Fraud likewise occurs in trades and occupations, as among those who work for people for wages or those (1) who work on their own account and then sell to people—such as weavers, cooks, bakers, meat-roasters, millers, auctioneers, and brokers. Fraud is rife among such people, and it constitutes betrayal and a failure to act with sincerity.

It is related in the Sahīh (2) that Jarīr ibn Abd Allāh said, “I pledged allegiance to the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—to act sincerely toward every Muslim.”

In the two Sahīh collections (3), Hakīm ibn Hizām narrated that the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—said: “The buyer and seller retain the right to choose so long as they have not parted. If they are truthful and make everything clear, their sale will be blessed; but if they lie and conceal, the blessing of their sale will be erased.”

Among the gravest forms of fraud is fraud involving currency: dirhams, dinars, and objects fashioned from those metals. Therefore, no one may be permitted to mint dirhams or dinars [except] by order of the ruler, for fear of fraud. Nor may a ruler break up the Muslims’ coinage to profit from it or merely to inscribe a name on it. Abū Dāwūd narrated in his Sunan (4) that the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—