Islam gives public interests precedence over private ones. In this hadeeth, ‘Umar (may Allah be pleased with him), knowing that wealth was becoming very scarce and that stinginess was prevailing, took pity on the following Muslim generations.Thus he decided to endow the lands seized by the Muslim army as spoils of war for the common benefit of all Muslims, rather than distributing them between the conquerors only, out of his mercy for the following Muslim generations, who would benefit from these lands and avail themselves of their yield. He (may Allah be pleased with him) stated that if it were not for the interests of the future Muslim generations, he would have distributed the lands seized by Muslims as spoils of war only between the conquerors, as did the Prophet ﷺ with the land of Khaybar, which was conquered in 7 A.H. Khaybar was a town located to the north of Al-Madeenah on the route to Shaam, 95 miles (153 km) from Al-Madeenah, and it was inhabited by Jews. The Prophet ﷺ allocated half of the lands to himself, and divided up the other half among Muslims, who had no farmers, and made agreements with the Jews to cultivate the lands in return for half the yield. However, ‘Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) decided that if he divided up all the lands they conquered between the Muslim soldiers only, nothing would be left for the future Muslim generations. The hadeeth highlights the ruler’s keenness to secure the present and future interests of Muslims. .