8756 - My father narrated to us, Muhammad ibn Sa'id al-Asbahani told us, Abu Bakr ibn 'Ayyash informed us, from 'Asim, from Sa'd, who said: I came to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) with a sword and said: O Messenger of Allah, Allah has healed my soul today from the polytheists, so grant me this sword. He said: "This sword is neither for me nor for you, so put it down." So I put it down, but I said: Perhaps it will be given to a man who has not experienced the same trial (bala') that I have. He said: Then, while I was there, a messenger came to me and said: "Answer (the call)." I thought that something had been revealed concerning me because of what I had said. I went, and the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said to me: "You asked me for this sword, and it is not mine nor yours, but Allah has granted it to me, so it is yours."

8757 - 'Ali ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz informed me in what he wrote to me, he said: Abu 'Ubayd said regarding the Anfal (spoils of war): They are the ghanima (spoils), and (it applies to) every acquisition obtained by the Muslims, because of the saying of Allah the Exalted: "They ask you about the spoils of war (al-Anfal), say: The spoils of war are for Allah and the Messenger." He divided them on the day of Badr according to what Allah showed him, without taking a fifth (khums) from them, as we mentioned in the hadith of Sa'd. Then, the verse of the fifth (khums) was revealed after that and abrogated the first (ruling). There are reports regarding this. The origin of the word Anfal is the collective term for spoils, although the fifth (khums) of them is specifically for its designated beneficiaries, according to what the Book has revealed and the Sunnah has established.

The meaning of Anfal in the speech of the Arabs is every kindness that a doer performs as a favor, without it being an obligation upon him. Likewise, the nafal (voluntary grant) which Allah made lawful for the believers from the wealth of their enemies is merely something that Allah has set apart for them as a grace from Him, after the spoils had been forbidden to the nations before them; so Allah granted them as a bounty to this nation. This is the origin of the term nafal. By it is named that which the Imam designates for the combatants as a nafal, which is his favoring some of the army over others with something beyond their (regular) shares; he does this according to the degree of their usefulness to Islam and the damage they inflict upon the enemy. In the nafal that the Imam grants, there are four sunan (legal precedents), each one having a place different from the other: The first is in the nafal that has no fifth (khums) in it, and that is the salab (personal spoils of a slain enemy). The second is the nafal which is from the spoils after extracting the fifth, which is when the Imam sends out detachments (saraya) into the land of war and they bring back spoils, so the detachment receives a quarter or a third from what they brought after the fifth. The third is in the nafal from the fifth itself, which is that the spoils are all gathered and then the fifth is taken, so when the fifth is in the hands of the Imam, he grants from it as he sees fit. The fourth is in the nafal from the entirety of the spoils before any fifth is taken from them, which is that which is given to the guides, the herders of livestock, and those who drive them. There is disagreement regarding all of this.

Al-Rabi' ibn Sulayman said: Al-Shafi'i said: Anfal means that nothing should be taken from the main body of the spoils before the fifth, except for the salab.

[The second aspect] of the nafal: It is something added to what they already had, and that is from the fifth of the Prophet (peace be upon him), for he is entitled to a fifth of the fifth from every spoil. Therefore, it is appropriate for the Imam to exercise his ijtihad; when the enemy is numerous, their power is intense, and the number of Muslims facing them is small, he may grant them a nafal, following the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), and if that is not the case, he does not grant a nafal.

[The third aspect] of the nafal: When the Imam sends a detachment or an army and says to them before meeting (the enemy): "Whoever takes any spoils, it belongs to him after the fifth," then it belongs to them according to what the Imam has stipulated, because they fought based on that, and they were satisfied with it.

[Those who interpreted the verse to mean the salab which a man earns by killing a polytheist without it being subject to the fifth or anyone else sharing in it]

8758 - Yunus ibn 'Abd al-A'la informed us by way of reading, Ibn Wahb informed us that Malik narrated to him, from Yahya ibn Sa'id, from 'Umar ibn Kathir ibn Aflah, from Abu Muhammad, the freed slave of Ibn Qatadah, from Ibn Qatadah, that he said: We went out with the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) in the year of Hunayn. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: "Whoever kills a man who is slain, and has proof of it, his salab (spoils) belongs to him." I stood up, and the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: "What is the matter with you, O Abu Qatadah?" So I related the story to him: that I struck a man of the polytheists with the sword on the shoulder blade, then death overtook him. A man from the group said: He has spoken the truth, O Messenger of Allah, and the spoils of that slain man are with me. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said to him: "Give them to him."

8759 - Abu Sa'id al-Ashajj narrated to us, Ma'n told us, from Malik ibn Anas, from al-Zuhri, from al-Qasim ibn Muhammad, who said: A man asked Ibn 'Abbas about the Anfal, and he said: The horse is from the nafal, and the salab is from the nafal.