The agent may, in turn, appoint another agent for any task that a person of his standing would ordinarily be unable to carry out,1 but he may not—without the principal’s express permission—conclude a contract with an insolvent person or a highway robber, nor sell on deferred payment, in exchange for mere usufruct, for goods in kind, or for any medium other than the local currency.

Section

Agency, partnership, profit-sharing investment (muḍārabah), orchard sharecropping (musāqāh), agricultural sharecropping (muzāraʿah), safekeeping (wadīʿah), and reward-based commission (juʿālah) are all revocable contracts: either party may terminate them at will. They are likewise annulled by the death of either party,2 by insanity, and by a court interdiction for prodigality wherever sound financial judgment is required.

An agency is also voided if either the principal or the agent lapses into open iniquity in a way that conflicts with the agency—such as initiating a marriage offer; if the principal becomes bankrupt in respect of property over which he has been legally interdicted; by his apostasy; by his declaring tadbīr or kitābah for a slave whose manumission he had entrusted to the agent; by his marital relations with a wife whose divorce he had delegated to the agent; and by any act from either party that signifies revocation.

The agent is removed from office by the principal’s death and by the principal’s dismissal3 of him, even if the agent is unaware of it; whatever property remains in his possession after dismissal is deemed a trust.