Islamic Fiqh > Companies and leases > Ijara (leasing) > Sixth condition: the benefit must be owned property (the case of the houses of Mecca)
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Updated on 25 September 2026 at 6:57 PM
This part belongs to the full section: All sections of this part.
The Malikis say: the benefit must be owned in a specific manner, and owned by way of precaution with respect to residential endowments (waqfs): the houses of the madrasas, the convents (khanqat) and the ribats, the seating places of the mosques, the roads and the schools; for in all of these things what is owned is the use, not the benefit (« al-Furuq », 4/ 9; « Mawahib al-Jalil », 7/ 422; « al-Sharh al-Saghir », 8/ 468). This gives rise to the question of the houses of Mecca: the jurists differ over the validity of their hire and sale, according to four opinions.
First opinion: the hire of the houses of Mecca and their sale are not valid, whether the dwellings and houses of residence, the whole of the Haram, or the sites of the rites (the course of the sa'y, the throwing, the standing): this is the Hanafi madhhab for hire, sale being permitted among them, as well as among the Malikis in the famous position and the Hanbalis in the madhhab, according to the saying of the Messenger of Allah (may the prayers and peace of Allah be upon him):
"Mecca is a place of halt: its houses are not sold and its dwellings are not hired."Weak hadith, narrated by al-Daraqutni (3/ 58) and al-Hakim in « al-Mustadrak » (2326)
The "riba'", plural of "rub'", designates the dwellings and houses of residence. It is also narrated from Alqama ibn Nadla: "the Messenger of Allah, Abu Bakr and Omar died, and what is called the dwellings of Mecca, except the sawa'ib: whoever has need of them dwells in them, whoever dispenses with them leaves them" (weak hadith, narrated by Ibn Majah, 3107). And from Yusuf ibn Mahak, from his mother Musayka, from Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her: she said: "O Messenger of Allah, shall we not build you at Mina a house or a shelter to protect you from the sun?" He said: "No; it is only a halt for whoever arrives first," or in another wording: "Mina is a halt for whoever arrives first" (good hadith, narrated by Imam Ahmad in his « Musnad » (25582, 25759), Abu Ya'la in his « Musnad » (4519) and al-Tahawi in « Sharh Ma'ani al-Athar » (4/ 50)). Do you not see that the Messenger of Allah did not permit them to build him anything there to shelter under, for it is the halt of whoever arrives first, and all the people are equal in it. Yusuf ibn Mahak reports from his mother, who served Aisha, the same words, and that after the Prophet's death he asked his mother to ask Aisha to grant them that place (Mina); Aisha answered: "I do not make this place lawful for you nor for anyone of the people of my house" (narrated by al-Tahawi in « Sharh Ma'ani al-Athar », 4/ 50): such is the ruling of the places in which all the people are equal and in which no one owns anything.
It is also narrated from Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with both of them, that the Prophet said:
"Allah made Mecca sacred: it was never lawful to anyone before me, nor will it be lawful to anyone after me; it was lawful to me only for an hour of a day: its thorns are not to be uprooted, its trees not cut, its game not frightened, and its lost object is not picked up except by one who announces it."Narrated by al-Bukhari (1984)
He informed that Mecca is a sanctuary (haram), which is the name of a place, and the sanctuary cannot be a place of ownership. Allah may place in the Haram a sanctity and a virtue, and He made it a place of safety: "Have they not seen that We have established a safe sanctuary" (Surah 29, verse 67); debasing it through sale and purchase, through ownership and transfer of property, is contempt, and that is not permitted, unlike the other lands. Mecca was moreover conquered by force ('anwatan) and was not divided: it is therefore a waqf, and its sale is not permitted, like the other lands the Muslims conquered by force without dividing. The proof of conquest by force is the saying of the Messenger of Allah:
"Allah withheld the elephant from Mecca and gave authority over it to His Messenger and the believers; it is not lawful to anyone before me; it was lawful to me for an hour of a day; it will not be lawful to anyone after me."Narrated by al-Bukhari (2302) and Muslim (1355)
Umm Hani narrates: "O Messenger of Allah, the son of my mother claims he will kill a man to whom I granted protection, so-and-so son of Hubayra"; the Messenger of Allah said: "We grant protection to the one to whom you granted it, Umm Hani"; she said: it was at midmorning (narrated by al-Bukhari, 3000, and Muslim, 336). This is why the Prophet ordered the killing of four men, among them Ibn Khatal and Maqis ibn Subaba: so many proofs that the conquest was by force.
There is no disagreement among Malik and his companions that Mecca was conquered by force, relying on the agreement of the imams that the Messenger of Allah entered it fighting with weapons, banners unfurled, granting safety to whoever entered the house of Abu Sufyan: this can only occur in conquest by force, certainly. They hold that one must believe the Prophet granted amnesty only to those whom Khalid ibn al-Walid had killed, reconciling the proofs. The Malikis' agreement on conquest by force should imply that they do not permit the hire of its houses, especially as Malik's famous madhhab is that land conquered by force becomes a waqf upon taking possession, whether farmland or house land. There are nevertheless four narrations from Malik on hiring the houses of Mecca.
Abu Hanifa, may Allah have mercy on him, said: there is no harm in selling the buildings of the houses of Mecca, and he disapproves of selling their lands; Abu Yusuf and Muhammad said: there is no harm in selling their lands as well. Sulayman narrated from Muhammad, from Abu Hanifa: "I disapprove of hiring the houses of Mecca during the pilgrimage season and for one who settles and then departs; as for the resident and the neighbor, we see no harm in taking rent from them": this is Muhammad's opinion. Al-Hasan ibn Ziyad narrated from Abu Hanifa that the sale of the houses of Mecca is permitted. Ibn Nujaym said: the words "and the sale of the buildings of the houses of Mecca or of their lands" mean that this is permitted: the building is apparent, for it is the property of its builder; see the one who builds on leased property or a waqf: the building is permitted and becomes his property; as for the sale of the lands, it is the opinion of Abu Yusuf and Muhammad, one of the two narrations from the imam, their lands being owned by their inhabitants given the manifestation of disposal and exclusivity; according to the Prophet's saying: "Has Aqil left us any dwellings?", proof that its lands are owned and pass from one owner to another; the people have recognized this from the beginning of Islam until today, without objection, which is among the strongest of arguments. The imam said: the sale of its lands is not permitted, according to his saying: "Allah made Mecca sacred and forbade the sale of its lands and their hire"; it is the waqf of the friend of Allah Ibrahim; its lands were called sawa'ib in the time of the Prophet and the two caliphs: whoever had need of them dwelt in them, whoever dispensed with them left them (« al-Bahr al-Ra'iq », 8/ 231; « Ahkam al-Qur'an » of al-Jassas, 5/ 62; « al-Hidaya », 4/ 94; « al-Inaya », 14/ 288; « Majma' al-Anhur », 4/ 212; Ibn Abidin, 6/ 392; « al-Hindiyya », 3/ 114; « al-Bayan wa-l-Tahsil », 3/ 406; « al-Mubdi' », 4/ 21; « Kashshaf al-Qina' », 3/ 183-184; « Matalib Uli al-Nuha », 3/ 23).
