Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah have mercy on him. What is meant is until the season of harvest and date-picking, not until the actual act of harvesting or picking dates, but until its season. Thus, if the salam seller says, “People have now begun harvesting or picking dates,” the term has fallen due. It is as though you can see the Companions of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, entering into salam contracts for produce for one or two years, then fulfilling them with dates at the time of date-picking, or with wheat at harvest.

However, according to the madhhab, this can be avoided quite simply: one may determine when the date-picking season is. If they say, “The date-picking season is in Rabi al-Awwal,” then we say, “until Rabi al-Awwal,” and the difficulty is resolved. In this way, we have fulfilled the condition required by those scholars without undermining the intended purpose. Since this can be done as a matter of precaution, it is preferable. Nevertheless, the correct view is that specifying harvest or date-picking in itself is permissible.

His statement, “nor until a particular day,” means because it has no effect on the price. Why did we stipulate that it must affect the price? They said: because this is the benefit of salam: the salam seller benefits from the advance payment, while the buyer benefits by receiving a greater quantity of the commodity sold. If the term has no effect on the price, then the benefit of salam is lost. The evidence is the statement of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, in the hadith of Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with them: “to a term.” He thereby restricted salam to a term; and “known” qualifies the term as being known. What the author has mentioned is the apparent meaning of the hadith. It has already been stated that the correct view is that the hadith explicitly requires a known term—meaning that, if payment is deferred, the term must be known. This is further supported by the fact that