Teaching Mecca: Sanctity and the Unlawful Trade

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

Through his nineteen days the Prophet ﷺ taught the new Muslims their religion in many short sermons. First he reinstated the sanctity of Mecca: إِنَّ اللَّهَ حَرَّمَ مَكَّة, "Allāh made Mecca sacred the day He created the heavens and the earth, and it remains so till the Day of Judgement." No blood may be shed there, no game hunted, no tree's leaves plucked; it was never lawful to attack before him, nor after him, and for him only "for an hour of a day." Whoever says the Prophet ﷺ fought in it, tell him Allāh permitted His Messenger and has not permitted you. So strict were some Companions that they would not even shoo a pigeon that landed on them; and Allāh warns, وَمَن يُرِدْ فِيهِ بِإِلْحَادٍ بِظُلْمٍ, even to desire wrongdoing in Mecca invites punishment (22:25).

❧What May Not Be Sold

Every Meccan home held idols and wine, and Mecca ran a brisk trade carving idols to sell to pilgrims, a "souvenir" of shirk worth more for coming from Mecca. When the Prophet ﷺ forbade both, people tried to sell off their stock cheap; so he declared, "Allāh and His Messenger have forbidden the sale of wine, of carrion, and of idols." From this comes a settled rule of fiqh: what is unlawful to use is unlawful to sell, the idols were smashed and the wine poured into the streets, not passed on to others. In these same days he confirmed the prohibition of zawāj al-mutʿah (temporary marriage), which the Sunnī schools take as its final, standing ban.