730 – Ibn ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with both of them) narrated that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said: “Whoever purchases palm-trees after they have been pollinated, their fruit belongs to the seller who sold them, unless the purchaser stipulates otherwise.” Agreed upon. (1)
Vocabulary of the ḥadīth:
• “Whoever purchases palm-trees”: i.e., he buys the palm trunks themselves.
• al-nakhl (palm-trees): a collective noun that may be treated as masculine or feminine; its plural is nakhīl. Botanists describe the date-palm as a member of the Arecaceae family, widespread in Arab lands, especially Iraq.
• tuʾabbara (are pollinated): pronounced with ḍamma on the initial tāʾ, fatḥa on the hamzated wāw, a shadda on the bāʾ, ending with a rāʾ. One says nakhla muʾabbara or maʾbūra; the verbal noun is al-ʾibr. Pollination (taʾbīr) is performed by opening the spathe of the female palm and placing inside it some pollen from the male palm. The male palm used for pollination has two pronunciations: the more common fuhhāl (pattern fuʿʿāl, like tufāḥ) with the plural fuhāhīl, and faḥl with the plural fuḥūl (like fals/fulūs).
• “unless the purchaser stipulates it”: i.e., the buyer. Although the term mubtaʿ could linguistically apply to both parties, the exception here confines it to the buyer, and the derivative form of the verb points to him as well.
Points derived from the ḥadīth:
- The explicit wording shows that if someone sells palms that have already been pollinated, the fruit belongs to the seller.
- Its implicit meaning is that if he sells palms before pollination, the fruit belongs to the buyer.