a man comes and says to the merchant, “Sell me the land in question at cost.” He replies, “I will sell it to you.” In that case, the seller does not know, while it is the agent who knows. Requiring the seller to know the original cost is more emphatic than requiring the buyer to know it, because the seller may suffer a substantial loss. For example, his agent may have bought it in a time of low prices for one hundred thousand, while it is worth two hundred thousand; or its price may have risen until it reaches double its value, while this merchant is unaware. If he then sells it at cost, and the agent says, “Its original cost was one hundred thousand,” when it is worth two hundred thousand or more, the seller will say, “This buyer has taken advantage of me and deceived me,” and he will feel regret in his heart—especially if he is among those eager for worldly gain.

They cite al-Mutanabbi’s words:

“I would be ruined by the ruins, if I did not linger there—
the lingering of a miser whose ring was lost in the dust.”

What a remarkable simile! The ruins are the remnants of dwellings. This is a miser who has lost his ring in the soil, so he remains searching through the dirt until he finds it.

In sum, for an option arising from misinformation about the price, both the seller and the buyer must know the original cost, because their lack of knowledge of it is ignorance, and ignorance entails excessive uncertainty. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ forbade sales involving excessive uncertainty (1).

Thus, if a man sells me an item at its original cost, and I ask him, “How much was the original cost?” and he tells me, “One hundred,” but it then becomes clear that the original cost was eighty, I have the option: if I wish, I may keep it, and if I wish, I may return it. This is the view followed