SAYYIDNA ‘UMAR’S “WISH” FOR THE DEFINITION OF RIBA

[This section may be omitted by readers who do not want to go into too many details.]

We earlier quoted a tradition about ‘Umar, in which he reportedly says that the Prophet did not explain the meaning of riba. We now examine this tradition more closely.

The tradition has several narrations, of which the following are typical:

1)

‘Ali bin Muhammad and Abu Bakr bin Abi Shaybah related to us saying: Waki‘ related to us: Sufyan related to us: ‘Amr bin Murrah related to us from Murrah bin Sharahil saying that

‘Umar bin al-Khattab said: Three (matters), if the Messenger of God had explained them, it would be dearer to me than this world and all that is in it: al-kalalah, al-riba, and al-khilafah (Ibn Majah 2717)

2)

Nasr bin ‘Ali al-Jahdami related to us: Khalid bin al-Harith related to us: Sa‘id bin Abi ‘Arubah Mihran related to us from Qatadah from Sa‘id bin al-Musayyab from ‘Umar bin al-Khattab who said:

Indeed, the last of what was revealed is ayah al-riba; the Messenger of God was taken in death before he explained it. So shun (what is clearly) riba as well as (what is in) doubt (fa da‘u al-riba wa al-ribah). (Ibn Majah 2267; Ahmad 238, 331 from Yahya and Isma‘il from Ibn Abi ‘Arubah with the same isnad)

3)

Sulayman bin Harb informed us: Hammad bin Salamah related to us from Da`ud from al-Sha‘bi that

‘Umar said: “O people! I do not know if (sometimes) we may order you to do things that are not permissible for you or may prohibit for you things that are permissible for you. Indeed the last of what was revealed in the Qur`an is the ayah al-riba and indeed the Messenger did not explain it before he died (for lack of time). So move away from what creates doubt in you to what does not. (Darimi 129; a similar tradition is quoted by Ibn Kathir from Ibn Majah)

4)

Ahmad bin Abi Raja` related to us: Yahya related to us from Abu Hayyan al-Taymi from al-Sha‘bi from Ibn 'Umar who said:

'Umar delivered a sermon on the pulpit of the Messenger of God saying, "The prohibition of alcoholic drinks has indeed come down; these drinks are (prepared) from five things, i.e., grapes, dates, wheat, barley and honey. Alcoholic drinks are those that clog the mind." 'Umar also said, "I wish the Messenger of God had not left us before he had given us definite instruction (‘ahd) concerning three matters: (share in inheritance of) the grandfather, al-kalalah, and some issues related to riba (abwab min abwab al-riba)". (Bukhari 7/493=5160, Muslim 5360-61, Abu Da`ud 3184)

These narrations suffer from several weaknesses:



1) In Darimi 129, Ibn Majah 2267 and other similar narrations, the statement that the verse of al-riba was the last to be revealed is doubtful, since it contradicts other identifications of the last verse as well as other historical traditions (see Section D). Moreover, even if the Prophet died soon after the revelation prohibiting riba, it was not hard for the Almighty to ensure that the meaning of his commandment is not left unclear.

2) The need to know exactly what was being prohibited would have arisen in the time of the Prophet himself. The condemnation of riba starts fairly early in the Qur`an, probably even in Makkah. Many wealthy Companions would have wanted to avoid it, even if it was not categorically prohibited at the time. Certainly, this would be the case after the prohibition of riba and on the occasion of the last hajj performed by the Prophet. It is reported that in the famous farewell address delivered on this occasion, he commanded all Muslims to give up the riba that was due to them. This command would have raised the question of what was to be given up. If this was not clear, some Companions would have asked for a clarification. Yet we do not find any Companion doing so in any hadith.

3) If during the time of the Holy Prophet the meaning of riba did not become clear to a man like ‘Umar, whom he called al-Faruq and who administered a very large part of the world as the khalifah, then other Companions would also have experienced difficulty in understanding the concept and would have expressed that difficulty in some way. But no other Companion is known to have done so.

