تمر العجوة
A dark, dense date variety native to Madinah, eaten first thing in the morning as a protective and fortifying practice.
مَنْ تَصَبَّحَ بِسَبْعِ تَمَرَاتٍ عَجْوَةً لَمْ يَضُرَّهُ ذَلِكَ الْيَوْمَ سُمٌّ وَلَا سِحْرٌ
“Whoever eats seven Ajwa dates in the morning will not be harmed that day by poison or sorcery.” (meaning, not a literal translation)
This hadith is reported from Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas, and the specific number — seven — and the specific variety — Ajwa, native to Madinah's soil and climate — are both stated explicitly rather than generalized to "dates" broadly. This specificity is part of why scholars have long debated how narrowly to read the promise: whether it's tied strictly to that place, cultivar, and quantity, or reflects a broader principle about morning dates as protective food.
Classical commentators read this protective effect as specific to Madinan Ajwa of the Prophet's era; later scholars differ on whether it extends to other date varieties or requires the specific soil and cultivar. Dates more broadly are noted throughout the hadith corpus as the food the Prophet ﷺ broke his fast with, and Ibn al-Qayyim discusses dates generally as warming and nourishing, particularly suited to those with a cold constitution, while noting Ajwa specifically for this narrower protective claim.
Some modern laboratory studies have examined Ajwa date extracts for antioxidant compounds, though this research is preliminary and largely limited to lab and animal studies rather than established clinical evidence in humans. Noted here as separate modern context, not as scientific validation of the hadith's specific protective claim, which is a matter of prophetic report rather than something modern science is positioned to confirm or deny.