I then asked Ibn ʿAbbās, “What is meant by the Prophet’s words, ‘a town-dweller for a desert-dweller’?” He replied, “He must not act as his broker.”

Unfamiliar terms

1. “Do not intercept the caravans” (la talqaw al-rukbān): rukbān is the plural of rākib (rider). What is meant is meeting people who are coming into town to sell their goods and buying those goods from them before they reach the marketplace. The word rukbān is used by predominance, but the ruling includes pedestrians as well.

2. “Do not practice najsh” (wa-lā tanājashū): najsh, with an open nūn and a quiescent jīm, is raising the price of a commodity by someone who has no intention of purchasing it—either to benefit the seller by driving up the price or to harm a real buyer by making him pay more. The word comes from the expression “najasha al-ṣayd,” meaning to flush out game, because the false bidder stirs up people’s desire for the item and raises its price. Ibn Qutaybah said: “Najsh is trickery and deception; the hunter is called nājish because he deceives the game.”

3. “Let no town-dweller sell on behalf of a desert-dweller” (wa-lā yabiʿ ḥāḍir li-bād): al-ḥāḍir is the resident of the town; al-bādī is related to the desert. What is intended here is the newcomer who has arrived with goods that he wishes to sell at the current market price, whether he is actually a Bedouin or a city-dweller. The town-resident approaches him and undertakes to sell his goods for him at a higher price than the owner himself would have obtained. A simsar (broker) is the one who sells or buys on behalf of someone else.

4. “Do not tie the udders of sheep” (wa-lā tuṣarrū al-ghanam): tuṣarrū is read with ḍamma on the tāʾ and fatḥa on the ṣād, followed by a doubled (mushaddad) rāʾ with ḍamma, then the plural suffix –w, and the verb is in the jussive because of the prohibitive lā; al-ghanam is in the accusative as the direct object. The root is taṣriya, which literally means “gathering.” Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd said: “You say ṣarraytu (with shadda) or ṣaraytu (light) the water in the reservoir when you collect it.” (1) In livestock, taṣriya means holding the milk in the animals’ udders until it accumulates. What is forbidden is doing so with the intent to deceive the buyer by making the animal appear to give more milk.

Overall meaning

In these two noble hadiths the Prophet ﷺ forbids five kinds of unlawful sales because of the harm they inflict on the seller, the buyer, or others.

1. He forbade going out to meet people bringing their merchandise—grain, livestock, and the like—before they reach the marketplace and buying their goods from them. Because the sellers do not know the current price, the buyer may cheat them, depriving them of profit they earned through toil, long journeys across wastelands, and exposure to danger, only for that profit to become easy pickings for someone who made no effort.

2. He also forbade one person’s selling over the sale of another—and, by analogy, buying over his purchase. This is when, while the parties are still within their option of majlis or stipulated option, someone says, “I will give you a better item than this one,” or “I will sell it to you for less,” if the newcomer is buying, or “I will buy it from you for more than its price,” if he is selling, thereby inducing the first buyer to rescind the contract and conclude a new one with him. The same ruling applies after the two options cease. The prohibition is due to the strife, enmity, and cutting off of another man’s livelihood that such behavior causes.

3. Next, he forbade najsh, which is bidding up the price of a commodity without any real intention to purchase it,