the dead land so that the Muslims’ riding and pack animals may graze there, provided that this does not constrict the people. Abu ʿUbayd narrates that ʿUmar (d. 23 AH) said, “Were it not for the mounts I equip for the cause of Allah, I would not have set aside even a single handspan of land as ḥimā.” ʿUthmān’s (d. 35 AH) ḥimā became well-known and met with no objection, which is tantamount to consensus.
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In the days of ignorance the leaders of the tribes used to reserve the most fertile spots for their horses, camels, and other livestock, excluding the ordinary members of their clans. The Prophet ﷺ abolished that custom, saying, “There is no ḥimā except for Allah and His Messenger,” and he added, “People are partners in three things: water, pasture, and fire.” Any tract set aside for Allah and His Messenger ﷺ, or by the leader of the Muslims, is for the public good; the ruler may not appropriate it for his private interests.
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No one other than the Muslim ruler may declare a ḥimā, for the ruler acts on the community’s behalf in matters that serve their welfare, and no one else has that mandate. The Prophet ﷺ said, “People are partners in three things: pasture, water, and fire.”
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Shaykh Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm stated: “The legal ruling is that every ḥimā is invalid except the one established by the Prophet ﷺ, because he said, ‘There is no ḥimā except the ḥimā of Allah and His Messenger’ (reported by al-Bukhārī). The scholars are unanimously agreed on this.”
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The following is a brief note on the ḥimā of al-Naqīʿ, which the Prophet ﷺ established. It is distilled from a ruling of the Board of Review and from a study by Ustadh ʿAlī ibn Thābit al-ʿUmrī, a native of the outskirts of Medina.
Al-Naqīʿ—with an open nūn, a kasrah on the qāf, a silent yāʾ, and a plain ʿayn—is a generic term for any place where water collects, and the ḥimā was so named for that reason.
To the west it is bounded by Mount Quds, also called “Ouqays,” and that boundary is 15 kilometres wide.