "And we used to say that this refers to what the non-Arabs call the karaki." End of quote.The karaki are the plural of karaka, which is a well-known large bird, ash-colored, with a long neck and legs, a short tail, and little meat.As for his saying "qinnan hashafan," qinn, with either kasra or fatha and shortened, means the cluster with the dates still on it. Qinw, with kasra or damma on the qaf and sukun on the nun, has as its plurals qinwan and aqna. And hashaf, with two fathas, means the dried, spoiled dates.