The lost and found article (luqatah)
The lost and found article is the article which is lost by its owner because he did not pay attention or other similar reasons. The owner lost it, in an area which is not owned by a specific person or people, like the masjid, sea, ocean, shore etc…
On the other hand, if you find something in your place, house, car, store, etc., that does not belong to you you treat it as a safe kept article-Wadi^ah and not a lost and found-Luqatah article.. That is it does not become yours, so you cannot say “I will now take it for myself after 1 year if the owner does not show up”.
As for the lost and found article (luqatah) when one finds it, one must notify about it. You would go to the closest place where you found this article where people gather and notify the people about it. Eg: in front of the mosque, not inside the mosque because it is dispraised to notify people about the lost and found article inside the mosque; a mosque is not built for such matters. Or else if there is another place close to where you found it where people gather, then you go there to notify the people about it.
At first one notifies the people there every day, then after a certain period lapses every week then every month.
If a year lapses after the time one started to notify about the Luqatah and his notification was with the intention of owning the article should the owner does not come forth then he is entitled to take it for oneself. However, he must sustain the intention that if one day the owner of the article is known, he gives it back to him if he still has it, or he pays him the equivalent of it if he does not have it anymore.
This is the judgment pertaining to the luqatah.
Sometimes in certain situations, if you write the notification on a piece of paper and you post it where you found the article, then it is valid instead of going where the people gather to tell them about it.
The scholars have mentioned other details pertaining to this issue. If one does not trust oneself that one is able to do what he has to do religiously, then one does not pick the article up rather one leaves it. But take into consideration that sometimes one cannot leave the article where it is. Eg: if it is a currency that has the name of God on it and it was in a filthy place one has to pick it up and cannot leave it.
It is unlawful to sit in a place where disobedience is being committed without an excuse and it is a sin of the body.
If someone is sitting in a circle where the people are gossipping and back biting then one needs to leave that circle if one cannot stop them from doing that. And if one is sitting with a group of people who are drinking alcohol and one cannot stop them then one has to leave that session.
To enter into a banquet without permission or to be admitted out of shyness is a sin of the body.
Among the sins of the body is for someone to attend a banquet for which one was not invited, because by this he is using and consuming what others own without their permission and without them accepting for that to be done. Likewise if one knows he was invited to attend a banquet out of shyness. Truly, in their hearts, they did not want him to be there but out of shyness they invited him. In this case he is not permitted to attend.
In the hadith narrated by Ibn Hibban and others that the Prophet said what means: “it is not lawful for a Muslim to take the stick of another Muslim without his good will.”
Just entering the place of another Muslim without his good will is not halal. There are some people who do this for a living; they go to banquets, without being invited, to meet people and make money
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It is a sin of the body to commit inequity among the wives in terms of obligatory spending and overnight sleeping turns. The preference in attraction to one wife over another and in the love in the heart is not a sin;
One of us cannot control the inclination of ones heart. One does not direct his heart to incline towards one thing and not toward another. This occurs without ones intent. One might be married to more then one wife, and ones heart would be attracted toward one of them more then the others. This is not a sin because it is not something that one can control. However, if this attraction leads one to leave out being fair in what pertains to the obligatory spending and support and the obligatory overnight sleeping turns, in this case one would be sinful. Ex: if one starts to give full support to one wife but not the other, or to not support as one is religiously compelled one would be sinful; Or if one starts to spend nights with one wife without spending nights with the other wife; Or for one to spend one week with this wife and one day with the other wife. This would be haram.
Allah said in the glorious Qur’an in Surat An Nisaa’ that you will not be able to be fair in what pertains to your wives even if you put your utmost effort. This refers to the issue of the heart attraction and not to how to treat ones wives. It means whatever you do you will not be able to have the exact same attraction to both of your wives in a totally equal way. Whatever you do you cannot do that. It does not mean you are not able to treat your wives in a fair way. This verse refers to the inclination of the heart and not to the equity in the obligatory spending and overnight sleeping turns.
The Prophet once said: Allahumman hadha qasami…: “ I am doing my best in what I can control so O Allah do not blame me for what I cannot control” ie I cannot control the inclination in my heart so I am not blameworthy for that.
