With the Hadith
Ar-Rikaz (Treasure Trove) Requires One-Fifth (Tax)
We greet you all, dear listeners everywhere, in a new episode of your program "With the Hadith," and we begin with the best greeting: Peace, mercy, and blessings of God be upon you.
Al-Nasa'i narrated in Al-Sunan Al-Kubra, saying:
Qutaybah bin Saeed told us, saying: Abu Awanah told us from Ubaid Allah bin Al-Akhnas, from Amr bin Shuaib, from his father, from his grandfather, who said: The Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, was asked about lost property, and he said: "What is in a frequented road or in an inhabited village, announce it for a year, and if its owner comes, (return it), otherwise it is yours. And what is not in a frequented road or in an inhabited village, then in it and in the treasure trove (Rikaz) is one-fifth (tax)."
Sindi's footnote explaining Sunan al-Nasa'i: his saying: in a frequented road, like a walked path, meaning a traveled road.
Announce it: an order from the definition.
If its owner comes: meaning he is the one being sought.
Otherwise: meaning if he is not found, then it is yours.
Al-Suyuti said, quoting Ibn Malik, that in this statement, the answer to the first condition is omitted, the verb of the condition after "except" is omitted, and the subject of the answer sentence to the second condition is omitted, and the meaning is: if its owner comes, he takes it, and if he does not come, then it is yours.
The apparent meaning of the hadith is that the finder owns it absolutely, and it may be said: perhaps the questioner was poor, so he answered according to his situation, so it does not indicate that the rich owns it, and in it is that how many poor people become rich, so the absoluteness in the answer is not good except when issuing the ruling, so let it be considered.
And if it is not in a frequented road... to the end, Al-Khattabi said: He means the ordinary one whose owner is not known.
And in Rikaz, with a kasra on the Ra, a lightened Kaf, and a Zay at the end: from Rakazah if he buried it, and the meaning is: the pre-Islamic treasure buried in the ground, and the fifth is only found in it because of the abundance of its benefit and the ease of taking it.
Dear listeners,
This is another type of work that the Sharia has made a reason for ownership, it is extracting what is in the depths of the earth, which the hadith stated by saying: "And in the treasure trove (Rikaz) is one-fifth (tax)," and Rikaz is the gold buried in the earth from ancient times, what we call today treasures, for whoever finds it owns four-fifths of it, halal and pure, by the ruling of Sharia, but the remaining fifth is for the state, which puts it in the treasury and spends it on the interests of Muslims according to the opinion and judgment of the Caliph, and attached to the Rikaz is the extraction of minerals from the depths of the earth with two conditions:
First: That its quantity is limited, meaning it is not considered a large quantity for the individual, meaning it is not of the type that does not run out.
Second: That the land from which the Rikaz or the mineral was extracted is owned by him or is not owned by anyone, such as external roads and deserts and the like, so if it is a limited quantity of mineral and he extracted it from his land or from land that has no owner, then it is his property.
But if the extracted mineral is unlimited in quantity, then it is not owned individually, but rather is a public property, as narrated by al-Tirmidhi from Abyad bin Hammal that he came to the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, and he granted him salt, so he granted it to him, and when he turned away, a man from the council said: Do you know what you have granted him? You have only granted him abundant wealth, so he said, and he took it back from him. Attached to the types of extraction of what is in the depths of the earth is the extraction of what is in the air, such as extracting oxygen and ozone and other gases necessary for medicine or agriculture or industry, or extracting anything that the Sharia permits from what God created and permitted to benefit from it absolutely.
Dear listeners, until we meet you with another prophetic hadith, we leave you in God's care.
Peace, mercy, and blessings of God be upon you.