If he has need of what is in his hand, he dwells in it; if he dispenses with it, he must give the surplus to whoever needs it, as the Hanbalis explicitly stated. Ibn Qudama, may Allah have mercy on him, said: whoever resides in a house is more entitled to it: he dwells in it and lodges others, without being able to sell it or take its rent; whoever needs a dwelling pays the rent; if he needs to buy, he may, as Omar did. Abu Abdillah (Ahmad), when he dwelt there, paid them the rent; had it been possible for him not to pay it, that would have been permitted to him, for they have no right to it. It is narrated that Sufyan dwelt in one of the dwellings of Mecca, then fled without paying the rent; they caught him and took it from him; the matter was mentioned to Ahmad, who smiled: the apparent is that it pleased him. Ibn Aqil said: the disagreement concerns places other than those of the rites; the sites of the rites, like the course and the throwing, have the ruling of the mosques without disagreement.
Whoever builds in Mecca with materials brought from outside may sell his construction, like the sale of the buildings of waqfs and their ruins; if they are of the soil of the Haram and of its stones, the sale follows the two narrations on the sale of the dwellings of Mecca, for it follows Mecca, like the soil of every waqf and its ruins. Ahmad, may Allah have mercy on him, said: building in Mecca, I disapprove of it. Ishaq said: building in Mecca to enrich oneself with it is not lawful. It is narrated that the Prophet was asked: "will you not build a house?" He said: "Mina is a halt for whoever arrives first" (« al-Mughni », 4/ 178; « al-Mubdi' », 4/ 21; « Kashshaf al-Qina' », 3/ 183-184; « Matalib Uli al-Nuha », 3/ 23; « Bada'i al-Sana'i », 5/ 146; « Ahkam al-Qur'an » of al-Jassas, 5/ 60, 63; « al-Hidaya », 4/ 94; « al-Inaya », 14/ 288; « Majma' al-Anhur », 4/ 212; « Tabyin al-Haqa'iq », 6/ 29; « al-Bayan wa-l-Tahsil », 3/ 406; « Mawahib al-Jalil », 7/ 422; « al-Furuq », 4/ 9). Al-Shirbini, may Allah have mercy on him, said: the place of disagreement among the scholars is the sale of the land itself; the building is owned and its sale permitted without disagreement, if it is not part of the elements of its land (« Mughni al-Muhtaj », 6/ 53).
Al-Qarafi, may Allah have mercy on him, said: the famous position is the prohibition of hiring the houses of Mecca due to the conquest by force; what occurs of rulings establishing ownerships, hire contracts and preemptions rests on the view that the imam may divide it like the spoils, or on the view that he has the choice. The agreed rule: when a judge's ruling attaches to one of the opinions in a disputed matter, that opinion becomes fixed and the disagreement is lifted; if a judge rules the existence of ownership over land conquered by force, the ownership is established, and this extends to Mecca, Egypt and elsewhere (« al-Dhakhira », 5/ 407; « al-Furuq », 4/ 11; « Mawahib al-Jalil », 7/ 423). Muhammad Alish, may Allah have mercy on him, said: the waqf houses are those the conquest found standing; if they collapse and are rebuilt, they become owned and their disposal by sale and hire is permitted; the imam's statement "the houses of Mecca are not hired" refers to the houses of the disbelievers the conquest found, which have disappeared today; the judges' rulings concerning them are therefore not erroneous, but that remains specific to the lands, which remain forever in their state; and when the matter is unknown, the possessor benefits from his possession, if the origin of his entry is unknown. Is he required to state the cause of his ownership? Ibn Abi Zimnin said: no; others said: yes; it is said: if no proof of the claimant's ownership is established, the possessor is not asked to state the origin of his ownership, otherwise he is. Ibn al-Qattan and Ibn Attab said: he is not required, unless he is known for usurpation, presumption and capacity to do so (« Manh al-Jalil », 3/ 180-181).
Second opinion: the sale and hire of the houses of Mecca are permitted: this is the madhhab of the Shafi'is and the Hanbalis according to a narration chosen by Ibn Qudama, Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn al-Qayyim; Malik according to a narration, which is the apparent of the madhhab of Ibn al-Qasim; it is the relied-upon position, the position of the fatwa and that upon which the practice of the imams of the fatwa and the judges of noble Mecca has proceeded (and the opinion of Abu Yusuf and Muhammad, and a narration from Abu Hanifa regarding sale). Argument: the word of Allah: "for the poor emigrants who were expelled from their homes and their properties" (Surah 59, verse 8): He attributed the homes to them as He attributed the properties; and it is established that their properties, like the properties of the people, are owned and sold; so likewise the homes; the sale implies the validity of the hire, as in the other lands; were their homes not owned and their enjoyment not acquired, no one could settle in them and the people would be repelled from them, all being equal therein.
From Usama ibn Zayd ibn Haritha, may Allah be pleased with him: "O Messenger of Allah, where will you alight tomorrow?" He said: "Has Aqil left us any dwellings or houses?": Aqil had inherited Abu Talib together with Talib, Ja'far and Ali having inherited nothing, being Muslims, while Aqil and Talib were disbelievers (narrated by al-Bukhari, 4032, and Muslim, 1351): thus Aqil had sold the dwellings of Abu Talib as heir, his brothers being set aside on account of their religion, and the Messenger of Allah allowed it; had they not been owned and their sale void, he would not have allowed it. It is also the consensus of the forebears and of the generations, from the Messenger of Allah until our time: they sold one another the houses of Mecca with witnesses, without anyone of them denying it: a consensus. The companions of the Prophet had houses in Mecca: Abu Bakr, al-Zubayr, Hakim ibn Hizam, Abu Sufyan and the other Meccans; some sold, others kept their house, which remained in the hands of their descendants. Hakim ibn Hizam sold the House of the Council (Dar al-Nadwa); Ibn al-Zubayr said to him: "you sold the nobility of Quraysh?" He answered: "nephew, the virtues have gone, only piety remains." Mu'awiya bought two houses, and Omar bought the prison house from Safwan ibn Umayya for 4,000 [dirhams]. The people of Mecca have never ceased disposing of their houses as owners do, by sale and otherwise, without anyone denying it: a consensus. Mecca is one of the two sanctuaries: the sale of its houses and lands and their hire are valid, as in Medina.
