regarding the report of 'Umar ibn al-Khattab on riba: "I wish the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) had not died until he clarified for us three matters: the grandfather, the residuary heirs, and a type of riba"

The questioner : Our master 'Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) said, "I wish the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) had not died until he clarified for us three matters: the grandfather, the residuary heirs, and a type of riba." This hadith is agreed upon by al-Bukhari and Muslim, and al-Bukhari narrated it. Are there types of riba? The Imam al-Nawawi said regarding this hadith, "Riba al-nasi'ah is agreed upon by the scholars regarding its prohibition, but there is scholarly disagreement regarding riba al-fadl." Are there types, and is riba al-fadl permissible, or is it among the doubtful matters?

The Shaykh : If I understand your question, there is some ambiguity in it, or perhaps the ambiguity is in your mind; the issue is not clear. Is the issue of riba al-fadl the only matter in which the scholars disagreed?

The questioner : No.

The Shaykh : Now, what is difficult for you in this issue?

The questioner : Are there types of riba that are permissible?

The Shaykh : No, that is a second question, different from that one, and there is no difficulty in it; the answer was no.

The questioner : The intention of the question is whether there is a saying of 'Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him).

Another questioner : "I wish the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) had not died until he clarified for us three matters: the grandfather, the residuary heirs, and a type of riba."

Another questioner : But as you mentioned, it is established in the authentic hadith that riba al-fadl is forbidden.

