790 – Ibn ʿAbbās (may Allah be pleased with them both) relates that Ṣaʿb ibn Jaththāmah al-Laythī (may Allah be pleased with him) informed him that the Prophet ﷺ said: “There is no ḥimā except for Allah and His Messenger.” Al-Bukhārī recorded the report.⦗1⦘
Glossary of the ḥadīth
• “No ḥimā”: ḥimā (protected pasture) is pronounced with a kasrah on the ḥāʾ and a fatḥah on the mīm, without tanwīn and ending in an alif maqṣūrah. The verb ḥamaytu means “I protected or defended,” so maḥmī means “protected or prohibited.” Morphologically the word follows the pattern fiʿal with a kasrah on the first root letter and functions like a passive participle. That is its linguistic definition.
In juristic usage it denotes uncultivated land that the ruler sets aside for specific livestock while forbidding all others to graze there.
• “Except for Allah and His Messenger”: No individual may reserve land solely for his own herd and exclude the rest of the people; such reservation belongs only to Allah and His Messenger.
Points derived from the ḥadīth
- A ḥimā is the opposite of land left open to all. It means that the ruler prohibits grazing in a particular area so that the pasture is dedicated to the camels of zakāt and of the public treasury.
- Whatever land the Prophet ﷺ declared a ḥimā remains protected and must never be abolished, annulled, or altered, whether there is need for it or not, because it was reserved by explicit textual proof; personal reasoning (ijtihād) cannot override or nullify a text.
- Those who came after him—caliphs, rulers, and kings—are entitled to establish protected pastures