It is a sin of the body for a woman to go out with the intention to pass by men to tempt them;
A woman might go out from her house wearing perfume and she might go out without it. She might go out dressed up and she might go out without being dressed up. However, regardless of her situation when she goes out, even if she goes out wearing a niqab, if she goes out with the intention of seducing men, she is sinful for what she does. She is sinful with this walk that she takes.
Now if she goes out without this intention there are details pertaining this issue. If she goes out according to the way that the rules of the religion orders her to acquire and to have when she goes out, she is not blameworthy. If she goes out wearing perfume or dressed up without having the intention to seduce others, in this case she’s not sinful for going out like that but this is disliked. It is better on her part not to do it. So if she goes out like that, even if she is going to give a class or take a religious class, she doesn’t get reward in this walking that she does because she is not observing how the religion ordered her and told her how to go out. Thus she doesn’t intend to get reward by her walking if she goes out like that. But this is not sinful. Some people now a days they pervert the rules of the religion about this matter. Ex: they say its haram for the woman to go out wearing perfume—it is not haram, it is disliked. Had it bee haram for the woman to go out like that, then it would not have been sunnah for the woman to wear perfume before making the intention of Hajj. The wives of the Prophet used to wear musk before making the intention of Hajj, and even after this musk would run on their faces. The Prophet did not tell them not to do that—not even at any one point of time. And you know that pertaining to certain issues, the rules pertaining to the wives of Prophet were tighter.
The hadith of the Prophet clarifies this matter. It is narrated in the hadith of Ibnu 7ibban: “Any woman that goes out from her house and passes by people with the intention of seducing them, with the intention of letting them smell the perfume she wears to seduce them, then she is similar to someone who commits zinnah (ie she is sinful).” So as you can see, in the hadith, for her to be sinful, it is clearly mentioned that the condition is that she intends by that to seduce men. The hadith does not mean that her doing is as severe as committing the true zinnah, rather it is similar to it.
We do not intend by that to encourage woman to go out wearing perfume and dressing up, but we are clarifying what the judgment is in the religion. It is haram to pervert the rules of the religion. There is no one among us who has more wisdom then the Prophet or knows what is better for the people than the Prophet. On top of that the Prophet conveyed what Allah revealed to him. We need to learn what the religion ordered us to do and to submit to that and do what we are ordered to do. We do not know more.
This is why Imam al Bayhaqiyy, in his book As sunnan, mentioned that its disliked for the woman to go out wearing perfume, he did not say it was haram.
The Prophet said: “Do not prevent the woman from going to the mosques if they want to go to the mosques, but let the woman go out without fancy clothes, with humble clothes.”
Sorcery is a sin of the body;
Among the enormous sins of the body is sorcery. It is among the worst enormous sins. The Prophet in one hadith ordered us to avoid 7 enormous sins. He mentioned them in one hadith to clarify how sinful and how harmful they are. Among these 7sins he mentioned sorcery. Sorcery takes place by saying bad words and doing bad acts. Some types of sorcery includes doing blasphemous acts, like to prostrate to the devil. One person told about himself that the devil did not teach him sorcery until he prostrated to the devil. Another person said they did not teach me sorcery until I wrote the fatihah with urine. Sometimes sorcery includes blasphemy. And sometimes it does not include blasphemy. Even if it does not include blasphemous sayings or doings, it is an enormous sin. There is a famous book in several countries, in which it teaches people about different issues, and in it there are explicit terms of worship of the sun. So sometimes sorcery includes blasphemy in it.
Even to learn sorcery sometimes includes blasphemy, ie., for one to learn sorcery, sometimes it would be made a condition for him to say blasphemy, if someone does that it is blasphemy.
As it is haram to practice sorcery, its haram to learn it. And some scholars gave details about this issue. Some said if committing blasphemy is not a condition to learn sorcery and committing a sin is not a condition to learn it and one doesn’t have the intention of applying it, then its halal for him to learn it. So some scholars said, in both cases its haram to learn sorcery and some said if you do not want to apply it and its not conditional that you commit a sin then its not prohibited for you to learn it.
The Prophet said in the hadith “the one who talks about the unforeseen, like the astrologer, and those who ask others to tell them about the unforeseen, those who commit sorcery and those who ask others to commit sorcery for them, all of those are not among the perfect believers, they are committing enormous sins and sometimes as you know these enormous sins reach the level of blasphemy.”