The Shaykh : This is what I say to him: Is this the first issue on which the jurists disagreed? The answer is no. At that time, what was the position of the Muslim scholar, let alone the student of knowledge, let alone the general Muslims? We have spoken before about such matters. That is, he looks at the evidence, he asks the people of knowledge if he is not one of them, and if he is one of the people of knowledge, he follows the evidence. Our master 'Umar may have been [such], and we do not exaggerate about 'Umar, even though the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) praised him with very high praise, where he said But despite that, he had some matters that distinguished the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), placing the Messenger in the circle of infallibility and placing 'Umar ibn al-Khattab and his like in the circle of preservation. But this preserved one is not like the infallible one; that is, some illusions or some errors may occur from him. Perhaps this pushes me to remind those present that 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, in his time, was informed that 'Ammar ibn Yasir was issuing fatwas to the people that whoever was in a state of major ritual impurity in the desert, in the wilderness, and did not find water, that he had to perform dry ablution with a single strike for the face and hands, and then he would be pure and pray. He sent for him and said to him: I have been informed that you say such and such. He said to him: Yes, O Commander of the Faithful, do you not remember that we were on a journey, so we became in a state of major ritual impurity, and I performed dry ablution, and you rolled around as a beast rolls around? Then when we came to the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), he said He said to him: No, no, I remember. He said to him: I will refrain from issuing this fatwa that you have been informed of and that you disapproved of. He said: "No, I only appointed you to what you have taken on." That is, you are responsible for this. I am not mentioning this; what is the point of the hadith? A story that happened to him and his companion 'Ammar, and they came to the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), and he issued a fatwa to them that there was no need for this exaggeration of rolling around, but rather a single strike for the hands and wiping them together, then the face, so it is as if he had bathed completely. So he said to him: No, as long as you remember, I do not deny this. If I had appointed you to responsibility, you would be responsible for that. If the Sunnah was hidden from him, it is possible that there is a type of riba transactions that the ruling of which was not clarified to 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, so he wished that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) were present to explain it to you, and the Messenger did not conceal anything, and the Messenger did not leave anything, by the explicit words of the Messenger, as he said in the authentic hadith But the truth, as he (peace and blessings be upon him) said in another hadith, the point of which is its end: So the scholars vary in knowledge; one may know many things and miss a few, and another may know many things and miss a few. For this reason, the position of the scholars of the righteous Salaf was that none of them was fanatical for one scholar over another, because they knew that the matter is as Allah the Exalted said: And to whom is this address? To the entire community. So if we take from the community, which is counted in thousands, if we do not say millions, we take one person. What was given to this person of knowledge is less than a little. Because the scholars of the righteous Salaf knew this legal reality, they were not fanatical for one of the Companions. And therefore, and praise be to Allah, to this day, all Muslims know, even some of the deviant sects, that there was no one in the time of the Companions who was Bukhari, who was 'Umarite, who was 'Uthmanite, who was 'Aliite, let alone Saudi, Ibn Mas'udite, 'Ammarite, or so on. Why? Because they were receiving knowledge from this good, blessed group. Because knowledge, and this is one of the scientific facts that students of knowledge must at least have in mind, is that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) conveyed the knowledge that Allah decreed to reveal by the way of revelation to the heart of his Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) word for word. Then when the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) died and ascended to the highest companion, nothing at all was subtracted from the knowledge that he conveyed. Rather, he left this knowledge in his Companions, not in one of the Companions as the Shi'ah claim, for example, that I am the city of knowledge and 'Ali is its gate, so whoever wants to enter knowledge, its gate is 'Ali. This is a fabricated hadith, and 'Ali is on the head and the eye. He was the fourth of the Rightly Guided Caliphs, and he had of knowledge what the Lord of the Worlds willed, but he did not encompass all of it, nor did any of the four Caliphs before him. But the group of all the Companions encompassed the knowledge that Allah revealed to the heart of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him). Likewise, when the era of the Companions perished, nothing was lost of the knowledge that Allah conveyed to His Prophet, then the Prophet to his Companions. But it was not confined to one of the Tabi'un; rather, it was distributed among the group of scholars of the Tabi'un. From here came the role of the scholars of hadith, who, without a doubt, if they did not explain this speech that you are hearing, they are digesting it and are saturated with it. Their life history indicates this, where one of them, and the means of travel from one country to another were not like the means available today, nevertheless, like the Imam of the Sunnah, Imam Ahmad (may Allah have mercy on him), he traveled the Islamic lands east and west. What was the means? Beasts, either the camel, or the horse, or the donkey, and so on. Why? To gather the knowledge, that is, the hadith of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), from the scholars who were before him, distributed in the Islamic world. And these scholars also dispersed in the lands because the Companions of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) dispersed in the lands. The knowledge that was in the chest of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), then became transferred to the chests of his Companions. These Companions dispersed in the lands due to what you know of Islamic conquests. Did anything of this knowledge that dispersed in the lands get lost? No, it all transferred to the second generation, who are the Tabi'un. So these connected with the Companions, some in Madinah, some in Makkah, some in Kufah, in Basrah, in Khurasan, and so on. Then came the role of the followers of the Tabi'un, and they connected with the Tabi'un, and so on. Thus, the knowledge that Allah the Mighty and Majestic revealed to the heart of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) continues to transfer from era to era, but it is not confined to one person, or ten, or a hundred, but it is distributed in the chests of the scholars of Muslims in every century. From here comes the following result: it is not permissible for the Muslim who knows this scientific fact to be satisfied, for example, with the book of al-Muwatta' of Imam Malik, or with the Musnad of Abu Hanifah, if he has a Musnad, or so on. Why? Because they did not encompass this knowledge that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) cast into the chests of his Companions, because this knowledge dispersed and was confined to the chests of the Tabi'un, and so on, as we mentioned. From here, the imitating scholars lose a lot, a lot of knowledge when they bind themselves to one Imam. While those who follow the methodology of the Salaf, as I said, there was no Bukhari, 'Umarite, 'Uthmanite, or 'Aliite among them, but rather they took from everyone. Likewise, we, the followers of the Salaf, take from all the Imams, because if we are fanatical for one of them, we lose what the others have of knowledge that the first Imam did not encompass. And so, do not be surprised that some of the Sunnah was hidden from 'Umar ibn al-Khattab. For example, you know that he used to forbid the Companions, when they performed Hajj, from performing Hajj al-Tamattu'. How is this, when the Messenger says: And Imam Malik was truthful, and Mujahid was truthful, and Ibn 'Abbas was truthful, where the first took from the second, meaning by the first, Malik took from Mujahid, and Mujahid took from Ibn 'Abbas: "None of us is a holder except that he was returned, and none was returned except the owner of this grave." Therefore, the Muslim should not surrender the leadership of his thought to a person other than the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family).