4) There are many different narrations of the words attributed to ‘Umar and none of them has more than one narrator in any of the first three or four generations, although the narrators are generally reliable. Ibn Majah 2717 (# 1 in the above list of narrations) is found only in Ibn Majah with a single isnad. The narrations (#4) in Bukhari, Muslim, and Abu Da`ud all have the same single narrator in each of the first three generations after ‘Umar: Abu Hayyan al-Taymi from al-Sha‘bi from Ibn 'Umar. The same is true of the other narrations -- Ibn Majah 2267, Darimi 129 etc.

5) In the narrations (# 4) in Bukhari, Muslim and Abu Da`ud the statement about riba looks very much like an addition to a hadith about alcoholic drinks, which is found with more varied asanid and is therefore probably earlier. That the statement about riba is an addition is supported further by the fact that in Nasa`i 5484, 5485 we have narrations from the same Abu Hayyan al-Taymi with the same isnad, in which we have only the statement about alcoholic drinks and not the one about riba.

6) Darimi 129 has a broken isnad, with a narrator missing between al-Sha‘bi (d. 104) and ‘Umar (d. 23). The narrations #4 from Bukhari, Muslim and Abu Da`ud have Ibn ‘Umar (radiy allah ‘an huma) between al-Sha‘bi and ‘Umar. It is possible that originally Ibn ‘Umar was present only in the isnad for the statement about alcoholic drinks. The statement about riba was reported separately from al-Sha‘bi from ‘Umar (without the link with Ibn ‘Umar), as in Darimi 129. When this second statement was added to the first, it also acquired Ibn ‘Umar as a narrator, and in this way its broken isnad became complete.



In the light of the above, it appears that the tradition about ‘Umar’s “wish” is not reliable enough to form the basis of attributing lack of clarity to the Qur`anic prohibition of riba. As noted earlier, the concept of riba was clear enough when its prohibition was revealed. Therefore neither the Qur`an nor the Prophet gave any explicit definition. Later, in the time of the Successors or the generation after them the meaning became less clear for some and it is this lack of clarity on their part that someone among them decided to express as a saying of ‘Umar.

Usmani’s analysis of ‘Umar’s “wish”

Usmani also concludes that there was no lack of clarity about riba. But he does not want to admit that the tradition about ‘Umar may not be authentic. Therefore, he suggests that in this tradition ‘Umar is not talking about riba mentioned in the Qur`an but of riba al-fadl mentioned in the Hadith. Thus commenting on the narration from Bukhari and Muslim quoted above, he says:

“A deeper study … reveals that he was doubtful only about the riba al-fadl …, and not about the original riba which was prohibited by the Holy Qur'an” (Para 62).

But this interpretation is speculative, since the actual words of ‘Umar do not provide any indication of a reference to riba al-fadl. This is why Ibn Hajar who makes the same suggestion in his famous commentary on Bukhari qualifies it with the word rubbama “perhaps”. Furthermore, there are some traditions reported from ‘Umar relating to riba al-fadl in Muwatta, Bukhari, Muslim, etc, which Usmani considers authentic, and none of them shows any hint that he was unclear about the concept.

Usmani finds further support for his interpretation of ‘Umar’s “wish” in the following tradition, where ‘Umar says:

“You think that we do not know about any issue from the issues of riba -- and no doubt I would love to know all these issues more than I would like to own a country like Egypt with all its habitations -- but there are many issues (about riba) which cannot be unknown to any one e.g. purchasing gold for silver on deferred payment basis."

Usmani provides no reference, but it is certain that it is one of those isolated traditions that were either unknown or unacceptable to almost all the Hadith experts in the first three centuries. In any case, the tradition hardly proves the point it is supposed to prove, namely, that ‘Umar was unclear only about riba al-fadl. For, there is in the tradition no indication of whether the issues of riba, about which ‘Umar was allegedly unclear, relate to riba al-fadl or to the riba of the Qur`an. One issue mentioned is purchasing gold for silver on deferred payment, which belongs to the topic of riba al-fadl. But in this matter, far from being confused, Sayyidna ‘Umar is not only himself clear but also expects others to be clear!!!

