The Exegesis of the Words of Allah the Exalted: “And let those who do not find [the means for] marriage remain chaste until Allah enriches them from His bounty. And those who seek the Scripture from what your right hands possess…”

It commands the poor person to remain chaste until Allah enriches him from His bounty. This means he does not give free rein to himself to look at what is forbidden, engage in forbidden physical contact, pursue women, or do similar things. Rather, it is obligatory for him to remain chaste from fornication, its causes, and its preliminaries; to stay away from fornication, its causes, and its preliminaries. And His saying, the Exalted: And His saying: The author interpreted this by saying “what they marry with.” The correct view is that the verse is broader than that. Therefore, he said: This includes what the author mentioned and includes the case where a person does not find a woman to marry. A person may be wealthy, have the mahr, and have maintenance, but he proposes and is not accepted. Do we say this person found marriage or not? He did not find marriage. So restricting the absence of marriage to what the author mentioned is questionable. The verse is broader: they do not find marriage, meaning they do not find the means for it, and they do not find a woman to marry either, because this falls within the generality of the verse. And His saying: Thus, Allah, Glorified and Exalted is He, guided to chastity for those who do not find marriage. Does this contradict the saying of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him): Is there a contradiction between the verse and the hadith? No. How so, O Abd al-Rahman?
The student: ...

The Shaykh : You have done well. The verse commands Allah’s chastity, and the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) explained the path to chastity by stating that a person should fast, for that cuts off the desire for marriage. And if the desire for marriage is cut off, this is among the best causes of chastity. For a person is not driven to lack chastity except by desire. If the desire is cut off, the causes for the existence of lack of chastity are removed. And by this, we know that the hadith does not contradict the verse, for Allah commanded chastity, and the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) explained to us one of the paths to chastity. Then, the one who does not find marriage may have a strong desire that perhaps tempts him to violate the forbidden. The cure for that is fasting. As for the person whose desire is normal and is far from being tempted, he may not fast. Because if we took the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), “Whoever cannot afford it, let him fast,” at its apparent meaning, we would say every poor person who does not find marriage and has desire should fast. But the matter is not so. If a person does not find a path to chastity other than fasting, let him fast. But if a person is moderate and natural and does not fear falling into sin, there is no need for fasting. And therefore he said, “let him fast.” This is for emphasis. That indicates that it is in a state where he needs what restrains the reins of desire, and that is by fasting.
And in this is also an indication that chastity is a cause for wealth, just as marriage is also a cause for wealth. So likewise, chastity: if a person is patient and chastes himself and stays away from what Allah has forbidden him, that is a cause for wealth. And Allah the Exalted said in the Qur’an: And His saying, “until Allah enriches them,” does this mean wealth or the means for marriage? It means the means for marriage, because He said, “who do not find marriage.” So we say the means for marriage. Why? As we indicated, a person may be wealthy in money but not find marriage or be married. So we say they do not find [it] until Allah enriches them with marriage, not with money, but with the marriage they were not finding. This includes wealth in money and wealth in a wife. How many a person has much money but does not find a wife. So he is not poor. It is better for us to say in His saying, the Exalted: with marriage, in order to include both matters. If the absence of marriage is due to poverty, it is with money. If it is due to prevention, it is with obedience, for He will facilitate for him one who will marry him.