The Prophet established it by attributing their houses to them: "whoever enters the house of Abu Sufyan is safe, and whoever closes his door is safe"; he established them in their houses and dwellings, displaced no one, and nothing indicating the loss of their properties was found, likewise with the caliphs after him; Omar himself, despite his strictness in right, bought the prison instead of taking it. Mecca is a living land which no forbidden charity has reached: its sale is permitted like the other lands. The hadiths to the contrary are weak. As for the conquest by force, it is correct and undeniable, and it is the opinion of the majority of jurists, the Hanafis, Malikis and Hanbalis; but the Prophet established them therein upon their properties and dwellings, leaving them to them as he left the Hawazin their women and children (« al-Bayan wa-l-Tahsil », 3/ 406; « al-Dhakhira », 5/ 406; « Mawahib al-Jalil », 7/ 422; « al-Tabsira », 11/ 5085; « al-Furuq », 4/ 9, 17; « al-Hawi al-Kabir », 5/ 386, 7/ 444; « Sharh Sahih Muslim » of al-Nawawi, 9/ 120; « Mughni al-Muhtaj », 6/ 52-53; « al-Mughni », 4/ 178; « al-Mubdi' », 4/ 21; « Kashshaf al-Qina' », 3/ 183-184; « Matalib Uli al-Nuha », 3/ 23).
Third opinion: the disapproval (tanzih) of the sale and hire of the houses of Mecca: narrated from Malik, and the opinion of a group of Malikis. In « al-Muwazana »: I heard that Malik disapproved of hiring the houses of Mecca; then: if he intends by the hire the tools and the wood, it is permitted; if he intends the place itself, there is no good in it. Al-Hattab, may Allah have mercy on him, said: the apparent is that the disapproval is of the tanzihi kind (« al-Furuq », 4/ 12). Fourth opinion: restricting the disapproval to the pilgrimage season, on account of the multitude of people and their need to stay; al-Banani al-Makki reports that Ibn Rushd said it in « al-Muqaddimat », and al-Dawudi from Malik: he disapproved of their hire during the days of the season specifically; al-Lakhmi likewise reported it.
Two reasons explain the disagreement. The first is the debate over conquest by force or by treaty; and regarding force, whether one considers that the Prophet granted amnesty to the inhabitants in respect of their persons and property absolutely, or not, or outside the days of the season. The second is the contradiction of the proofs. Shaykh Muhammad al-Banani al-Makki says in his epistle « Tuhfat al-murid al-salik »: the proponent of the prohibition argues from the Book and the Sunna. From the Book: "Those who disbelieve and bar from the way of Allah and the Sacred Mosque, which We established for the people, [a place] equal, the resident and the bedouin" (Surah 22, verse 25); the Sacred Mosque in this verse is the whole Haram, according to Ibn Abbas, Ibn Omar, Ata and Mujahid, as transmitted by Ibn Abi Hatim and others; Allah described it as established for the people equally, then as equal for the resident and the bedouin: no one may therefore appropriate a part of it to the exclusion of another. Al-Qastallani said, commenting on "the Sacred Mosque": Abu Hanifa was the first to interpret it as Mecca, citing this verse to forbid the sale and hire of its houses; then Ibn Abbas, Ibn Jubayr and Qatada said that the equality between the resident and the newcomer bears upon the dwellings of Mecca: this is the madhhab of Abu Hanifa. Muhammad ibn al-Hasan said: the resident has no more right to the dwelling than the newcomer. Al-Ayni lists, in his commentary on al-Bukhari, among those who forbid the sale and hire of the houses of Mecca: Abu Hanifa, Muhammad and al-Thawri (« al-Furuq » with its hawashi, 4/ 12, 15; « Mawahib al-Jalil », 7/ 422; « Umdat al-Qari », 9/ 228).
Acts of devotion (qurab) are of two kinds. Those that are incumbent upon man without the benefit extending beyond the doer, like prayer and fasting: no wage is taken for them without disagreement among the scholars, for the wage is the counterweight of a benefit, and no benefit accrues here to another; whoever performs an obligation that is his own earns no wage for it. Jihad likewise: no wage is taken for it, for it occurs of itself, and when the ranks meet, it becomes obligatory: by consensus. As for the acts of devotion whose benefit extends beyond the doer (teaching the Quran, the call to prayer and the iqama, the pilgrimage, washing and shrouding the dead), they differed over taking a wage for them, with distinctions in each madhhab and each question, as follows.
First question: the wage for teaching the Quran. The jurists differ according to three opinions, after their agreement that the best is to forgo the wage for teaching the Quran and the other acts of devotion (« al-Dhakhira », 5/ 401). First opinion: the Malikis, the Shafi'is, the Hanbalis according to a narration, and the later Hanafis (the fatwa position among them) permit the wage for teaching the Quran, based on what al-Bukhari narrated from Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with both of them: some companions of the Prophet passed by a water in which there was a man stung; a man of the place asked them whether there was among them one who heals by recitation; one of them recited the Fatiha over the sheep, and it recovered; they brought him the sheep; his companions disapproved: "you took a wage for the Book of Allah!"; when they reached Medina they reported it; the Messenger of Allah said:
"The most deserving of wage among what you take is the Book of Allah."Narrated by al-Bukhari (5405)
This is an explicit text that lifts the disagreement: the analogy with prayer and fasting is invalid in the face of it. Moreover they differ: prayer and fasting are acts of worship specific to the doer, whereas teaching the Quran is an act of worship that extends beyond the teacher, which renders the counterweight permitted, like teaching writing. The people of Medina hold consensus on this; Malik, may Allah be pleased with him, said: "it has not reached me that anyone disapproved of teaching the Quran and writing for a wage."
From Sahl ibn Sa'd, may Allah be pleased with him: a woman came to give herself to the Messenger of Allah; he looked at her then lowered his head; a man of his companions rose and said: "if you have no need of her, marry her to me"; the Prophet asked whether he had anything; he had nothing, and his izar could not be shared; the Prophet told him to go and see whether he found anything, even an iron ring; he found none. The Prophet said to him: "Do you know by heart anything of the Quran?" He said: such and such surahs; the Prophet said: "Go: I have married her to you for what you have of the Quran" (narrated by al-Bukhari, 4842, and Muslim, 1425). This hadith establishes the permissibility of the wage for teaching the Quran and of the counterweight exchanged: if teaching the Quran can serve as dower in marriage, it can serve as counterweight in everything one benefits from; and hardly anyone performs it gratuitously, hence the need to pay a wage.