Among the sins of the body is to rebel against the caliph, like those who rebelled against ^Aliyy and fought him. Al-Byhaqiyy said: “All those who fought ^Aliyy were aggressors.” Ash Shafi^iyy said the same, even though some of the best Companions were among those aggressors. The waliyy is not impeccable of committing a sin, even if it is an enormous sin; however, he repents of it.
It is severely haram as mentioned in the Qur’an and by the Prophet to rebel against the caliph and oust him. This is an enormous sin. This is why we say that those who fought Aliyy and killed him were enormous sinners and committed enormous sins; by that—they were unjust. Although very few among the great companions were in the side of those who fought Aliyy. The rules of the religion do not change because what few of those companions did. What is haram is haram regardless of the one who does it and what is halal is halal regardless of the one who does it.
Two among the greatest companions were at the side of those who fought Aliyy. At the battle of the camel, Tal^a ibn ^ubaydillah and Az-Zubaru bnul ^awam both were at the side of those who fought against Aliyy. Both of them repented and did not die on that situation.
Before the battle started, Aliyy told as zubayr I want to talk to you. So he came. He told him do you remember the day when we were doing so and so– Immediately remembered what is correct and he repented and left the scene. After he left the scene a bad person followed him and killed him. When Aliyy knew about that he said tell the one who kill the son of Safiyyah (the mother of Zubayr) that he ( the man who killed him) is going to be tortured in Hell Fire because he killed him after he repented and he left the scene of the battle. As for Talha, at one point of time he recognized that he committed a sin by being against Aliyy, so he left and said I am not going to fight against Aliyy.
One of the people who was with him, ie fighting against Aliyy, when he saw that he wanted to leave the scene of the battle, shot him with an arrow and killed him. Talha did not die immediately. Before he died one among the soldiers who were with Aliyy passed by him. Talhha asked him, in which side are you. He said I am among the solders of the caliph (amir al mu’mineen). So he told him give me your hand I want to renew paying allegiance to Aliyy, so he did that and then he died. Talhah and AzZubayr because they both were a great Waliyy, they repented before they died from what they did.
The one who killed Talha is called Marwan ibnul Hakam. The one who killed AzZubayr his name is Amr ibnu Jurmouz.
Talha and AzZubayr both are among the ten people the Prophet gave them the good news that they will enter Paradise. Those ten are among the best of the companions. Talha and azZubayr are among those ten.
Talha was courageous and very generous. Because he was very generous people used to call him al-Fayyad, (the flooding person) ie he gives a lot like a flood. One time a kafir wanted to hit the Prophet with his sword and Talha saw him and he protected the Prophet with his own hand. After that he permanently could not move his hand because of that. Likewise AzZubayr was very generous and courageous. Because he was so generous when he died, he had a lot of debt on him. He told his son before his death if you find that I have lot of debts, so O Lord of Zubayr, help me to pay the debts of Zubayr. So his son did what his father told him to do. He sold only a piece of land that Zubayr left. The money he got from it was so much to a point that he paid all the debts and the rest were distributed among the inheritors, which were many, and each became very wealthy out of that.
It is a sin of the body to accept taking care of an orphan or a mosque, or to act as a judge and the like knowing that one will be unable to perform the task appropriately;
Any position that one knows that he is not qualified to take it, to perform it, it is haram for him to do that. A ruler, judge, someone who takes care of the money of the orphan, and Imam in a mosque, a teacher, any position that one knows that he is not qualified to perform it, its haram for one to accept to take it. Like if someone knows that if he has under his control the money of others he will take it or some of it unrightfully he does not do it. If anyone tells him I want to hire you to work as a treasurer he should not accept because he knows about himself that he is not qualified for that. IF he accepts while he knows he is not qualified, he is sinful for doing that.
Among the sins of the body is to shelter the unjust person, i.e., to protect him from those who want to obtain their right from him;
By protecting the unjust person and preventing others from getting their right from him, one would be committing an enormous sin. In the hadith narrated by Muslim, the Prophet said: “The damn of Allah is upon the one who protects an unjust person and prevents others from getting their rights from this unjust person.” and this clearly indicates that this is an enormous sin.
Among the sins of the body is to terrorize Muslims;
This is among the enormous sins of the body. Even if the person was ones brother from his own mother and father and he points a weapon toward him to terrorize him, he is committing an enormous sin. Any type of terrorizing a Muslim is haram.