Amana (trust, deposit and what is entrusted)

Amana is the opposite of betrayal. It covers the religious duties and anything entrusted to a person, such as worship and a deposit, as well as family and property. ¹

• The thing held by the trustee: a deposit (wadi'a), which is narrower than amana; contracts where trust is secondary, such as hire, loan, silent partnership, agency, partnership and pledge; and the trusts that the Law imposes, such as a found object, or property blown into one's house by the wind. ¹
• A quality: trustworthiness in a cost-plus sale (murabaha, tawliya and istirsal), in offices such as judge, guardian and the manager of an endowment, and in those whose words carry a legal effect, such as a witness. ¹²

• Taking a deposit or a found object is permitted in principle; it is recommended for one who can keep and return it, obligatory for one who fears that the thing will be lost or taken by a thief, and forbidden for one who cannot keep it or does not trust himself. ²
• The trust must be kept according to its kind: a deposit in a suitable place, a loan or a hired thing without transgression or neglect, and profit-sharing capital without going against what was permitted. ²
• It must be returned on demand, following the Qur'anic command in the Nisa surah and the hadith "return the trust to the one who entrusted you". ²
• Liability arises from denial, transgression or neglect, and falls away if the thing is lost without these. For loans, the Hanbalis and Shafi'is hold the borrower liable, unlike the others. ²³
• A trustee who refuses to return deposits, orphans' property, endowment revenues or what agents and partners hold may be punished. ³
• In a cost-plus sale, if betrayal is found the buyer may choose. ³
• Guardians, endowment managers and judges must be trustworthy, and one whose betrayal is shown is dismissed; the testimony of a betrayer is not accepted. ³⁴
• Swearing by trust joined to God's name is an oath that carries expiation, according to most jurists. ⁴

The Sheikh tells of a boy whose mother told him never to disclose the Prophet ﷺ's secret ⁵. The narrator in the story says that his father died while he was still in his mother's womb, that at the age of ten he sat in the gatherings of grown men to learn how they speak, and that his mother would tell him as he left the gathering to bury what the men had said (needs_source) ⁶. The Sheikh comments admiringly on this upbringing and links it to the principle that gatherings are held in trust ⁶.