Malik, may Allah have mercy on him, was asked about hiring schoolmasters: "no harm: he teaches people good and is paid." It was said to him: "he teaches as a resident teacher (mushahara) and seeks it"; he said: "no harm; the schoolmasters have never ceased doing so among us in Medina" (« al-Bayan wa-l-Tahsil », 8/ 452). Abu al-Walid Ibn Rushd al-Qurtubi, may Allah have mercy on him, said: sitting to teach the Quran being neither obligatory nor binding upon a man, the wage is permitted, even if there is devotion in it: its basis is the hire for building mosques and the like. The hadith of Ubada, cited by the opponent (he taught the Quran to some men of the Suffa; one of them offered him a bow on condition he accept it in the way of Allah; the Prophet said: "if you wish Allah to place around your neck a collar of fire, accept it"), is explained by the beginnings of Islam, when teaching was an individual obligation, according to the Prophet's saying: "Convey from me even a single verse." The communication now being accomplished, the Quran widespread, established in the codices and preserved in the breasts, the wage is no longer for the communication, but for sitting to teach it and forgoing one's benefits thereby; and the comparison with the wage for teaching prayer is not sound, for teaching the ignorant man the prayer is obligatory, whereas sitting to teach the Quran is not obligatory upon anyone. The wage for teaching the Quran is thus permitted as a resident arrangement (mushahara) or by portions (muqata'a), for the whole Quran or a known part, or for a known term of months or years; the resident arrangement binds neither party, either being free to withdraw; the fixed term (wajiba) and the portion bind: the father may not withdraw his son before the term nor before the completion of the portion, unless he pays the whole wage; Ibn Habib permitted naming a term in the portion, narrating it from Malik, against the famous view (« al-Bayan wa-l-Tahsil », 8/ 453-454).
Fakhr al-Din al-Zayla'i, may Allah have mercy on him, said: the fatwa today is the permissibility of hire for teaching the Quran: this is the madhhab of the later ones among the shaykhs of Balkh, who judged it good. They say the early ones founded their answer on what they witnessed: the scarcity of memorizers (huffaz) and the people's desire for them, with stipends from the public treasury, and they mandated teaching for fear of the Quran being lost and to encourage teaching until the guardians of the Quran multiplied; today all that has gone: the memorizers are busy with their livelihoods, few teach gratuitously, and they do not devote themselves to it; were the door of teaching for a wage not opened, the Quran would be lost: they therefore gave fatwa to its permissibility, holding that rulings vary with the times, like the women who went out to the gatherings in the time of the Prophet and of Abu Bakr, may Allah be pleased with him, until Omar, may Allah be pleased with him, prevented them. Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn al-Fadl used to say: the wage is due but forbidden to him. In « al-Nihaya »: the fatwa is given today on the permissibility of hire for teaching fiqh as well. In « Rawdat al-Zandawasti », our shaykh Abu Muhammad Abdallah al-Khayzakhazi used to say: in our time the imam, the muezzin and the teacher may take a wage, as in « al-Dhakhira »; hiring the mushaf and the books of fiqh is not permitted, for lack of established usage (« Tabyin al-Haqa'iq », 5/ 124-125).
Ibn Abidin, may Allah have mercy on him, reports: "the fatwa today is given on its validity for teaching the Quran"; al-Hidaya says: some of our shaykhs judged it good today, given the manifestation of weakness in religious affairs: abandoning it would entail the loss of the Quran's preservation; the fatwa is upon it. Most books restrict the exception to teaching the Quran; « Mukhtasar al-Wiqaya » and the matn of al-Islah add the teaching of fiqh; the matn of al-Majma' adds the imamate, likewise « al-Multaqa » and « Durar al-Bihar »; some add the call to prayer, the iqama and the sermon. The later ones (the men of Balkh) agree in the commentaries and fatwas on justifying by necessity: fear of the Quran being lost; a decisive proof that the fatwa position does not bear upon every act of obedience, but only upon what they mentioned, where the manifest necessity permits departing from the principle of the madhhab. The principle of the madhhab is absolute prohibition; the later ones gave fatwa to permissibility for teaching by virtue of the mentioned necessity, which, had it occurred in the time of Abu Hanifa and his companions, they would have ruled likewise; were the necessity to cease (the organization of the public treasury, the payment of the teachers' stipends), no later one could contravene the madhhab, the cause legitimating the departure having ceased (« Hashiyat Ibn Abidin », 6/ 55-56; « Tanqih al-Fatawa al-Hamidiyya », 5/ 420-421).
The Malikis say: hire for teaching the Quran is permitted as a resident arrangement (mushahara): every month a dirham, or every year a dinar; or by completion (hudhaqa), meaning memorizing the whole Quran or a part of it: the half, the third, the quarter, the sixth, for a known wage. Combining the resident arrangement and the completion is not permitted according to the famous view (like "I hire you to make him memorize a quarter of the Quran in a month"), for the month may pass without his memorizing the fixed part, or he may memorize it in between. The wage is due to the teacher in the completion even without stipulation, if custom bears it; otherwise not, according to the famous view; its object is what custom has established of surahs, like "Sabbih", "Amma", "Tabaraka" and others; it varies with the time, the place and the persons, poor or rich, without fixed limit, according to the father's ease; one also considers the child: the memorizer completes faster than the one who does not memorize (« Tahrir al-Mukhtasar », 4/ 564; « al-Sharh al-Kabir », 5/ 357; « Sharh Mukhtasar Khalil », 7/ 17; « Hashiya of al-Sawi », 2/ 363; « Manh al-Jalil », 7/ 476).
The Shafi'is say: hire for teaching the Quran, all of it or part of it, is valid, with the obligation of specifying the term (a month and the like) according to the sounder opinion; it has been said: one must specify the surahs or the verses, given their unequal difficulty, or verses of a surah: the sounder; falling short of either invalidates it according to the sounder. It has also been said that neither is required; and combining both (such surah in such month) is invalid according to the sounder (« Rawdat al-Talibin », 4/ 20-21; « Mughni al-Muhtaj », 3/ 398; « Nihayat al-Muhtaj », 5/ 322-323, 334; « al-Najm al-Wahhaj », 5/ 354; « Kanz al-Raghibin », 3/ 185).
