And the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—also forbade selling fruit until it has been weighed (1), that is, until it is roughly assessed and its quantity made known.

Philologists say: wāzant bayna al-shay’ayn muwāzanatan wa-wuzānan—“I balanced the two things against each other.” One says, “This yuwāzin (counterbalances) that” when it matches it in weight or stands parallel to it. The phrase wazn al-jabal can mean one flank of a mountain, while zinat al-jabal refers to what lies opposite it.

Allah, exalted is He, says:
“Allah it is Who has sent down the Book in truth, and the Balance.” ⦗42:17⦘
Most exegetes hold that the Balance here signifies justice, while others say that it denotes the instrument by which things are weighed, whether those things are heavy or light (2).

He, the Most High, also says:
“We shall soon cast upon you a weighty word.” ⦗73:5⦘
And the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said:
“I am leaving among you the two weighty trusts; the greater of the two is the Book of Allah, and the other is my family, the people of my House.” (3)
Thus he described the Qur’an as a thiql (weight).

The Almighty likewise says:
“And the earth will bring forth its burdens.” ⦗99:2⦘
It is also said: “Give him his thiql,” meaning his full weight. The expression al-thaqalān (“the two weighty creatures”) refers to the jinn and humankind, and a mithqāl of something is its weight measured against something of the same kind.

The point here is that when a Muslim’s good deeds and misdeeds are weighed—whether all of them together in a single Balance, as in the hadith of the Card, or by ascertaining their respective measure—