He only denounced Sufyan for doing this because, by leasing the property, he had entered into a contract whose validity was disputed. He therefore regarded it as objectionable for him to disregard the contract merely because people differed over the matter: doing so would make the claim contrary to the reality, since the contract bound him.
If it is established that these houses may neither be sold nor leased, then whoever first occupies any part of them may do so only to the extent of his need; they are not privately owned by such people. Yet on the day Makkah was conquered, the Prophet (Allah bless him and grant him peace) said, “Whoever enters the house of Abu Sufyan is safe, and whoever shuts his door is safe.” How, then, could he call it his house, and call their houses theirs, if they did not belong to them? ʿUmar bought a house from Ṣafwān for use as a prison—how could they not own them?
He then said, “Is a man to have someone enter his home while his family is with him?” He also said, in the report transmitted by al-Athram and Ibrāhīm ibn al-Ḥārith, “As for what some people say—that they may lodge with them—this applies only when a person has a great deal of surplus space and the house is a large compound containing multiple dwellings, such as the house of Ṣafwān ibn Umayyah and similar properties. But if a man has a home in which his family resides, no one should lodge with him against his will.” He considered this an outrageous statement from whoever made it.
As for the area surrounding Makkah demarcated by the markers of its Sacred Precinct, its ruling concerning the prohibition of sale and lease is the same as that of Makkah. In the report transmitted by Muthannā al-Anbārī, when he asked him, “May one purchase one of the shelters—meaning those at Minā?” he replied, “I do not approve of purchasing them, nor are they to be sold. The same applies to the entire Sacred Precinct.” Thus, he made clear that the entire Sacred Precinct has the same ruling as Makkah.
In the report transmitted by Abū Ṭālib, he said, “They had no right to establish anything in Minā. But once they had established something there, no one should enter it without their permission. Sufyan had enclosed a plot there and built two houses within it. He would sometimes say to the hadith scholars, ‘Leave them intact; no man should enter another man’s shelter without his permission.’” The apparent meaning of this is that he permitted building in Minā in a manner that granted a person exclusive use of what he built. In the report transmitted by Ibn Manṣūr, he said, “As for building in Minā, I disapprove of it.” The apparent meaning of this report is prohibition.
All of this applies if we hold that Makkah was conquered by force. But if we hold that it was conquered by force and then brought under a peace settlement, selling and leasing it are permissible. Aḥmad said, in the report transmitted by Abū Ṭālib mentioned earlier, “If it is privately owned land, such as Makkah and Khurasan, they must pay zakat because they own the land itself.” Thus, he explicitly affirmed ownership of Makkah’s underlying land and likened it to Khurasan. It is well known that the land of Khurasan may be sold.
As for the Sacred Precinct, it is the area that encircles Makkah on all sides. Its boundary on the Medina road lies short of al-Tanʿīm, at the dwellings of Banū Ghifār, three miles away; on the Iraqi road, it lies at a mountain pass at al-Munqaṭaʿ, seven miles away; and on the Jiʿrānah road, it lies in the ravine of Abū ʿAbd Allāh.