And when Allah, Glorified and Exalted is He, mentioned the rulings of marriage and what is related to it, He moved to another important matter, which is what is related to slave women, or slaves in general. He said: and referred to slaves. He moved to a very important issue, which is His saying, the Exalted: “meaning the contract of manumission from what your right hands possess, of slaves and slave women. So write a contract for them if you know good in them, meaning trust and ability to earn to pay the manumission money. Its form is, for example, like this:” Those who seek the Scripture, meaning they request, and the Scripture means the contract of manumission. The contract of manumission is the master selling his slave to himself. This manumission is called manumission because it generally proceeds by a letter written by the master between him and his slave with this contract. So if the slave requests his master to write a contract for him, Allah said, “So write a contract for them.” So we say “seek” means “request” the Scripture, the manumission, which is the master selling the slave to the slave. And His saying, “So write a contract for them,” what is the grammatical case of the fā’? The fā’ is a connector of the predicate to the subject. Did it connect the predicate to the subject? Does it need it or not? It does not need it. We say, “Zayd is standing,” “The book is beautiful,” “The sky is high.” But if the subject resembles a condition in generality, its predicate is connected with the fā’. This is an explanation of the relative pronoun “those,” for the relative pronoun, even if its clause is present, is vague in reality. So “from” is explanatory to clarify the vague in the relative pronoun. And His saying: In this is the affirmation of ownership for humans. The affirmation of ownership for humans. So if someone says, “Does not Allah say: Yes, He restricted ownership to Himself. How does this agree with the affirmation of ownership for humans? The answer is that absolute ownership is for Allah, and the ownership of humans for what they own is not absolute. Therefore, it is restricted by the type of ownership, restricted by the type of disposal, and restricted by everything. When they say “owner,” am I absolute in disposal of it? No, I dispose of it in a specific type and within specific limits. Therefore, my ownership is not complete in every aspect. So we say absolute ownership is for Allah alone, and my ownership is attributed to it, but it is restricted and defined ownership. If you own the item and the benefit, you are called an owner. If you own the benefit without the item, you are called a lessee. And so on, every type of ownership has a specific name. And His saying: “Right hands” is the plural of “right hand,” and it is the opposite of the left. Does that mean a person owns his slave with his right hand only, and the left hand does not own? No, this is a generalization. Like Since the predominant thing for a person in taking and giving, selling and buying is working with the right hand, He said: And otherwise, in reality, I own it all, not just with my right hand. But since this is the predominant thing in the matter of selling and buying, taking and giving, Allah, Glorified and Exalted is He, attributed ownership to the right hand.
We said that the *fa* (conjunction) connects the predicate to the subject, and that it connected the predicate to the subject because the subject is a relative noun that resembles a condition in its generality. And regarding His saying, this is a command. The scholars differed on whether the command here is for obligation or for recommendation. The majority hold that the command is for recommendation, and their evidence for this is that the slave is your property, and you are not obligated to relinquish your property except with your consent. Just as a person is not forced to sell his house or his animal, he is not forced to sell his slave. Therefore, if he requests *mukatabah* (a contract of manumission), he is free because it is his property. For this reason, Allah the Exalted called him property. Thus, 'Aqil. So, the majority hold that the command is for recommendation, and their evidence is that the slave is your property, and a person is not forced to relinquish his property from his ownership. Yes, the wealth of a Muslim is not taken except with his willing consent. If that is the case, then the command here is for recommendation. Some scholars, including the *Zahiri* school, held that the command is for obligation, and that if the slave requests *mukatabah*, it is obligatory for the master to respond to him. This is because the default ruling for a command is obligation. And their statement that the owner is not forced to relinquish his property from his ownership is not absolute. The owner is forced to relinquish his property from his ownership in matters that Allah has made obligatory. Is it not obligatory for a person to pay *zakah* (alms), which is relinquishing something from his property? Is it not obligatory for him to pay *kaffarah* (expiation)? Is it not obligatory for him to spend on his relatives, wives, and others? Therefore, the statement that a person is not obligated to relinquish property from his ownership is not absolute. How many matters are there in which a person is forced to relinquish his property from his ownership? Is it not the case that if a person’s wealth is encumbered by the rights of creditors and his debt exceeds his wealth, he is restricted and forced to sell his wealth to satisfy the creditors? In any case, we say that this matter is not absolute. How many matters have become obligatory that involve a person relinquishing his property?
