(355) Chapter: Prohibition of Malpractices in Commerce

Anas bin Malik (May Allah be pleased with him) said:
The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) forbade that a person in the city should make a deal on behalf of a villager on commission even if he is his real brother."

[Al-Bukhari and Muslim]

Commentary: "Al-Hadir'' means one who lives in the city, while "Al-Badi'' means a villager or a desert dweller. "He should not make a deal'' here signifies that the urbanite should not go to the villager and propose to him leave his goods with him for sale and he would send him the sale proceeds of the goods piecemeal as they sell. In the opinion of some `Ulama' this is prohibited if the merchandise is valuable and the villager is not aware of its real worth and the urbanite wants to exploit his ignorance. But, on the contrary, if the proposal is for the welfare of the villager and the urbanite merely wants the owner to receive its due price then the offer is admissible. The first
proposition is prohibited because that will cause a loss to the villager; the second is permissible as it is a wellmeaning offer.


"A person in the city should not make a deal on behalf of a villager'' has been interpreted by `Abdullah bin `Abbas (May Allah be pleased with them) to mean that he should not work as a broker for a villager because in that case he will be interested to sell it on a higher price in order to have a better commission in the deal, which will unnecessarily raise its cost. On one side, the purchase of goods coming from outside has been prohibited before its arrival on the market so that
nobody can exploit the ignorance of the outsiders, and on the other side, villagers are enjoined to sell their goods themselves so that the commission of the broker does not increase the price of the goods. If an urbanite sells the merchandise of any villager on a fair price without charging any commission then this is permissible, as is confirmed by Ahadith. If the people living in cities charge each other commission on the purchase or sale of their goods this is permissible.