Section

If the two parties to a currency exchange separate before taking possession of all or part of it, the contract is invalid with respect to whatever has not been received.

The author’s statement, “Section”: In this section, the author discusses the rulings of currency exchange, which is the sale of money for money. This does not depart from the previously mentioned principles concerning usury, but the jurists have devoted a separate section to it because of its many subsidiary issues and the length of its discussion.

His statement, “If the two parties to a currency exchange separate”: the two parties are those conducting a currency exchange. Linguistically, ṣarf means sound, as in the hadith of the Night Journey and Ascension: “until he reached a place where he heard the scratching of the pens” (1)—that is, their sound. In legal usage, ṣarf is the exchange of one currency for another: for example, selling gold for silver, or silver for silver—that is, dirhams for dirhams, or dirhams for dinars. It was called ṣarf because they used to weigh dirhams and dinars, buying and selling them by weight; when they were placed on the scales, they made a sound. Hence it was called ṣarf.

His statement, “before taking possession of all or part of it, the contract is invalid with respect to whatever has not been received”: that is, it is valid with respect to what has been received.

For example, if someone purchases one hundred dirhams for ten dinars, this is a currency exchange. If each of them receives what is due to him, the contract is valid—that is, it becomes clear that the contract is valid. But if he gives him only fifty dirhams and they then separate, the contract is valid with respect to fifty dirhams, corresponding to five dinars, while the remainder is invalid. This is based on the principle of dividing a single transaction, whereby part of it may be valid while another part is not.