Second opinion: the wage for teaching the Quran is not permitted, but the ja'ala (promised reward) is: this is the opinion of the Hanafis, Abu Hanifa, Abu Yusuf and Muhammad, and of the Hanbalis in the madhhab, based on Ubayy ibn Ka'b, may Allah be pleased with him: "I taught a man the Quran; he offered me a bow; I mentioned it to the Prophet; he said: if you take it, you take a bow of fire; I returned it" (narrated by Ibn Majah, 2158). From Abd al-Rahman ibn Shibl, may Allah be pleased with him: the Messenger of Allah said: "Recite the Quran, do not eat by it, do not grow rich by it, do not neglect it and do not exceed with it" (narrated by Imam Ahmad in his « Musnad », 15574). And the word of Allah:
"And that man shall have nothing but what he strives for."
Surah 53, verse 39
These deeds require the doer to be of the people of devotion: they are only valid from a Muslim, not from a disbeliever, and can only be performed seeking nearness to Allah; performed for goods, they carry no reward by consensus, Allah accepting of a deed only what is devoted to His face, not what is done for the goods of this world. Devotion being a condition of the validity of these deeds, no wage is taken for them, as if one hired people to pray the Friday prayer or the tarawih behind oneself. When the devotion occurs, it falls from the doer, whose eligibility is considered: no wage may be taken from another, as with fasting and prayer. Teaching requires the learner's aid: the teacher would be bound to what he cannot deliver, hence invalid. The Hanafis say: the principle is that whatever the disbeliever may be hired for, the Muslim may be hired for, and vice versa; the hadiths on taking a reward or a wage concern the ruqya (incantation), a specific case restricted to it (« al-Mabsut », 16/ 37; « al-Hidaya », 3/ 240; « al-Inaya », 12/ 393; « al-Jawhara al-nayyira », 3/ 360; « al-Lubab », 1/ 489; « al-Ikhtiyar », 3/ 71; « al-Bahr al-Ra'iq », 8/ 23; « Mukhtasar al-Wiqaya », 2/ 118; « al-Mughni », 3/ 94; « al-Kafi », 2/ 303-304; « al-Sharh al-Kabir », 6/ 65; « al-Mubdi' », 5/ 90; « Kashshaf al-Qina' », 4/ 13; « Sharh Muntaha al-Iradat », 4/ 41; « Matalib Uli al-Nuha », 3/ 367-368; « Manar al-Sabil », 2/ 217-218).
Third opinion: if he is poor and needy, taking is permitted to him; if he is rich, it is not: a narration from Ahmad chosen by shaykh al-islam Ibn Taymiyya, as Allah permitted the guardian of the orphan to eat if he is poor and to abstain if he is rich. Ibn Taymiyya said: this opinion is the strongest; the poor man does it for Allah, taking the wage out of need and to aid obedience to Allah: Allah rewards him according to his intention, and he will have eaten the good and done the righteous deed. The foundations of the sharia rest upon this principle: distinguishing the forbidden things between the needy and the other, as with the obligations, which must be discharged even through dubious means; Abu Talib and Abu Hamid report that a man asked Imam Ahmad about his son who died indebted, disliking to pursue the claims; the imam said: "would you leave your son's liability pledged?" Paying the debt is obligatory, and abandoning the dubious in order to fulfill the obligatory is commanded. The scholars agree that the ruler sustains him in need, and differ over sustenance beyond need; the basis is in the word of Allah concerning the guardian of the orphan: "Let the rich one abstain, and let the poor one eat in a fitting manner" (Surah 4, verse 6); so it is with the like of this: the sharia is founded upon realizing interests and perfecting them, and upon nullifying harms and reducing them; and piety consists in preferring the better of two goods by forgoing the lesser, and in repelling the worse of two evils even if the lesser occurs (« Majmu' al-Fatawa », 30/ 193).
The jurists differ over hire for the recitation of the Quran, at the grave or elsewhere: is it permitted or not? The Hanafis and the Hanbalis, and Ibn Taymiyya from the imams, held that taking a wage for mere recitation is not permitted. Ibn Taymiyya said: recitation at the graves is disapproved in the four madhhabs, and taking a wage for it is disapproved more still: no scholar permitted hire for mere recitation, and Allah knows best (« Majmu' al-Fatawa », 23/ 364). He also said: hire for recitation is not valid, nor gifting its reward to the deceased: no imam permitted it; the paid reciter has no reward: what would reach the dead man? Only righteous deeds reach him; only the hire for teaching was disputed; the wage for ruqya is permitted, and Ahmad explicitly stated it (« al-Fatawa al-Kubra », 4/ 491-492; « al-Insaf », 6/ 46; « Matalib Uli al-Nuha », 3/ 638).
The Hanafis: al-Haddad, may Allah have mercy on him, said in « al-Jawhara »: they differed over hire for reciting the Quran at the grave for a known period: some say not permitted; others permitted, and it is the chosen view (« al-Jawhara al-nayyira », 3/ 362). Ibn Abidin answers after this statement: the correct view is to read "for the TEACHING of the Quran": the disagreement is there, as you know, not in mere recitation, for there is no necessity in it; if the text of « al-Jawhara » is a slip of the pen, there is nothing to say; if deliberate, it contradicts their discourse entirely and is rejected. The author of « Tabyin al-Maharim » refuted at length, resting on explicit texts: Taj al-Shari'a said in the commentary of « al-Hidaya »: the Quran against a wage earns no reward, neither for the dead man nor for the reciter. Al-Ayni said in the commentary of « al-Hidaya »: the reciter for the world is deprived [of reward], and the taker and the giver are both sinners.
The upshot: what has spread in our time, the recitation of the portions of the Quran against a wage, is not permitted: it involves commanding the recitation and giving the reward to the one who commands, and the recitation for money; the reciter having no reward for lack of a sound intention, where would the reward reach the hirer? Without the wage, no one would recite for another today: they have made the noble Quran an earning and a means of amassing the lower world. The author of « al-Bahr » was misled by « al-Jawhara » in the chapter of waqf, and the commentator followed him in the chapter of bequests, their statements suggesting the permissibility of hire for every act of obedience, including recitation; the shaykh Khayr al-Din al-Ramli refuted it in the hashiya of « al-Bahr » in the chapter of waqf: "the fatwa position is the permissibility by istihsan (juristic preference) of the TEACHING of the Quran, not mere recitation; as explicitly stated in « al-Tatarkhaniyya »: this bequest has no meaning, nor the reciter's tying of his recitation; it is like a wage, and the hire is invalid; it is an innovation none of the caliphs performed; we have mentioned the question of teaching by istihsan," that is, out of necessity; there is no necessity in hire for recitation at the grave. With al-Zayla'i and in many books: "had the door of teaching for a wage not been opened for them, the Quran would have been lost: they gave fatwa to its permissibility and judged it good. Beware." End of al-Ramli's words.
