must be prevented from achieving his aim. However, if he knows the item’s value and knows that it is worth five, but buys it for ten in order to please the seller—for example, as some people do when they find a poor man with a small stall and ask, “How much is this, so-and-so?” He replies, “Ten,” while they know it is worth five, yet they buy it for ten—then he is not an unwary buyer, because he knows its value.

Likewise, if he sees a boy with a chicken worth ten and asks, “How much is this, my son?” The boy replies, “Twenty, uncle,” while he knows that it is worth ten. Yet, in order to encourage the boy and bring him happiness, he says, “Take these twenty.” Then, afterwards, he regrets it and says, “How could I pay twenty for something worth ten?” So he goes back to the boy and says, “My son, you gave me a bad bargain.” He has no option [to rescind the sale], because he knew its value and entered into the transaction knowingly.

His statement in al-Rawḍ (1), “and he is not skilled at bargaining,” apparently means that if he is skilled at bargaining, then he has no option even if he suffers an unfair disparity in price. An example is a man who does not know the value of items but is good at bargaining. He comes to a shopkeeper and asks, “How much is this recorder?” The shopkeeper replies, “It is worth two hundred riyals,” having placed a small label on it stating: “Two hundred riyals.” The man is good at bargaining, but he assumes that this is its market price, so he buys the recorder. Then, when he shows it to his companions, they say, “This is sold in the market for eighty riyals.” Thus, he has been overcharged by one hundred and twenty. He returns to the man and says, “This costs eighty riyals.” According to the author’s view, he has no option, because he is skilled at bargaining and able to negotiate the price down until it reaches eighty.