He said: I heard the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, say: "There is no nafal (extra award) except after the fifth." Narrated by Abu Dawud and Ibn 'Abd al-Barr, and this is explicit. [Also evidence is] the hadith of Habib ibn Maslamah that the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, used to award the quarter as nafal after the fifth, and the third after the fifth. And the hadith of Jarir when 'Umar said to him: "And for you is a third after the fifth." This is because the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, awarded a third [as nafal], and it is inconceivable that this be extracted from the fifth. Moreover, Allah the Almighty said: "And know that whatever you take as spoils of war, then to Allah is one-fifth thereof" (Qur'an 8:41), which dictates that the fifth must be removed from the entire spoils. As for the hadith of Ibn 'Umar, it was narrated by Shu'ayb, from Nafi', from Ibn 'Umar, who said: "The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, sent us in an army towards Najd, and I dispatched a raiding party (sariyya) from the army. The shares of the army were twelve camels, and the nafal for the members of the raiding party was one camel each, so their shares were thirteen camels." This can be understood as him awarding them the nafal from the four-fifths of the spoils, without the rest of the army, just as raiding parties are awarded nafal. It is mandatory to interpret the report in this way, for if he had given to the entire army, it would not have been a nafal, and he would have divided for them more than the four-fifths, which is contrary to the Qur'anic verse and the reports.

Section: The statement of Ahmad regarding the nafal being from the four-fifths of the spoils is general, due to the generality of the report concerning it. It is possible that it is applied to the first two categories of nafal. As for the third category, which is when he says: "Whoever brings something shall have such and such," or "Whoever brings ten heads shall have one head of them," it is possible that he is entitled to that from the entire spoils, because it is treated in the position of compensation (ju'l), and therefore it resembles the spoils of a slain enemy (salab), for that is not subject to the fifth. It is also possible in the second category—which is the increase of some of the warriors above their share due to their valiant service—that it is from the fifth of the fifth allocated for the public interests (masalih), because the gift to this person is one of the public interests. The explicit doctrine (madhhab) is the first, because the gift given to Salamah ibn al-Akwa' of a horseman's share in addition to his own share was only from the four-fifths. And Allah knows best.