Tafsir of Al-Jumu'ah 62:11

Jumu'ah: (11) "And when they saw a transaction..."

"And when they saw a transaction or a diversion, they dispersed to it." Imam Ahmad, Al-Bukhari, Muslim, Al-Tirmidhi, and a group of others narrated from Jabir ibn Abdullah, who said: "While the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was delivering the sermon on Friday standing up, a caravan arrived in Medina. The Companions of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, rushed toward it, until none remained except twelve men, among whom were myself, Abu Bakr, and Umar. Then Allah the Exalted revealed: 'And when they saw a transaction...' to the end of the Surah."

In a narration by Ibn Marduyah from Ibn Abbas, it is stated that twelve men and seven women remained in the mosque. The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said: "Had they all gone out, the mosque would have burned upon them with fire." In a narration from Qatadah: "By Him in whose hand is the soul of Muhammad, if the last of you had followed the first, the valley would have blazed with fire upon you."

It is said: Only eleven men remained, and they were, according to what Abu Bakr said: Ghalib ibn Atiyyah, the ten promised Paradise, and Ammar in one narration, and Ibn Mas'ud in another. According to the previous narration, they counted the ten as well, and included Bilal and Jabir due to his aforementioned statement. Some did not mention Jabir but mentioned Bilal and Ibn Mas'ud; others mentioned Ammar instead of Ibn Mas'ud. It is also said: Only eight remained; and it is said: Forty remained. The caravan belonged to Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf, may Allah be pleased with him, and was carrying food, while the people of Medina were suffering from hunger and high prices.

Abu Dawud narrated in his Marasil from Muqatil ibn Hayyan: "The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, used to pray Jumu'ah before the sermon, like the two Eids. On one Friday, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was delivering the sermon and had already prayed Jumu'ah when a man entered and said: 'Dihyah ibn Khalifah has arrived with a trade caravan.' When he arrived, his family would receive him with tambourines. The people went out, not thinking that there was anything wrong with leaving the sermon. Then Allah the Exalted revealed: 'And when they saw a transaction...' to the end. Consequently, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, moved the sermon to before the Jumu'ah prayer."

I do not believe this report to be authentic. The apparent reality is that he, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, always placed the sermon before the prayer. They mentioned that it is a condition for its validity, and the condition for a thing must precede it. I have not seen any jurists mention that the matter was as this report contains, nor have I found any of the hadiths meeting the conditions of acceptance that contain this. Yes, the scholar Ibn Hajar al-Haytami mentioned that some deviated from the consensus regarding the sermon being before the prayer. And Allah the Exalted knows best.

Since the verse is about those who dispersed and was revealed after the occurrence, they said that "idha" (when) here has moved from the future to being used for the past, as in the saying: "And a drinking companion... who gives me to drink when the stars have set." The pronoun is singular because the conjunction is with "or" (aw), and the pronoun for the "transaction" was chosen rather than for the "diversion" because it is the most important and intended object. The "diversion" refers to the tambourines and such that were used to meet the caravan, or because dispersing for trade, despite the need for it and the benefit derived from it, was considered blameworthy; so what then would you think of dispersing for a "diversion," which is blameworthy in itself?

It is said the pronoun refers to the "seeing" understood from "ra'aw" (they saw), but that is contrary to the apparent and immediate meaning. It is also said there is an ellipsis: the original being "if they saw a transaction they dispersed to it, or a diversion they dispersed to it," and the second was omitted because the first indicates it. This is countered by the fact that after a conjunction with "or," one does not need a pronoun for each; rather, referring to one of them is sufficient.

Al-Tayyibi said: It is possible to say that "or" in "or a diversion" is like in the verse: "She appeared like the horn of the sun in the brightness of the morning, and her form—or you—is more beautiful to the eye." Al-Jawhari said: He means "rather, you." The pronoun in "to it" (ilayha) refers to the diversion based on meaning. The secret in this is that if trade occupies the responsible person from the remembrance of Allah the Exalted, it is counted as a diversion, and it is considered a grace if it does not occupy him, as in the saying of the Exalted: "Then when the prayer is concluded, disperse in the land and seek of the bounty of Allah." This is the end of it, but it is nothing, as is obvious.

Ibn Abi Ablah read "ilayhi" (to it) with the pronoun of the diversion. It was also read "ilayhima" (to them both) as a dual pronoun, as in the saying of the Exalted: "If he is rich or poor, Allah is more worthy of them both." This is interpreted because after a conjunction with "or," since it is for one of the two things, the pronoun is not dualized, and neither is the predicate, state, or adjective. Thus, on this reading, "or" functions like "and," as was said regarding the verse we mentioned: "And they left you standing" (i.e., on the pulpit).

This is used as evidence for the legitimacy of standing during the sermon, which according to the Hanafis is one of its Sunnahs, and according to the Shafi'is, it is a condition for both sermons if one is able. Ibn Majah and others narrated from Ibn Mas'ud that he was asked: "Did the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, deliver the sermon standing or sitting?" He replied: "Do you not read, 'And they left you standing'?" Likewise, Ibn Sirin and Abu Ubaydah were asked and replied the same. The first to deliver the sermon sitting was Mu'awiyah. Perhaps that was due to his inability to stand, otherwise he would have contradicted the practice of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. Al-Bukhari, Muslim, Al-Tirmidhi, Al-Nasa'i, and Ibn Majah narrated from Ibn Umar that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, used to deliver two sermons and sit between them. Abu Hayyan mentioned that the first to take a rest during the sermon was Uthman, may Allah be pleased with him, and it seems he meant by "rest" something other than sitting between the two sermons, as that was the practice of him, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and Abu Bakr and Umar, may Allah be pleased with them.