The text of « al-Tatarkhaniyya » also refutes the one who says: if he bequeathed to a reciter to recite at his grave for such a sum, it should be valid by way of the tying, not of the wage; those who explicitly stated the invalidity of this bequest: the author of « al-Walwaljiyya », of « al-Muhit » and of « al-Bazzaziyya »; it also refutes the author of « al-Bahr », who had justified the invalidity by the disapproval of recitation at the grave, which is not so, but by its resemblance to hire for recitation, as explicitly stated in « al-Ikhtiyar »; hence the text of « al-Walwaljiyya »: "if he visits the grave of a friend or a relative and recites some of the Quran there, it is good; as for the bequest, it has no meaning, nor the reciter's tying, for that resembles hire for the recitation of the Quran, which is invalid; none of the caliphs did it." Had the cause been what he said, his statement here would not be sound, but it is sound; al-Khayr al-Ramli gave fatwa to the invalidity of this bequest, as is set out in his bequests of fatwas. The allama al-Halwani transmits in the hashiya of « al-Muntaha » from shaykh al-islam Taqi al-Din: hire for recitation and gifting it to the dead is not valid, no imam having permitted it; the scholars said the reciter for money has no reward: what then does he gift to the dead? Only righteous deeds reach him, and hire for mere recitation was said by no imam; only teaching was disputed.
It was also explicitly stated by Imam al-Birkawi at the end of « al-Tariqa al-Muhammadiyya »: "chapter three on innovated invalid practices the people took for sought acts of devotion... among them the bequest of the dead man to prepare food and hospitality on the day of his death or after it, and to give dirhams to whoever recites the Quran for his spirit, or glorifies and proclaims the oneness of Allah for him: all of these are blameworthy invalid innovations, and what is taken from them is unlawful for the taker, who disobeys by recitation and remembrance for the lower world." In summary; four questions are mentioned therein. Once this is known, the reality of our statement appears: its opponent is outside the madhhab, outside the Balkh fatwas and outside the agreement of our imams in the matns, commentaries and fatwas; the argument of some glossators for permissibility by the hadith of al-Bukhari of the stung man is wrong, for the early ones who forbade hire absolutely permitted ruqya for a wage, even with the Quran, as reported by al-Tahawi: it is not pure worship, but belongs to treatment. What some hashiyas transmitted, referring to « al-Hawi » of al-Zahidi, that hire for the complete recitation is not valid for less than forty-five dirhams, contradicts the unanimous agreement of the people of the madhhab. Thereby appears the invalidity of the bequests of complete recitations and proclamations of oneness into which the people of the age have fallen, setting aside the objectionable acts occurring in them; the author (Ibn Abidin) composed on this an epistle entitled « Shifa' al-alil wa ball al-ghalil on the ruling of the bequest of complete recitations and proclamations of oneness », in which he brought wonders for the intelligent; he showed it to the glossator of this book, the jurist of his era, the singular of his century, sayyid Ahmad al-Tahawi, former mufti of Egypt, who annotated it and praised it, may Allah grant him the goodly reward, as did other jurists of the time (« Hashiyat Ibn Abidin », 6/ 56-57).
Ibn Abidin says in « al-Fatawa al-Hamidiyya »: without doubt, recitation pure of any teaching is among the greatest acts of obedience sought for reward; hire upon it is therefore not valid, for hire is the sale of benefits, and the reciter has no benefit other than the reward, which cannot be sold; the wage is only earned after a benefit accrues to the hirer; and the reward is unknown: whoever hires a man to complete a full recitation and gift its reward to his spirit or to the spirit of one of his dead does not know that the reward occurs, while being obliged to pay the wage; even were it certain for the reciter, the sale would not be valid, all the more so being unknown: the apparent is rather the certainty that it does not occur, the condition of the reward being sincerity for Allah, and the paid reciter recites only for the lower world, the proof being that, were he to know the hirer would pay nothing, he would not recite a single letter, especially the one who made it his craft. Hence the statement of Taj al-Shari'a: the Quran against a wage earns no reward, neither for the dead man nor for the reciter. Al-Ayni said in the commentary of « al-Hidaya », consoling the calamities: the reciter for the world is deprived, and the taker and the giver are both sinners. In « al-Ikhtiyar » and « Majma' al-Fatawa »: taking anything for the Quran is not permitted, it is like the wage. In « al-Walwaljiyya »: visiting a grave and reciting there is good; the bequest has no meaning, nor the reciter's tying. The invalidity of the bequest is explicitly stated in several books, some referring to « al-Muhit » of al-Sarakhsi, « al-Muhit al-Burhani », « al-Khulasa » and « al-Bazzaziyya »: if the bequest to the reciter for his recitation is invalid as resembling hire, the true hire is invalid all the more. These are the texts of the madhhab, from the matns, commentaries and fatwas agreeing on the invalidity of hire for acts of obedience, including recitation, except the later exceptions for necessity: teaching, the call, the imamate; attaching mere recitation to teaching is not valid, for lack of necessity, unlike teaching, as with al-Zayla'i: without teaching for a wage, the Quran would have been lost. The prohibition of hire for recitation devoted to the hirer does not cause the Quran to be lost: the analogy with teaching does not stand; the principle of the madhhab is absolute prohibition, necessity alone having opened the exception; how then could hire for mere recitation be permitted, which no necessity ever called for? What the author transmitted from « Surrat al-Fatawa » from « al-Hawi » is an anomalous statement, contrary to the matns, commentaries and fatwas; « al-Hawi » of al-Zahidi is famous for transmitting weak narrations. As for the choice of the author of « al-Jawhara » (the permissibility of hire for recitation), it contradicts the books of the madhhab: the apparent is that it is a slip of the pen, the later ones' choice bearing upon teaching, not recitation; many later ones were misled by it, like the author of « al-Bahr », al-Ala'i and the glossator of « al-Asbah »; al-Birkawi composed four epistles on this question, explicitly stating the invalidity of this hire, as he did at the end of « al-Tariqa al-Muhammadiyya »; he explicitly placed it among the forbidden innovations, as did the shaykh Khayr al-Din, the support of the later ones, at the end of his fatwas, in the chapter of bequests (« Tanqih al-Fatawa al-Hamidiyya », 5/ 419, 423).
