or the like. Thus, he was not coerced into selling the house, and the sale is therefore valid.

It remains to be asked: is it disliked to buy his house from him, since he has been compelled to sell it and does not wish it to leave his ownership?

The jurists said that it is disliked to buy it from him (1).

Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah said: It is not disliked, because by purchasing it from him, we are doing him a kindness by relieving his necessity. The correct view, however, is that the matter requires further detail:

If all the people were to refrain from buying it, and this would cause the person coercing him to relent, then we say that it is prohibited to buy it from him. We must refrain from buying it if we know that doing so would remove the coercion.

But if the person coercing him cannot be made to relent, then there is no reason for considering it disliked to buy it from him. Rather, buying it from him is, in reality, an act of kindness toward him.

And the contracting party must be legally competent to transact. The transactions of a minor or a spendthrift are invalid without the permission of a guardian.

His statement, “And the contracting party must be legally competent to transact,” is the second condition: that the contracting party be legally competent to transact.

The contracting party is the seller and the buyer. Here, he said, “legally competent to transact,” rather than, “legally competent to make gratuitous dispositions,” because it is not a condition that either the seller or buyer be competent to make gratuitous dispositions. Rather, the condition is that he be legally competent to transact. Gratuitous disposition is more restricted than transaction: whoever is competent to make gratuitous dispositions is competent to transact, but not everyone who is competent to transact is competent to make gratuitous dispositions.

A person legally competent to transact is one who possesses four qualities: he must be free, mature, sane, and financially prudent.