"Say, 'What is with Allah is better than the diversion and than the trade'." This is because that is a confirmed benefit, unlike the benefit in them, for the benefit of the diversion is not confirmed but imagined, and the benefit of trade is not eternal. Placing the "diversion" before the "trade" is not a case of placing the non-existent before the existing, as some imagined, but because it is more blameworthy, so it was appropriate to place it first in the context of blame. Ibn Atiyyah said: Trade was placed before the diversion in the "seeing" because it is more important, and was placed after it with preference so that the soul might first fall upon the most obvious [meaning], which is close to what we mentioned.

Al-Tayyibi said: He placed what was formerly last first and repeated the preposition to signify absoluteness in each one and its independence in what was intended, so that it would differ from the previous mention where the meaning was unified, because that was in a specific incident. Sheikh Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi's—may Allah the Exalted forgive him—deduction of the permissibility of entertainments from this verse, because of the comparative superlative which implies the establishment of a basis of "goodness" for the diversion just like the trade, is something you know to be based on assumption and delusion. Even more strange is his deduction of that from the conjunction of permissible trade with diversion at the beginning of the verse. Most strange of all is that he wrote treatises on the permissibility of that which the group attributed to our Mawlana Jalal al-Din al-Rumi practice, circulating upon evidence weaker than the waist of a fawn revolving on the axis of coquetry. In their confrontation, there are lies with no foundation that no sane person would accept. I do not think what they do is anything but a net to hunt the bird of livelihood, and the ignorant think it is a salvation from the shackles of servitude. So beware of inclining toward that, and rely on Allah the King. "And Allah is the best of providers."

"So flee to Him, Glorified be He, and from Him, Mighty and Majestic is He, seek provision."

Evidence was derived from what occurred in the incident regarding the minimum number considered for the Jumu'ah congregation, that it is twelve, based on what is in most narrations that those who remained after the dispersal were that many. The way it serves as evidence is that the number considered at the beginning is considered in continuity. Since Jumu'ah was not invalidated by the dispersal of those beyond twelve, it indicates that this number is sufficient. The response to this is that although it indicates the validity of Jumu'ah with twelve men without doubt, it does not contain evidence for the requirement of twelve, nor that it is invalid with fewer. This is a specific incident, and the most it contains is that they dispersed and twelve remained and the Jumu'ah was completed by them. It does not state that if fewer had remained, it would not have been completed by them.

There is disagreement regarding what the Imam should do if people happen to disperse from him during Jumu'ah prayer. According to Abu Hanifah: If he remains alone or with fewer than three men, he must restart the Dhuhr if they dispersed before the bowing (ruku'). According to his two companions: If he has entered the prayer and they are with him, he continues. According to Zufar: If they dispersed before the sitting, it is void, because the number is a condition for the beginning, so it must be continuous, like time. They argue that it is a condition for the initiation, so its continuity is not required, like the sermon. The Imam argues that initiation is by entering the prayer, and that is not complete until the completion of the rak'ah, because anything less than that is not prayer, so it must be continuous until that point, unlike the sermon, because it contradicts the prayer, so its continuity is not required.

The majority of Shafi'is said: If the forty or some of them disperse during the prayer and he has not yet bowed after their dispersal in the first rak'ah, the number who heard the sermon becomes like them; the Jumu'ah is void, so they complete it as Dhuhr, for reasons similar to what Zufar said. In another opinion: It does not harm if two remain with the Imam, due to the existence of the name of "congregation," as what is not forgiven at the beginning is forgiven in continuity. The full discussion of this is in its place.

The Shi'a attacked the Companions, may Allah be pleased with them, because of this verse, claiming they preferred their worldly life over their afterlife when they dispersed to the diversion and trade and turned away from the prayer, which is the pillar of the religion and superior to many acts of worship, especially with the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. It is narrated that this occurred to them many times. The response is that the senior Companions, such as Abu Bakr and Umar and the rest of the ten promised Paradise, did not disperse. The incident was in the early days of the Migration, and most of the people had not yet fully adorned themselves with the ornaments of the manners of the Shari'ah. The people of Medina had been struck by hunger and high prices, and those who dispersed feared that the situation would worsen for them if others bought the food they needed to survive. That is why Allah the Exalted did not threaten them with fire or the like, but the furthest extent of what He, Glorified be He, did was that He chided, exhorted, and advised them. As for the narration that this happened to them repeatedly, if it refers to the report of Al-Bayhaqi in Shu'ab al-Iman from Muqatil ibn Hayyan that he said, "It reached me, and Allah knows best, that they did this three times," such a report is not to be paid attention to, nor is it relied upon by the hadith scholars. If it refers to something else, let it be clarified and its authenticity proven. In short, attacking all the Companions for this story, which happened from some of them in the early days of their affair and was followed by uncountable acts of worship, is manifest foolishness and abundant ignorance.