Then, it strengthens that the command is for obligation. This is, in fact, a refutation of what the majority argued for in strengthening the command for obligation. They said that the Lawgiver looks toward manumission, and that slavery is not inherent in humans. If humans wish to rid themselves of this slavery and return to their original state, the Lawgiver looks toward that. For this reason, you will find that the Lawgiver encouraged manumission greatly, to the extent that He informed us, a great encouragement. Also, Allah the Exalted and Sublime made the freeing of a slave obligatory in multiple expiations, such as the expiation for *zihar* (likening one's wife to a forbidden relative), the expiation for an oath, and the expiation for killing. All of this is evidence that the Shari'ah has a desire to free slaves. So how can we not make this command obligatory, especially when the slave is the one requesting it, and it is known that he is independent of his master and wants to free himself? How can we prevent him? If the master says, "This is my slave, and I cannot get rid of him," we say to him: If you fear Allah the Exalted and Sublime, He will make ease for you in your matter. Perhaps you will free him, and if you free him, you can hire him if you need him and know him, or Allah will make it easy for you to find someone else. In any case, as long as Allah has commanded it, the default ruling for the commands of Allah and His Messenger is obligation. So, Ibrahim, I think it is recommended for people to... let's see now.
So, he says, this is a condition in the command. So Allah the Exalted made that conditional upon knowing good in them. What is the good? The author says, "That is, trustworthiness and the ability to earn to pay the *mukatabah* fee." Yes. Some of the *Salaf* (early generations) explained it by saying, "Righteousness in their religion and earning." And it is possible that his saying "trustworthiness" points to that. But if we say "righteousness in their religion," it is broader than trustworthiness, because trustworthiness is righteousness in religion. And what else is righteousness? It is righteousness. For this reason, we say that the intended meaning of "good" is righteousness in religion and earning. Righteousness in religion is that we know that he is one who establishes prayer, establishes fasting, leaves forbidden things, and is upright. And from righteousness in religion is trustworthiness; we know that he will not steal from people if we enter into a *mukatabah* contract with him, that he is trustworthy. And earning is righteousness in worldly affairs; that we know that this slave, if he is freed, will be capable of earning and will not be a burden on others. Because if he becomes incapable of earning and his master frees him, where will he eat from? He will become a burden on people, and perhaps he will have strength and will steal and plunder. Yes, so this condition of righteousness and earning is necessary. As for the author's saying "to pay the *mukatabah* fee," this is questionable. It is not sufficient that he has earning to pay the *mukatabah* fee, but rather to pay the *mukatabah* fee and to spend on himself in the future... So the command is conditional upon us knowing good in them.
So, if I do not know good in him, is it obligatory for me to enter into a *mukatabah* contract with him if he requests it? It is not obligatory. So, is it permissible?
The student: ...
The Shaykh : How is it permissible, and I know that if I free him, there is no good in him? I know that if I free him, he will cause corruption, either by joining the disbelievers if his origin is disbelief, or by corrupting the earth with sins. He is safe with me, but if he becomes free, who will speak to him? ... So the correct view is that we say: If we do not know good in him, we are not commanded to enter into a *mukatabah* contract with him. This is one point, which is the implication of the verse. Then, if we are not commanded, is it permissible for us to enter into a *mukatabah* contract? If we know evil and harm in responding to him, then responding to him becomes forbidden. And if we do not know evil and harm, then responding to him is permissible. So the implication involves a detailed ruling. What remains is answering the question that the brother Ahmad asked. If the master says, "I do not know good in him," then it is not obligatory for me to enter into a *mukatabah* contract with him. We say: You and your trustworthiness, Allah the Exalted and Sublime is the One who will hold you accountable, and the matter has been entrusted to you. If you say, "I do not know good in him," as for us, we agree with you and do not force you to enter into the contract. But as for Allah, will it benefit you if you know that there is good in him and you claim that you do not know good in him? It will not benefit you. A person, as for Allah, it does not benefit him. In any case, the matter is entrusted to the master regarding knowing good or not. As for us, the rulings of this world are based on the apparent. If he says, "I do not know good in him, and I know that if I let him go, he will corrupt and cause corruption," yes, we say: As for us now, we do not force you, and we do not say it is obligatory upon you. But if Allah knows that you know there is good in him, then your claim is rejected and not accepted.