The Fledgling

Photo source.

Narrated Jabir bin 'Abd Allah: "We were with the Prophet when a Companion brought in a fledgling which he had caught, and one of the parent birds came and threw itself into the hands of him who had taken its young.

I saw men's faces full of wonderment, and the Prophet said:

'Do ye wonder at this bird? Ye have taken its young, and it hath thrown itself down in merciful tenderness unto its young. Yet I swear by God, your Lord is more merciful unto you than is this bird unto its fledgling.'

And he told the man to put back the young bird where he had found it."

(Martin Lings, Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources, p. 208)