the crop to the owner of the land before its grain has hardened. According to the jurists, this is permissible, because he has sold the subsidiary property to the owner of the underlying property. The same applies to fruit: the fruit belongs to the seller because he sold the date palm after its fruit had been pollinated, so the fruit is his. But after the transaction was concluded, the purchaser asked the seller—to whom the fruit belonged—to sell him the fruit, and the seller was willing to do so. According to the jurists, this is valid, because he has sold the subsidiary property to the owner of the underlying property, and is therefore permissible.

They cite evidence from the hadith, saying: If the Prophet ﷺ permitted the purchaser to stipulate for the fruit to which the seller is entitled, because he owns the underlying property, then likewise, if the seller sells it to him after the transaction has been concluded, he has sold it to the owner of the underlying property.

If the seller sold a date palm bearing pollinated fruit and the purchaser stipulated that the fruit should belong to him, would this not be permissible?

The answer is: Yes, by the explicit wording of the hadith, in the Prophet’s ﷺ statement: “Unless the purchaser stipulates otherwise.” (1)

They say: If it is permissible to stipulate that the fruit belonging to the seller shall belong to the purchaser, then it is likewise permissible for the seller to sell the fruit to the purchaser of the tree, so that the fruit belongs to him.

We say: This is not correct, and the analogy is invalid, because stipulating for the fruit belonging to the seller occurs within a single transaction, in which the fruit is subsidiary to the underlying property. But if the first transaction has ended, and the two parties then wish to enter into a new transaction for the fruit before its ripeness has appeared, then that is not