Abū’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad al-Aswarī narrated to us, saying that Makkī b. Aḥmad b. Saʿdawayh al-Bardaʿī narrated to him among others, saying that Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Saḥḥūn [1] informed him among others, saying that ʿAmrū b. Zabāl—Abū Ḥafṣ—narrated to him among others, saying (that he narrated it from) Khātim b. ʿUbayda, who said that ʿAlī b. Ḥijr narrated it to him among others, saying that Yūsuf b. Ziyād narrated to him among others, from Hammām b. Yaḥyā, from ʿAlī b. Zayd b. Jadhʿān, from Saʿīd b. al-Musayyib, from Salmān al-Fārisī, who reported that the Messenger of Allāh صلى الله عليه وعلى آله وسلم delivered a sermon—to a congregation that included him—on the last day of Shaʿbān, saying: “O’ people! Verily, an exalted and blessed month has cast its shadow over you, a month in which there is a night greater than a thousand months. Allāh has made fasting in this month an obligation. Whoever seeks nearness (to Allāh) in it through a single virtue shall be as one who fulfilled an obligation in any other month, and whoever fulfills an obligation in this month shall be as one who fulfilled seventy obligations in any other. It is the month of patience—and patience’s reward is Paradise—and the month of compassion, and the month in which the sustenance of the believers is increased. Whoever provides a fasting person with something to break his fast, it shall be an expiation for his sins and a means of freeing his neck from the Fire, without diminishing anything from the reward of the fasting person.” It was said: “O’ Messenger of Allāh! Not all of us can find something with which to provide a fasting person to break his fast!” So he صلى الله عليه وعلى آله وسلم replied: “Allāh grants this reward to one who provides a fasting person with no more than a sip of milk or a drink of water. Whoever satiates a fasting person, Allāh shall quench his thirst with a drink from my Basin, after which he shall never thirst again until he enters Paradise. This is a month whose beginning is mercy, whose middle is forgiveness, and whose end is absolution from Perdition. Whoever lightens the burden of his servant in this month, Allāh shall forgive him and grant him freedom from the Fire. So, increase in four characteristics during this month: two by which you shall please your Lord, and two which you cannot do without. As for the two by which you shall please your Lord, they are the testimony that there is no god but Allāh and seeking His forgiveness; and as for the two which you cannot do without, they are your asking Allāh for Paradise and your seeking His protection from the Fire.”