Usmani’s interpretation is also called into question by the narration in Ibn Majah 2267, in which it is said that the Prophet left riba unexplained because the verse about riba was revealed in the last days of the Prophet’s life and so he did not have time to clarify things. Clearly, according to this narration, what the Prophet left unexplained was the riba prohibited in the Qur`an and not riba al-fadl. Usmani is aware of this difficulty, which he solves by arguing that this narration is not authentic. We, of course, do not disagree with this conclusion, since earlier we argued that not just the narration in Ibn Majah but all narrations attributing to Sayyidna ‘Umar a lack of clarity in the concept of riba may be unreliable. But it is interesting that Usmani rejects the narration in Ibn Majah on the basis of arguments, which, if consistently applied, should make a large number of those ahadith doubtful that he and many other scholars often use to derive Islamic laws.

Usmani gives three arguments to show the weakness of the narration in Ibn Majah.

i)

“One of the narrators in the report of Ibn Majah is Sa‘id Ibn Abi ‘Arubah who has been held by the experts of Hadith as a person who used to confuse one narration with the other.”

This argument, if applied consistently, will disqualify many ahadith. For the fact is that about Sa‘id ibn Abi ‘Arubah Mihran we have mostly positive comments. Thus Abu ‘Awanah says: “we did not have ahfaz min hu” (anyone preserving ahadith better than him). Yahya describes him as thiqah (trustworthy) while Abu Zur‘ah calls him: thiqah ma`mun (trustworthy and trusted). Only a few scholars say that he used to confuse things in his old age. But such statements are found even about narrators accepted by our great muhaddithun including Bukhari and Muslim. For example, both Bukhari and Muslim have ahadith from Hisham bin ‘Urwah and yet about him ‘Uqayli says: qad kharifa fi akhir ‘umr hi (he mentally degenerated in the last part of his life).

Also, Sa‘id bin Abi ‘Arubah is not the only narrator to attribute the statement in question to ‘Umar. Al-Sha‘bi does the same according to Darimi 129, independently of Sa‘id bin Abi ‘Arubah.

ii)

Usmani’s second argument is that the statement in question is not found in the better-attested narrations of Bukhari and Muslim:

“We have already quoted the exact words reported by Bukhari and Muslim with very authentic chain of narrators. None of them has attributed to Sayyidna ‘Umar (radiy allah ‘an hu) that the verse of riba was the last verse of the Holy Qur'an. It seems that a narrator like Sa‘id ibn Abi ‘Arubah has confused the exact words of Sayyidna ‘Umar (radiy allah ‘an hu) with the words of Sayyidna Ibn Abbas (radiy allah ‘an hu), already discussed or with his own view that the verse of riba was the last verse of the Holy Qur'an.”

This argument has weight but again Usmani and many other scholars do not apply it consistently. They often use details found only in some of the narrations of a hadith, without discussing the possibility that those details may be later additions. For example, in case of the first hadith discussed above, Usmani uses a narration in which amount of milk used from a mortgage goat in excess of the amount spent on fodder is described as riba. But, as we saw, in another better-attested narration in Bukhari there is no mention of riba at all. Consistency requires that the referencce to riba should be treated, at the very least, questionable.

iii)

Usmani’s third argument is that the very assumption underlying the hadith of Ibn Majah (and Darimi and Ahmad) – namely that the verse of riba was the last verse to be revealed is questionable. He cites two reasons for this: a) originally, the tradition spoke not of the verses 2:275-280, prohibiting riba, but of 2:281, which is not about riba. The verses about riba were revealed much earlier. b) There are other identifications of the last verse to be revealed, contradicting the identification in the hadith of Ibn Majah..

We will look at reason a) in Section D below. As for b), it is a weighty argument, since it is based on the obvious principle that a tradition contradicted by other traditions of equal or greater soundness is subject to doubt. But, unfortunately scholars tend to use this logic selectively. If they duly face all the contradictions found in ahadith, even those considered “sahih”, then they would use ahadith with much greater caution in deriving laws of fiqh.