Allah, the Sublime, singled out every nation with its own legislations and injunctions and supported every prophet with miracles that were compatible with their era and that enforced their prophethood. He specifically granted the nation of Prophet Muhammad ﷺmany favours in relation to their legislations and injunctions compared to other previous nations. In this hadeeth, the Prophet ﷺrelates to usthe story of one of the previous prophets. It has been saiditwas Yoosha’ ibn Noon (peace be upon him), as mentioned by al-Haakim in al-Mustadrak.The Prophetﷺ related that this Prophet (peace be upon him) had set out to invade the city of Jericho in Palestine.However, he demanded that three kinds of men not partake in this war: First,a man who entered a marital contract with a woman and became able to have sexual intercourse with her but did not have intercourse with her yet would mean his heart is most likely attached to her;therefore, his mind would be occupied with his wife and distracted fromfighting and obedience. Additionally, intercourse wouldlessen his strength. Second,a man who built a house and did not yet put up its roof,i.e. he did not complete the construction of his houseorlive in it yet. Third,a man who bought pregnant sheep or camels which had not yet given birth. The apparent reason he excluded them from going out with him to war wasthattheir hearts would have been attached, and their minds occupied thinking of how to complete the unfinished business they had left behind. As such, they could have become distracted from the war. On their way, they approached the village at the late afternoon (‘Asr) prayer, or close to that time. The fighting was on a Friday, and there remained a remnant of the disbelievers fighting.It was almost sunset, and the nightfall before Saturday was almost entering. Yoosha’ (peace be upon him) feared that they (his soldiers) would lose the morale to fight because it was not permissible for them to fight during Saturdays.So, he addressed the sun and said to it, “You are commanded” to set, whereas “I am commanded” to fight, so he called on Allah Almighty to restrain the sun, so it would not setuntil they had finished fighting.Allah answered his prayer, and it was stopped,i.e. it was returned backwards, or it stopped, or its movement slowed down until Allah helped them to conquer the village.Then he collected the spoils -the wealth obtained by the Muslims after subjugating the disbelievers in battle. At that time, Allah would send the fire to the acquired booty,so that the fire would devour it. However, it did not devour it, as the devouring by fire of the booty and its burning were a sign of acceptance and non-occurrence of embezzlement.After seeing this, their prophet said to them, “There is embezzlement amongst you.” Embezzlement entails taking the spoils wrongfully; it is a betrayal.For the Prophet, peace be upon him, to discover who had embezzled and stolen the spoils, he requested that from each tribe aselected man of them take an oath of allegiance, by greeting him with his hand, so that he would know in which tribe among them the theft had occurred. When they taking the oaths of allegiance, a man’s hand got stuck with his hand, and this was a sign of a betrayal that had occurred from this tribe.He informed him that embezzlement had occurred within this tribe, and thus he told him, “Let your tribe take an oath of allegiance to me,” individually.While they were pledging allegiance to him, the hands of two or three individuals stuck to his, thus he, peace be upon him, remarked, “Embezzlement is found in you,” meaning, ‘You embezzled the booty.’Hence, he demanded that they return what they had taken, “So, they came with a head like the head of a cow made of gold,” which they had taken out of the spoils, “And they placed it” with the rest of the spoils offered for burning. “Thereafter, a fire came and devoured it [the booty]” because now it had become a complete booty that was free of embezzlement, hence, Allah, the Glorified, accepted it. After completing the story, the Prophet ﷺsaid that Allah Almighty singled out his nation by making lawful for them the spoils; due to their inability and weakness, as a mercy to them, and due to the honour of our Prophet ﷺ, while He, the Glorified, did not make it lawful for anyone else who was before them.People may end up fighting only for the spoils, due to a lack of sincerity, but within this Muslim Nation, there is a prevalence of sincerity. In the prophetic expression “for us” is glorification, as the Prophet ﷺincluded his honourable soul with those of his nation; while in his saying, “Allah saw our inability and our weakness,” there is an indication of our reality in the sight of Allah as possessing inability and weakness before Him, the Exalted. Among other benefits of this hadeeth, we can also conclude that the trials of this world call the soul towards panic, love for survival and fear of death..