Sufyān al-Thawrī said, “If a man declares, ‘Should I outstrip you, such-and-such is mine,’ the judge is not to compel the other party to hand it over.”
ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak said, “Yūnus narrated to us from al-Zuhrī regarding competitions in archery: what part of them is lawful? He replied, ‘Only that which is offered willingly, without the owner pursuing it.’ ”
This school rests on two points:
- Its proponents disapproved of a competitor who is at once the staker and the claimant, just as the adherents of the previous view did.
- They regarded the prize as a matter of noble conduct, not as an enforceable right that must (1) be paid—much like a promise in the opinion of those who do not hold its fulfillment to be obligatory.
The scholars of the preceding view disliked a man who both offers and demands the stake, for if he is merely the offerer, he is like one who spends his wealth for something that benefits the Muslims, and this aligns it with a reward whose benefit is general. But if he becomes the claimant, they find it reprehensible, because he is seeking to consume another’s wealth in a way that ultimately profits the very person who put up the money.
As for the present view—unlike the other—if the organizer offers him the reward without any request on his part (2), it is permissible for him to accept it, for the disapproval of taking it (3) when it is actively sought does not entail