His statement: “It is not valid to sell the salam goods before taking possession of them,” whether they are sold to the seller himself or to an unrelated third party, because this is the sale of a debt owed by another, and the purchaser may or may not be able to take possession of it. This is also based on the hadith: “Whoever enters into a salam contract for something, let him not divert it to something else” (1). However, this hadith is weak and cannot be used as evidence.

If someone were to ask: Is it then permissible to sell the salam goods before taking possession of them?

The answer is: Yes, it is permissible to sell them to the salam seller. Shaykh al-Islam also held that it is permissible to sell them even to a third party, but this is open to question. In reality, if you sell them to someone other than the person who owes them, he may be unable to obtain them. Moreover, if you sell them to someone other than the person who owes them for a deferred payment, that means you have not received payment. Thus, this broad allowance does not seem at all clear to me. Shaykh al-Islam permits the sale of a debt to someone other than the debtor, but he stipulates that it must be possible to recover it. However, if it is sold to the salam seller, then three conditions are required:

First: no profit may be made; rather, it must be sold at its price on that day. For if he sells it for more than its price on that day, he has profited from something for which he has not assumed liability. The Prophet ﷺ forbade profiting from what one has not assumed liability for (2). For example, a person enters into a salam contract for one hundred sāʿs of wheat, and when they fall due their value at the time of delivery is only two hundred dirhams. He then says, “I will sell them to you for two hundred and fifty dirhams.” This is not