First report: Abū Umāmah al-Bāhilī—when he noticed a ploughshare and some other implements of cultivation—said, “I heard the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, say: ‘Nothing of this (equipment) enters a family’s house without Allah bringing humiliation into it.’ ”

Al-Bukhārī recorded it in his Ṣaḥīḥ (5 / 4 with the commentary of Fatḥ al-Bārī). Al-Ṭabarānī also related it in al-Kabīr through another route from Abū Umāmah, tracing it back to the Prophet, with the wording: “No household upon whom a yoke is brought in the morning but that they are humiliated.” Al-Haythamī cited it in Majmaʿ al-Zawāʾid (4 / 120).

The scholars have reconciled this ḥadith with the previously cited texts in two ways:

a) The humiliation refers to the financial obligations attached to agricultural land that the authorities demand, such as kharāj (land tax) or ʿushr (tithe). Whoever takes that on has exposed himself to possible humiliation.

Al-Manāwī said in al-Fayḍ: “This is not censure of agriculture itself, for it is commendable and rewarded on account of the many creatures that eat from it; worldly humiliation does not necessarily entail loss of some reward.”

Accordingly Ibn al-Tīn remarked, “This is one of the Prophet’s reports of the unseen, for what we observe today is that most oppression is directed at those who farm the land.”

b) The report concerns the one whose ploughing and planting distract him from fulfilling obligatory duties such as military service and the like. This is the position adopted by al-Bukhārī, for he entitled the ḥadith: