The custom of offering sheep to the wronged party to seek his forgiveness
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
He says: Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. We have a custom where, if a dispute arises between two people and it is later established that one of them is the wrongdoer, he is ruled to take a sheep and bring it to the wronged party so that he may forgive him. Is this action permissible, and is this custom acceptable?
Answer:
This is one of the tribal customs, and it is not permissible to act upon it. They should go to the court; they should go to the Shari'ah court, which will adjudicate between them according to the Shari'ah, not according to a tribal custom. Yes.
He says: Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. We have a custom where, if a dispute arises between two people and it is later established that one of them is the wrongdoer, he is ruled to take a sheep and bring it to the wronged party so that he may forgive him. Is this action permissible, and is this custom acceptable?
Answer:
This is one of the tribal customs, and it is not permissible to act upon it. They should go to the court; they should go to the Shari'ah court, which will adjudicate between them according to the Shari'ah, not according to a tribal custom. Yes.
Source
شرح كتاب المنتقى من أخبار المصطفى صلى الله عليه وسلم، بداية من باب من لم ير الفخذ من العورة — islamhouse.com (1:12:30)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.