when they awoke from their sleep: “So send one of you with these silver coins of yours to the city, and let him see which food is purest, then bring you provision from it. Let him be discreet, and let no one become aware of you.” [al-Kahf 18:19]

This was an act of agency: they appointed one of themselves to go to the city and bring back food, instructing him to be discreet in his journey—that is, to conceal himself as much as possible—and not to disclose anything about them. For they had said, “We have remained a day or part of a day.” They had taken refuge in the cave out of fear of the oppression of a polytheist man from whom they had fled. Yet circumstances had changed, for they had remained there for three hundred and nine years. They gave him these instructions on the assumption that the first king was still in power.

Allah, Most High, also relates that Moses, peace be upon him, said to Aaron: “Take my place among my people.” [al-A‘raf 7:142] This too was agency. Solomon, peace be upon him, likewise commissioned the hoopoe, saying: “Go with this letter of mine and deliver it to them.” [al-Naml 27:28]

As for the sunnah, it is authentically established that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, appointed agents in acts of worship as well as in transactions. He appointed Ali ibn Abi Talib, may Allah be pleased with him, to slaughter what remained of his sacrificial animals and distribute their meat and hides. (1) He also appointed a man to buy a sacrificial sheep for him with a dinar. The man bought two sheep for a dinar, sold one of them for a dinar, and then returned to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, with one sheep and one dinar. The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said to him, “May Allah bless your sale.” Thereafter, he would not sell or buy anything without making a profit from it, even if