invalidate the sale, for a sale of someone else’s property is not valid. Thus, two rights become attached to the car: the right of the purchaser and the right of the person in whose favor the acknowledgment was made. If we were to accept the acknowledgment, we would fulfill the latter’s right, but at the purchaser’s expense. Yet if we uphold the purchaser’s right, the right of the person in whose favor the acknowledgment was made is not lost. Hence, the author says, “the sale is not rescinded.” The sale therefore remains in force, but I am liable to compensate the person in whose favor the acknowledgment was made for the value of the car, since I have acknowledged that the car belongs to him and that I disposed of it even though it was not my property. I must therefore guarantee its value.
If someone asks: Why is the sale not rescinded? The answer is that this is an acknowledgment affecting another person’s right. The purchaser has acquired apparent legal ownership of the car, so the seller’s acknowledgment cannot be accepted against him.
However, if the purchaser confirms the seller’s statement, the sale is then rescinded, because the purchaser has acknowledged that he has no right to the car, since the seller sold him something he did not own. This is the first circumstance in which the sale is rescinded.
The second circumstance is when the seller produces evidence. If he says, “I can produce evidence that, on the day I sold it to you, it belonged to so-and-so,” then the sale is rescinded.
Thus, if a man sells something to another person and then claims that it belonged to someone else, then if he produces evidence, the evidence is accepted and the sale is rescinded. If he produces no evidence, but the purchaser confirms his statement, the sale is rescinded. If the purchaser does not confirm it, the sale is not rescinded; it remains in force, and the one making the acknowledgment is liable to compensate the person in whose favor it was made. This is undoubtedly in the very interest of justice, for some people who do not fear Allah, exalted is He, may sell something, regret having sold it, and realize that they have no way to rescind the sale. They then bring a man and say, “I want to acknowledge that the item sold belongs to you,” so that the sale will be rescinded. Or he may say something even more blatant to him: “Claim against me that the car which”