٢٥ - باب الأمر بأداء الأمانة

On the authority of Abū Hurayra (may Allah be pleased with him): that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “The signs of the hypocrite are three: when he speaks, he lies; when he promises, he breaks it; and when he is entrusted, he betrays.” Agreed upon. And in another narration: “Even if he fasts and prays and claims that he is a Muslim.”

On the authority of Ḥudhayfa ibn al-Yamān (may Allah be pleased with him), who said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ related to us two ḥadīths, one of which I have already seen [come to pass], and I am awaiting the other. He related to us that trustworthiness was sent down into the very root of men’s hearts; then the Qurʾān was sent down, and they learned from the Qurʾān, and they learned from the Sunnah. Then he related to us about the removal of trustworthiness, saying: “A man sleeps a sleep, and trustworthiness is taken from his heart, so that its trace remains like a faint mark; then he sleeps a sleep, and trustworthiness is taken from his heart, so that its trace remains like the mark of a blister — like an ember you rolled onto your foot so that it blistered, and you see it raised up though there is nothing inside it.” Then he took a pebble and rolled it onto his foot. “So people will go on trading with one another, yet hardly anyone will fulfil a trust, until it is said: Among the tribe of so-and-so there is a trustworthy man; until it is said of a man: How resolute he is! How refined he is! How sensible he is! — while in his heart there is not a mustard-seed’s weight of faith.” There came upon me a time when I did not care which of you I dealt with: if he was a Muslim, his religion would return him to me; and if he was a Christian or a Jew, his overseer would return him to me. But today I would not trade with any of you except so-and-so and so-and-so. Agreed upon. He said: “jadhr” — with a fatḥa on the jīm and a sukūn on the dotted dhāl — means the root of a thing. And “al-wakt” — with the two-dotted tāʾ from above — is the slight trace. And “al-majl” — with a fatḥa on the mīm and a sukūn on the jīm — is a blistering in the hand and the like from the effect of work and so on. His saying “muntabiran” means raised up. His saying “sāʿīhi” means the one in authority over him.

On the authority of Ḥudhayfa and Abū Hurayra (may Allah be pleased with them both), who said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “Allah will gather mankind, and the believers will stand until Paradise is brought near to them. They will come to Adam (the blessings of Allah be upon him) and say: O our father, seek the opening of Paradise for us. He will say: And did anything expel you from Paradise other than the sin of your father? I am not the one for that; go to my son Ibrāhīm, the intimate friend of Allah. He said: So they will come to Ibrāhīm, and Ibrāhīm will say: I am not the one for that; I was only an intimate friend from afar, far off; head for Mūsā, the one to whom Allah spoke directly. So they will come to Mūsā, and he will say: I am not the one for that; go to ʿĪsā, the word of Allah and a spirit from Him. So ʿĪsā will say: I am not the one for that. So they will come to Muḥammad ﷺ, and he will rise and be granted permission. Trustworthiness and kinship will be sent and will stand on the two sides of the Bridge, to the right and to the left, and the first of you will pass like lightning.” I said: May my father and mother be ransomed for you, what thing is like the passing of lightning? He said: “Have you not seen how it passes and returns in the blink of an eye? Then like the passing of the wind, then like the passing of a bird, and the swift running of men — their deeds carry them along, while your Prophet stands upon the Bridge saying: Lord, save, save! — until the deeds of the servants fall short, until a man comes who can only move by crawling. On the two edges of the Bridge are hooks suspended, commanded to seize whoever they are ordered to seize: one is scratched but saved, and another is heaped up in the Fire.” By the One in whose hand is the soul of Abū Hurayra, the depth of Hell is a fall of seventy years. Narrated by Muslim. His saying “warāʾa warāʾa” is with a fatḥa on both; and it is said: with a ḍamma without tanwīn. Its meaning is: I am not of that lofty rank — it is a phrase said by way of humility. I have expounded its meaning at length in the commentary on Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, and Allah knows best.