The Malikis go so far as to disapprove of hire for recitation with modulated chanting (talhin), that is, melodic ornamentation (tatrib): the aim of recitation is contemplation and understanding, which the ornamentation contradicts. Al-Dardir, may Allah have mercy on him, said: disapproved is "a recitation with lahn," that is, with melodic modulations, so long as it does not remove him from what is required of the reciters; otherwise it is forbidden, like reciting with an aberrant reading; the question was raised in the prostration of recitation, and the fitting here is the disapproval of hire for recitation (« al-Sharh al-Kabir » with the hashiya of al-Dasuqi, 5/ 360). Al-Damiri, may Allah have mercy on him, said in « Tahrir al-Mukhtasar »: "and recitation with lahn": likewise the recitation of the Quran with melodies is disapproved; said as well in « al-Mudawwana »; the melodies are the ornamentation; the text of « al-Risala » is that it is not lawful, and what is not lawful is forbidden (« al-Najm al-Wahhaj », 5/ 354).
The Shafi'is explicitly stated that hire for undertaking recitation is not permitted, and permitted hire for recitation at the grave for a known term or amount. Al-Damiri says in « al-Najm al-Wahhaj »: "hire for teaching the Quran is valid... if he hires him to teach a specific surah; if he hires him to undertake the teaching, it is not permitted" (« Mughni al-Muhtaj », 3/ 394; « Asna al-Matalib », 2/ 412; « Hashiya of al-Shirwani », 6/ 157; « Hashiya of Qalyubi and Umayra on Kanz al-Raghibin », 3/ 185). Al-Shirbini and Zakariyya al-Ansari say: hire for recitation at the grave, for a known term or amount, is permitted, for the benefit of mercy descending where the Quran is recited; like hire for the call to prayer and for teaching; the dead man is like the living one present, whether he follows the recitation with supplication, or assigns its reward to the dead man, or not: the benefit of the recitation then returns to the dead man, for the supplication reaches him, being after it the closest to being answered and the most blessed; assigning to the dead man the reward of one's recitation is a supplication for that reward to occur, from which he benefits. Al-Shafi'i's statement "the recitation does not reach him" is understood otherwise. Al-Subki, following Ibn al-Rifa'a, understands it as the case where the reciter only intends assigning his reward to the dead man without supplication: the report establishes by inference that a part of the Quran, intended for the benefit of the dead man, benefits him: the reciter who intended the benefit of the stung man benefited him, and the Prophet confirmed it: "and do you know that it is a ruqya?"; if it benefits the living by intention, the dead man's benefit is more deserving, for there occur from him acts of worship without his consent that do not occur from the living (« Tahrir al-Mukhtasar », 4/ 566; « al-Mudawwana », 11/ 421; « al-Taj wa-l-Iklil », 4/ 484; « Sharh Mukhtasar Khalil », 7/ 19). Al-Nawawi, may Allah have mercy on him, reports in « al-Rawda » from al-Qadi Husayn, in « al-Fatawa »: hire for reciting the Quran at the head of the grave for a term is permitted, like hire for the call to prayer and for teaching (« Rawdat al-Talibin », 4/ 21-22; « al-Sharh al-Kabir » of al-Rafi'i, 6/ 107).
The return of the benefit to the hirer being a condition, it must here return to the hirer or to his dead: the hirer does not benefit from another's recitation, and it is known that the reward of mere recitation does not reach the dead man; hence the need to construe the hire as the dead man's benefiting from the recitation. Two paths: following the recitation with a supplication for the dead man, the supplication reaching him and being, after the recitation, closer to being answered and more blessed; or, as the shaykh Abd al-Karim al-Salusi: if the reciter intends his reward for the dead man, it does not reach him; if he recites and then assigns to the dead man the reward that accrued, it is a supplication for that reward to occur for the dead man, and the dead man benefits from it. I say: the words of al-Qadi Husayn imply that the hire is valid absolutely, and it is the chosen view: the place of recitation is a place of blessing, mercy descends there, and it is a purpose that benefits the dead man, and Allah knows best (« Rawdat al-Talibin », 4/ 21-22; « al-Sharh al-Kabir » of al-Rafi'i, 6/ 107).
Imam al-Qarafi says: the seventy-second difference after the hundred opposes the rule of what reaches the dead man's reward and the rule of what does not reach it. The acts of devotion divide into three categories:
Abu Hanifa and Ahmad ibn Hanbal say: the reward of recitation reaches the dead man. Malik and al-Shafi'i argue by analogy with prayer and the bodily acts, whose principle is that one does not substitute for another, and by the word of Allah: "And that man shall have nothing but what he strives for" (Surah 53, verse 39), and by the Prophet's saying:
"When a man dies, his deed is cut off, except from three things: an ongoing charity, beneficial knowledge, or a righteous child who supplicates for him."Narrated by Muslim (1631)
Abu Hanifa and Ibn Hanbal argue by analogy with supplication, upon which we all agree that it reaches the dead man: both are bodily acts; and by the Prophet's saying to the questioner: "Pray for them with your prayer, and fast for them with your fasting," concerning his parents (an interrupted report (mursal), mentioned by Imam Muslim in the introduction of his Sahih, 1/ 16). The answer to that: the analogy with supplication does not stand, for supplication involves two things: its object, which is what it denotes (forgiveness), and which is what one hopes will reach the dead man, occurring only for him since the dead man did not supplicate for himself; and the reward of the supplication, which belongs only to the one who supplicates: the dead man has nothing of the reward of the supplication; the analogy is therefore an error and a passing from one domain to another. The hadith is either specific to that man, or outweighed by the proofs establishing the principle of non-transfer.
Some jurists say: if one recites at the grave, the dead man obtains the listener's reward: that is also not valid, consensus having been established that reward follows command and prohibition: what has neither command nor prohibition has no reward, like the permitted things, the people of the interval (ahl al-fatra) and the dead, from whom commands and prohibitions are cut off; not being addressed by a command, they have no reward, even if listening: beasts hear our recitations without reward, there being no command for them to listen; so likewise the dead. What should be said without disagreement: they obtain the blessing (baraka) of the recitation, not its reward, as they obtain the blessing of the righteous man buried among them or near whom they are buried: blessing does not depend on command, the beast obtaining the blessing of its rider or its neighbor, and the principle of blessings is not denied: the blessing of the Messenger of Allah reached the horses and the donkeys: it is narrated "that he struck a horse with his whip, and it was never outrun thereafter, after having been slow" (narrated by al-Nasa'i in « al-Kubra », 8818); his donkey would go to the companions' houses knocking at the doors to summon them to him; and other blessings among his miracles and prodigies. This disputed question should not be neglected: perhaps the correct view is that it reaches the dead; these are matters hidden from us, and the disagreement bears not upon a ruling of the sharia, but upon a real fact: is it thus or not? Likewise the proclamation of oneness that people practice today as a custom: it is fitting to practice it relying upon the grace of Allah and His facilitation, seeking Allah's grace by every possible means; from Allah come generosity and beneficence: this is what befits the servant (« al-Furuq », 3/ 342, 346).
