Assalamualaikum everyone,

`Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) narrates the following:

Usama approached the Prophet (ﷺ) on behalf of a woman (who had committed theft). The Prophet (ﷺ) said, “The people before you were destroyed because they used to inflict the legal punishments on the poor and forgive the rich. By Him Whose Hand my soul is! If Fatima (the daughter of the Prophet (ﷺ) ) did that (i.e. stole), I would cut off her hand.”

This hadeeth amazingly makes manifest how just our system is alhamdulillah. There is one rule for everyone irrespective of their financial standing, material wellbeing and physical strength.

Today many of us do not live under a centralised Muslim leadership to really feel the impact of this narration.

That said, the concept of the rich/strong having a Islamic standard applied to them as opposed to the standards applied to the poor/weak can be witnessed today.

I have come across situations where scholars have been threatened by the rich of their own community, when that scholar correctly passes a fatwa against the incorrect practices of the rich of his community or their children.

As a result, the scholar/s back down from speaking the truth with regards to them, to avoid harm, and a double standard of approach is applied. One for the rich/strong. And another for the poor/weak.

May Allah Almighty correct our affairs. Ameen.

Your brother,
Sajid Umar