Sunday, 5 April 2026 (17 Shawwal 1447 AH)
Question: A man sold land and included his partners, and the sale was concluded on that basis. Then, after a long time—after houses had been built on that land and the land had been revived with trees—some of the partners came to demand from the seller their shares, arguing that they had neither sold nor ratified. What is required in that case?
Answer—and Allah is the One who grants success: The custom has run that a single member of a household stands in for all in such matters. If the partners knew of the sale and remained silent and did not object, their claim is not to be heard thereafter—especially if years have passed since the sale. Apparently this is an established custom among the people in these lands.
There has come in the Sunnah what supports this custom. In the books of sīrah it is related that the Prophet (May Allah bless him and his family and grant them peace) said to the people of Ṭāʾif—when they asked him to return to them the spoils of Ḥunayn, He said (May Allah bless him and his family and grant them peace): “As for what belongs to me and to Banū Hāshim, it is yours.” Then men from the Companions stood up, each one saying: “And I—what belongs to me and to the sons of so-and-so—is yours.”
It is also related in the sīrah that the Prophet (May Allah bless him and his family and grant them peace) wrote a document among the people of Madīnah when he arrived there, and in that document it was (stipulated) that a single man from a tribe binds himself and those behind him from his tribe. In what we have mentioned from the Sunnah is evidence that silence in such a case constitutes consent.
As for one who openly expresses aversion upon learning of the sale or the like, then the sale does not bind him. This is what has appeared to me, and Allah knows best.
Source: Min Thimār al-ʿIlm wa al-Ḥikmah vol.2