On the authority of Abū Khubayb — with a ḍamma on the dotted khāʾ — ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr (may Allah be pleased with them both), who said: When al-Zubayr took his stand on the Day of the Camel, he called me, and I stood at his side. He said: O my son, today no one will be killed except a wrongdoer or one wronged, and I do not see myself but that I shall be killed today wronged. One of my greatest concerns is my debt; do you think our debt will leave anything of our wealth? Then he said: O my son, sell our property and settle my debt. And he bequeathed a third [of his estate], and a third of that third to his [grand]sons — meaning the sons of ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr, a third of the third. He said: If anything remains of our wealth after the settlement of the debt, then a third of it is for your sons. Hishām said: Some of the children of ʿAbd Allāh were of equal age to some of the sons of al-Zubayr — Khubayb and ʿAbbād — and he had on that day nine sons and nine daughters. ʿAbd Allāh said: He kept enjoining me about his debt and saying: O my son, if you are unable to settle any of it, then seek help with it from my Master. He said: By Allah, I did not understand what he meant until I said: O my father, who is your Master? He said: Allah. He said: By Allah, I never fell into a difficulty over his debt except that I said: O Master of al-Zubayr, settle his debt for him — and He would settle it. He said: So al-Zubayr was killed, and he left neither a dinar nor a dirham, only lands — among them al-Ghāba — and eleven houses in Medina, two houses in Basra, a house in Kufa, and a house in Egypt. He said: His debt only came about because a man would come to him with wealth and deposit it with him for safekeeping, and al-Zubayr would say: No, rather let it be a loan, for I fear it may be lost. He never held any governorship, nor tax-collection, nor land-tax, nor anything, except that he was on a military expedition with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, or with Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, and ʿUthmān (may Allah be pleased with them). ʿAbd Allāh said: So I reckoned what he owed of debt and found it to be two million two hundred thousand. Ḥakīm ibn Ḥizām met ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr and said: O son of my brother, how much does my brother owe in debt? I concealed it from him and said: A hundred thousand. Ḥakīm said: By Allah, I do not think your wealth will cover this. ʿAbd Allāh said: What do you think if it were two million two hundred thousand? He said: I do not think you can manage this; so if you are unable for any of it, then seek help from me. He said: Al-Zubayr had bought al-Ghāba for a hundred and seventy thousand, and ʿAbd Allāh sold it for one million six hundred thousand. Then he stood and said: Whoever has a claim against al-Zubayr, let him come to us at al-Ghāba. So ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar came to him — and al-Zubayr owed him four hundred thousand — and he said to ʿAbd Allāh: If you wish, I will forgive it for you. ʿAbd Allāh said: No. He said: If you wish, make it among what you defer, if you defer anything. ʿAbd Allāh said: No. He said: Then cut off a portion of the land for me. ʿAbd Allāh said: Yours is from here to here. So ʿAbd Allāh sold part of it and settled his debt and paid it in full, and four and a half shares of it remained. He came to Muʿāwiya, and with him were ʿAmr ibn ʿUthmān, al-Mundhir ibn al-Zubayr, and Ibn Zamʿa. Muʿāwiya said to him: At how much was al-Ghāba valued? He said: Each share at a hundred thousand. He said: How many remain of it? He said: Four and a half shares. Al-Mundhir ibn al-Zubayr said: I have taken a share of it for a hundred thousand. ʿAmr ibn ʿUthmān said: I have taken a share of it for a hundred thousand. Ibn Zamʿa said: I have taken a share for a hundred thousand. Muʿāwiya said: How much remains of it? He said: One and a half shares. He said: I have taken it for a hundred and fifty thousand. He said: And ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar sold his portion to Muʿāwiya for six hundred thousand. When Ibn al-Zubayr had finished settling his debt, the sons of al-Zubayr said: Divide our inheritance among us. He said: By Allah, I shall not divide it among you until I have announced at the [pilgrimage] season for four years: Is there anyone who has a debt against al-Zubayr, that he may come to us so that we may settle it? So every year he would announce at the season, and when four years had passed, he divided it among them and handed over the third. Al-Zubayr had four wives, and each woman received one million two hundred thousand; so the total of his wealth was fifty million two hundred thousand. Narrated by al-Bukhārī.