815 – ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿUthmān al-Taymī (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that “the Prophet ﷺ prohibited picking up the lost property of a pilgrim.” Related by Muslim (1).

Points derived from the hadith

1. The report explicitly rules that the pilgrim’s lost property may not be taken; a consensus has been recorded on this ruling because of the clear wording of the hadith.
2. The ruling is not limited to what is found inside the Sacred Precinct (ḥaram) alone; it extends to any place where pilgrims are present outside the ḥaram, such as ʿArafāt, the miqāts, and the roads leading to the pilgrimage sites.
3. The wisdom seems to be to assist those heading for the Sacred House: the owner can more readily retrieve the item because its place is fixed, and it can be kept with those responsible for the pilgrims’ security until the owner returns.
4. A pilgrim’s lost property can be distinguished from that of others by contextual clues—finding it during the season when pilgrims gather, or in spots of heavy crowding such as near the Jamarāt, in the areas of ṭawāf and saʿy, and similar sites where, during those days, almost no one is present except pilgrims. When absolute certainty is lacking, Islamic rulings are based on what is most probable.

Scholarly disagreement
As for property lost in Mecca and its Sacred Precinct outside the areas where pilgrims congregate, the jurists have differed on whether anyone may pick it up while announcing it forever. The majority hold that it is permissible to take it up, just as in any other land, and among them are