The jurists differ over the permissibility of the wage for teaching fiqh according to three opinions: disapproval, prohibition and permissibility. The Malikis, in the famous view, say: hire for teaching fiqh and the sciences such as grammar, legal theory and inheritance shares is disapproved, for fear that the pursuit of the sharia's knowledge become scarce, whereas it is sought in abundance; and because it contradicts the way of the righteous forebears, unlike the Quran, for which hire is permitted given the people's desire to learn it, even for a wage. The difference between fiqh and teaching the Quran: fiqh contains truth and falsehood, the Quran is truth without doubt; teaching fiqh for a wage obliges nothing, unlike teaching the Quran; and were hire upon knowledge permitted, it would lead to the loss of the sharia, knowing the religion's rulings being an individual obligation upon every morally responsible person, whereas the Quran imposes no individual obligation except the Fatiha: hence the concession of the wage for it, not for knowledge (« al-Kafi », 1/ 375; « al-Sharh al-Kabir » with the hashiya of al-Dasuqi, 5/ 359; « al-Taj wa-l-Iklil », 4/ 484; « Sharh Mukhtasar Khalil », 7/ 17; « Tahrir al-Mukhtasar », 4/ 566; « al-Fawa'id al-Dawani », 2/ 114; « Hashiya of al-Sawi », 3/ 363). « al-Mudawwana » (11/ 419) specifies: hiring to teach one's son writing, a dirham a month: "no harm"; and the annual hire of schoolmasters: "no harm," the one hiring him teaching his child writing alone; hiring for fiqh and inheritance shares: "I have heard nothing from him on it, except that he disapproved of selling the books of fiqh; hire for teaching does not please me, and that for both is worse."
The early Hanafis, against the later ones, and the Hanbalis in the madhhab, held that taking a wage for teaching fiqh and knowledge is not permitted. The Hanafis say: every act of obedience for which only the Muslim is eligible renders hire upon it invalid; and hire upon it would drive people away from knowledge, the weight of the wage preventing them; Allah alluded to it: "Or do you ask them for a wage, so that they are burdened by debt?" (Surah 52, verse 40): it leads to turning away from these acts of obedience; and: "And you ask them no wage for it" (Surah 12, verse 104): for what you convey to them; yet he conveyed by himself and through others, according to "Let the present convey to the absent": every teacher is a conveyor; if the wage for his own conveyance is not permitted, likewise for the conveyance by his command. Hire for teaching language and literature is permitted, it being neither an obligation nor a duty (« al-Mabsut » of al-Sarakhsi, 16/ 37; « Mukhtasar Ikhtilaf al-Ulama », 4/ 99; « Bada'i al-Sana'i », 4/ 191). « al-Jawhara al-nayyira » says: teaching fiqh: hire upon it is not permitted by consensus, for he cannot guarantee fulfilling it; teaching language and literature: permitted by consensus (« al-Jawhara al-nayyira », 3/ 361).
The Hanbalis say: it is unlawful: no hire is valid upon a deed whose doer must be of the people of devotion, that is, a Muslim, and which occurs only as devotion for its doer: the pilgrimage, teaching the Quran, fiqh and hadith, and judgment as well, the condition of these deeds being that they be devotion to Allah: no wage is taken for them, as if one hired people to pray behind oneself. The ja'ala upon it is valid, likewise taking without condition; and sustenance (rizq) is permitted for what whose benefit extends: judgment, fatwa, the call, the imamate, teaching the Quran, fiqh and hadith; like the waqf for those who perform these interests benefiting others: it is not a counterweight, but the intent of aiding obedience, which does not remove it from devotion nor impugn sincerity; were it to impugn it, the spoils would be deserved, unlike the wage, which is withheld. Hire for teaching writing, arithmetic, lawful poetry and the like is valid: the deed is at times devotion, at times not, hire for it is therefore not withheld, like planting trees and building houses; if he forgets within the session what he learned of poetry or arithmetic, it is retaught to him, custom requiring it; if he forgets after the session, no retaking is due, not being required by the contract (« al-Insaf », 6/ 46; « Kashshaf al-Qina' », 4/ 13-14; « Sharh Muntaha al-Iradat », 4/ 41, 43; « Matalib Uli al-Nuha », 3/ 637; « Manar al-Sabil », 2/ 216).
The Shafi'is, and the Hanbalis according to a narration chosen by Ibn Qudama, shaykh al-islam Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Yunus among the Malikis, and the later Hanafis, hold that the wage for teaching knowledge, hadith and fiqh is permitted (« al-Najm al-Wahhaj », 5/ 355). Ibn Qudama says: what whose doer need not be of the people of devotion (writing, arithmetic, lawful poetry, building mosques and bridges): the wage is permitted, the deed being at times devotion, at times not, hire for it therefore not withheld, like planting trees and building houses; likewise teaching fiqh and hadith; as for what whose benefit does not extend beyond the doer among the pure acts of worship (fasting, a man's prayer for himself, his own pilgrimage, his own zakat), no wage without disagreement: the wage is the counterweight of a benefit, and no benefit accrues here to another, like the hire of property without benefit (« al-Mughni », 5/ 325; « al-Sharh al-Kabir », 6/ 67; « al-Insaf », 6/ 46). « al-Kafi » says: hire for teaching fiqh and lawful poetry is permitted, the doer not needing to be of the people of devotion, like building mosques (« al-Kafi », 2/ 304). Ibn Taymiyya says: he may take the wage for teaching fiqh and hadith if he is in need: it is a view of the madhhab (« al-Fatawa al-Kubra », 4/ 491). Al-Zayla'i, may Allah have mercy on him, says: « al-Nihaya »: the fatwa is given today on the permissibility of hire for teaching fiqh as well; and in « Rawdat al-Zandawasti », the shaykh Abu Muhammad Abdallah al-Khayzakhazi: in our time the imam, the muezzin and the teacher may take a wage, as in « al-Dhakhira » (« Tabyin al-Haqa'iq », 5/ 125; « Mukhtasar al-Wiqaya », 2/ 119; « Majma' al-Anhur », 3/ 534; Ibn Abidin, 6/ 55). Al-Ramli says: the hire is not valid for judgment nor for the teaching of knowledge, unless he specifies (« al-Najm al-Wahhaj », 5/ 355).