Is it true that it is permissible to fall into some harms for the sake of some benefits?

The questioner : I heard from some preachers in Sudan that in the principles of jurisprudence there is a rule known as "falling into a harm for the sake of a benefit." They gave as an example of this rule the story of Khidr (peace be upon him), that he breached the ship and that he killed the boy, and that certain benefits resulted from this, as mentioned by the Lord, Mighty and Majestic, in Surat al-Kahf. They also cited the hadith of Umm Kulthum in the Sahih of Imam Muslim, that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) did not grant a dispensation for lying except in three cases. They also stated that the Lord, Mighty and Majestic, permitted the traveler to break his fast in Ramadan and to shorten the prayer. What is the response to this?

The Shaykh : May Allah reward you. The principle you mentioned is contrary to the position of all scholars of usul al-fiqh (the principles of jurisprudence). I am answering based on what I heard from you, and perhaps there was an error in the transmission from you, or from the one who uttered it. The scholars say: "Averting harm takes precedence over seeking benefit." It is not permissible to commit a harm in order to seek a benefit. No. The opposite is correct: leaving off a benefit for fear that it will bring about a harm. As for the evidence you mentioned, such as the story of Khidr (peace be upon him), and the permission of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) for a husband to lie to his wife, and similar evidence, these are contrary to what that person who cited them intended. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) permitted the lie in the hadith regarding lying in order to avert a major harm by a minor harm, not to seek a benefit, but to avert a major harm by a minor harm. Here comes another very beautiful principle among the jurists: if a Muslim finds himself between two evils, he chooses the lesser of the two. If he finds himself, and there is no way out, but to fall between two evils, one of which is worse than the other, and the other is lighter than the first, then it is not permissible for him to choose the greater evil, if he is able to choose the lesser evil. An example is a man in the desert in the wilderness who is exposed to death from hunger, and a carrion animal whose original state was lawful becomes available to him, and another carrion animal whose original state was unlawful, meaning a dead sheep becomes available to him and a dead lion or tiger becomes available to him. This tiger, if it were alive and slaughtered, its consumption would be forbidden because it is a predator, whereas the sheep is lawful. So here there are two carrion animals. Does he have the choice to eat from whichever he wishes? The answer is no; he chooses the lesser of the two evils. The lesser of the two evils is the carrion whose original state was lawful. And so we say that the permission of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) for the husband to lie to his wife is only to avert a major harm by a minor one. It is a word, and if the husband masters the lie in it, and the best of that is to be indirect, as came from 'Imran ibn Husayn, both marfu' (traced to the Prophet) and mawquf (stopping at a Companion), and the correct is that it is mawquf: If the husband chooses a word whose apparent meaning is a lie, but whose inner meaning is truth, and this is from the category of tawriyah (indirect speech), then its danger is very little. Whereas if he is frank with her about the reality, she might become defiant and go out of obedience to the husband, and the cause of that would be the man's bad conduct with his wife and his failure to use wisdom with her. Even if he was compelled to use a lie that has no harm or consequences of harm. As for the story of Khidr (peace and blessings be upon him), it is a story that a group of Sufis exploited, who are not accustomed to being guided by the Book and the Sunnah, but rather they have deviated in much of their behavior and methodology in their lives from much of what the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and the righteous Salaf after him were upon. And in many cases, they strain to give figurative interpretation (ta'wil) to the texts of the Book and the Sunnah so that they align with their deviation or deviations from the guidance of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). Among that is their reliance, in many cases, on the actions of Khidr (peace be upon him) in those three stories, claiming that Khidr (peace be upon him) was a wali (close friend of Allah) and not a prophet, and yet he was more knowledgeable than Musa (Moses), the one who spoke to Allah. Thus they claimed, but they erred and strayed far astray when they interpreted the story of Khidr with the details mentioned in the Qur'an first, and the more detailed ones mentioned in the hadith of al-Bukhari second. For example, they ignored the narration of Allah the Exalted about Khidr (peace be upon him) that in the end he said to Musa: So he only did what he did—breaching the ship, building the wall, and killing the boy—by the command of Allah Blessed and Exalted is He, and that does not happen except for a prophet, because it is true as he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: But the muhaddath (one inspired