Chapter on Agency (wakāla)

An agency contract is valid with any expression that conveys authorization. Acceptance may take place either immediately or after a delay, by any word or deed that signifies it. Whoever has the right to dispose of a thing may both appoint another as his agent with respect to it and act as an agent himself.

It is permissible1 to appoint an agent in every right that pertains to human beings2—whether contracts, their rescission, emancipation, divorce, revocation, or the acquisition of lawful things such as game, grass, and the like—though not for ẓihār, liʿān, or oaths. One may likewise appoint an agent in every divine right that admits representation, such as acts of worship and the ḥudūd, both in establishing them and in carrying them out. The agent4 may not delegate the matter entrusted to him unless that authority has been expressly granted to him.

Agency is a revocable contract; it is dissolved when either party revokes it, when either party dies, when the agent is dismissed, or when the prodigal5 is placed under interdiction.

A person commissioned to sell or to buy may not transact with himself or with his own child, nor may he sell by barter, on deferred payment, or for anything other than the currency in circulation in the locality. If he sells for less than the market price or