She found a watch in Makkah, then she threw it in the trash

Question: 220753

I went for Hajj, and I stayed for a month. After I arrived, I did ‘umrah and exited ihram. One day I circumambulated the Ka‘bah, and I found a watch that was not of any value, as some parts of it were broken, but it was working. At that time my watch was not working, and I needed to know the time, especially the times of prayer, because I was staying in al-‘Azeeziyyah, which is far away from the Haram. So I picked it up and used it during my stay in Makkah, then when I had finished the rituals of Hajj and I went to Madinah, I got rid of it by throwing it in the trash. What is the ruling on what I did? How can I expiate this sin? Please note that I think it most likely that I was not in a state of ihram. What is the expiation if I was in a state of ihram and if I was not in a state of ihram?

Praise be to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah and his family.

Firstly:

Islamic teaching
is very strict concerning the ruling on what one may find of lost property
in Makkah, to the extent that the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be
upon him) said: “Its lost property is not permissible except for one who
will announce it.”

Narrated by al-Bukhaari
(109) and Muslim (2414).

What is meant by
lost property is anything that a person may drop or lose.

What is meant by
one who will announce it is one who will look for and ask about its owner.

What this hadith
means is that whoever finds any property in Makkah, it is not permissible
for him to pick it up unless he will stay and ask about its owner for the
rest of his life, and if he dies before finding its owner, he will leave
instructions to his children to ask about its owner or his heirs after him…
And so on.

As for property
that a person may find outside Makkah, he should ask about its owner for an
entire year, then after one year has passed he may make use of it, if he
does not find its owner.

This strict
teaching in Islam concerning lost property in Makkah is intended to protect
the property of the pilgrims performing Hajj and ‘umrah.

If a person sees
lost property and knows that if he picks it up he has to look for and ask
about its owner for the rest of his life, in most cases he will never pick
it up; rather he will leave it where it is, and this is what will be done by
everyone who sees it, until the owner of that property comes along and finds
his property in the place where he lost it.

Shaykh al-Islam
Ibn Taymiyah (may Allah have mercy on him) said: This is one of the unique
characteristics of Makkah. The difference between it and all other cities in
that regard is that people leave it and go to different regions, so the one
who has lost something will never be able to look for it and ask about it,
in contrast to other cities.

End quote from
Zaad al-Ma‘aad (3/398)

Shaykh Ibn
‘Uthaymeen (may Allah have mercy on him) said:

Lost property in
Makkah al-Mukarramah (which is anything that a person may come across) is
unique in that it is not permissible for anyone to pick it up except someone
who wants to announce it forever, or hand it in to the authorities who deal
with such property, because the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be
upon him) said: “Its lost property is not permissible except to one who will
announce it.” The wisdom behind that is that if lost property is left where
it is, perhaps the owners will come back and find it. End quote from
Fataawa Islamiyyah (2/311)

Based on that,
anyone who finds lost property in Makkah should leave it where it is, unless
there is the fear that someone may come and take it for himself, in which
case he may take it and give it to those who are in charge of looking after
lost property. People know that anyone who has lost something may go and ask
the government department that is in charge of that.

This is the
ruling on picking up lost property in Makkah.

This is what you
should have done when you found that watch then picked it up.

The fact that
you threw it in the trash indicates that you were afraid that you had done
something haraam, so you wanted to get rid of it so that you would not fall
into sin, but this was another mistake, and will not save you from the sin
of having taken it, because this is wasting and destroying property, and
Islam forbids us to waste wealth.

Secondly:

With regard to
your saying that this watch had no value at all,

it is not one of
the conditions of it being obligatory to look for and ask about the owner of
what one finds of lost property that it should be valuable; rather the
condition is that it should have value in the sense that the owner cares
about it and if he loses it he will ask about it, which is usually the case
with watches; their owners usually care about them and ask about them.

Thirdly:

As you did not
do what you were required to do when you picked up that watch, what you must
do now is give the value of that watch in charity on behalf of its owner,
and he will have the reward of that charity, and you will have repented from
that mistake and absolved yourself of sin. Thus you may expiate for this
sin.

It makes no
difference whether you were in a state of ihram or not at the time when you
picked it up.

We ask Allah,
may He be exalted, to accept your repentance.

And Allah knows
best.

Source:

Islam Q&A

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