The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, "Whoever finds his property itself in the possession of a man, or a person, who has gone bankrupt has more right to it than anyone else."
قال رسول الله ﷺ: من أدرك ماله بعينه عند رجل- أو إنسان- قد أفلس فهو أحق به من غيره.
This was narrated by Bukhari in the chapter on borrowing (2402), and Muslim in the chapter on sharecropping (1559:22), both of them from Ahmad bin Abdullah bin Yunus, who said, Zuhayr bin Harb told us, Yahya bin Saeed told us, Abu Bakr bin Muhammad bin Amr bin Hazm informed me that Umar bin Abdul-Aziz informed him that Abu Bakr bin Abdul-Rahman bin Harith bin Hisham informed him that he heard Abu Hurairah say, and then he related it.Muslim also narrated it (24) through another route from Abu Hurairah with the wording, "If a man becomes bankrupt and another man finds his own goods with him intact, he has more right to them." In another version, "he has more right to them than the other creditors."As for what is reported from Umar bin Khaldah, who said, We came to Abu Hurairah regarding a companion of ours who had gone bankrupt, and he said, "I will judge between you according to the judgment of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, 'Whoever becomes bankrupt or dies, and a man finds his goods with him intact, he has more right to them,'" this is daif. It was narrated by Abu Dawud (3523), Ibn Majah (2360), Shafii (2/163), Hakim (2/50-51), and Bayhaqi (6/46), all of them through the route of Ibn Abu Dhib, who said, Abul-Mutamir bin Amr bin Rafi told me, from Ibn Khaldah Zurqi, who was the judge of Madinah, and then he related it.Hakim said, "Sahih in terms of its isnad." I say, it contains Abul-Mutamir, from whom no one narrated except Ibn Abu Dhib. Dhahabi mentioned him in al-Mizan and said, "He is not known." Others said, "He is unidentified."This hadith indicates that when a man becomes bankrupt and another man locates his goods with him intact, he has more right to them than anyone else. This is the position held by many scholars of knowledge. Uthman ruled accordingly, and it is also reported from Ali bin Abu Talib, and no dissent from either of them is known among the companions. This is also the view of Urwa bin Zubayr, and it was held by Malik, Shafii, Ahmad, and others.Abu Hanifa said, he is on equal footing with the other creditors, basing his argument on the hadith that comes after this one.