What Abu Sufyān meant by “the term” was the Treaty of Ḥudaybiyah, which certainly took place in Dhū al-Qaʿdah of the sixth year. This shows that the prohibition of gambling preceded the time when al-Ṣiddīq collected the stake that the people of Mecca had wagered. Had that stake already been abrogated, he would have been the very last person to touch it. Al-Bukhārī relates in his Ṣaḥīḥ (1): “He had a servant who used to collect revenue for him. One day the servant brought something, and he ate from it. The servant then laughed, so he asked, ‘What is the matter with you?’ He replied (2), ‘Do you know where this came from?’ He said, ‘No.’ The servant said, ‘In the Days of Ignorance I practiced divination for someone, and today he paid me what he had promised.’ Abu Bakr thereupon thrust his hand into his mouth and vomited up all that he had eaten.”

How, then, could he possibly accept proceeds from unlawful gambling (3) once he knew it had been forbidden and abrogated? That is clearly impossible.

It is also reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ instructed Abu Bakr to give in charity whatever he had taken from the polytheists as a result of that wager (4).