for they are among the gravest of what Allah has forbidden; that is because Allah Himself will, on the Day of Resurrection, confront those three and defeat them. Such severity is only due to the enormity of their crime, the ugliness of their deed, and the magnitude of what they have perpetrated.
The first: someone who swore by Allah, entered into a covenant in His name, and granted security invoking Allah, yet then betrayed Allah’s covenant and trust—dealing treacherously, acting impiously, and breaking the pledge and treaty.
The scholars unanimously agree that treachery is prohibited and counts among the major sins. Allah has commanded loyalty to covenants, saying: “O you who believe, fulfil all contracts” (Al-Māʾidah 5:1). He likewise forbade breaking covenants, declaring: “So for their breaking their covenant We cursed them and made their hearts hard” (Al-Māʾidah 5:13).
The Prophet ﷺ used to instruct certain commanders: “When you lay siege to a fortress and its people ask you to grant them the protection of Allah and His Prophet, do not do so. Rather, grant them your own protection, for your violating your own pledge is lighter than violating the pledge of Allah.”
The second: whoever sells a free person and consumes the price. Enslaving free people without a legitimate cause is forbidden; selling them like merchandise and devouring the price compounds the sin. The wording speaks of “eating” the price because that is the usual form of benefit; any other use of it is equally blameworthy.
The third: one who hires a labourer, fully takes the work for which he was engaged, yet withholds the wage. The Prophet ﷺ said, “Pay the worker his wage before his sweat has dried” (Ibn Mājah 2443), an emphatic directive to hasten in giving him his rightful recompense for his effort and toil. Ahmad’s Musnad records from Abu Hurayrah that the Prophet ﷺ said: “My community will be forgiven on the last night of Ramadan.” He was asked, “Messenger of Allah, is that the Night of Qadr?” He replied, “No, but a worker is only paid his wage once he has completed his task.”
2 – The ḥadith also shows that the wage is to be handed over when the labourer has finished his work, for this