by Allah) is not a prophet. The prophet is revealed to by a revelation that is certain, and he is able to do what the muhaddath cannot, because he is not protected from error. This is the difference between the prophet and the muhaddath. So if we assume that Khidr (peace and blessings be upon him) was not a prophet as the Sufis claim, but was a muhaddath, an inspired one, but the inspired one does not contradict the Shari'ah. So his killing of the boy, which is the most important part of the story, was a boy who had not reached the age of accountability. And if he had reached the age of accountability, we do not know whether he was a believer or a disbeliever? I say "we," meaning those who are not protected from error, and are not prophets or messengers. So Khidr (peace and blessings be upon him) proceeding to do this, I do not recall breaching the ship and building the wall, so this is all easy compared to his killing the boy. His killing of the boy, no one who is not revealed to by the revelation of the sky, which makes him protected from error and reveals to him matters of the unseen that no other righteous people see, can proceed to do. If Allah says first, at the end of this story, on the tongue of Khidr to Musa: If the action of Khidr with these things that Musa (peace be upon him), the one who spoke to Allah, could not bear because they contradicted the Shari'ah of Allah, then the answer of Khidr was: Why do you take it hard upon me? And the detail of this is in the hadith of al-Bukhari which I referred to earlier, that when Khidr and Musa boarded the ship, Allah sent a bird that pecked pecks from this water, so Musa said: Then he said to him, and here is the point: Khidr says to Musa: And he is Khidr, and he is a prophet, Khidr says about himself: So each of them had a Shari'ah, each of them acted within the limits of what Allah the Exalted revealed to him. "So there is a little water around you," you are on knowledge that Allah gave you which I do not know, I am on knowledge that He gave me which you do not know. So it is not permissible to force this story that occurred between Musa and Khidr (peace be upon them both) into the rulings related to the Shari'ah of Islam, because that is a nation that preceded us. As for the Shari'ah of Islam, it is an independent Shari'ah and it is dominant over all previous Shari'ahs. And for that reason, the stronger opinion among the scholars of usul al-fiqh is the principle that is discussed in two aspects: "Is the Shari'ah of those before us a Shari'ah for us? Or is it not a Shari'ah for us?" The correct is that the Shari'ah of those before us is not a Shari'ah for us. Why? Because the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) came with the Qur'an, dominant as we referred to earlier, over all the heavenly books. And secondly, which is clearer and more evident, he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: And he mentioned among them: So the Shari'ah of those before us is not a Shari'ah for us, and for this reason it is not permissible for us to cite as evidence to establish a ruling in our Shari'ah a ruling that preceded in the Shari'ah of those before us. This is the stronger opinion. And if we know all this speech that was explained before, we know that the principle is reversed. May Allah reward you with good. It is not permissible to commit a harm to seek a benefit, but on the contrary, it is permissible to leave off a benefit to avert a harm. And the evidence for that is the hadith of 'A'ishah (may Allah be pleased with her), that she narrated that when the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) entered the Ka'bah in the Battle of the Conquest, the conquest of Makkah, and prayed two rak'ahs in it, she wanted to follow her Prophet and husband (peace and blessings be upon him) and pray two rak'ahs as well. But he (peace and blessings be upon him), if he was as Allah the Exalted described him in the Noble Qur'an: Then he is more worthy to be so with his wives. And indeed, the ascent at that time and the entry into the interior of the Ka'bah was difficult, as it is today, unfortunately, where the door was high, so it is difficult for a person to climb and enter the Ka'bah if he is a man, so how about if he is a woman? Therefore, he (peace and blessings be upon him) said to her: And the point is his (peace and blessings be upon him) saying later: Meaning, I will enter the Hajar (the stone) into the interior of the Ka'bah, Like any mosque of the mosques, The point is that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) left the Ka'bah on the construction of the pre-Islamic age of ignorance (jahiliyyah) and on their inability to expand the circle of the Ka'bah and include the Hajar in it, so he left the old in its state. Why? Is it that he did not want to reform? He is the master of reformers (peace and blessings be upon him), and by him we knew the way of righteousness and reform. But he explicitly stated in this hadith that he left the expansion of the Ka'bah for fear that some of the weak in faith would be afflicted with some doubt or suspicion, to the end of the hadith. From this hadith and its like, the people of knowledge took that the correct principle is "Leaving off harms before seeking benefits," "Averting harm before seeking benefit." This is the answer to what you asked, and I hope that I have been successful in that, if Allah wills.