Mount Yānūr, the Monastery of Ayyūb, and similar sites are frequented by Muslims: they go to the markets held there and bring in sheep, cattle, flour, wheat, and other goods. Their presence, however, is limited to the marketplaces where they purchase items; they do not enter the unbelievers’ shops, nor do they participate in their sales—rather, they only attend the markets. He said, “If they do not enter the unbelievers’ shops and merely attend the marketplace, there is no harm.”

Abū al-Ḥasan al-Āmidī stated, “As for the merchandise the unbelievers sell in their markets during their festivals, there is no objection to being present.” This is the explicit position of Imām Aḥmad in the narration of Mahnā. He said, “They are only forbidden to enter the unbelievers’ shops and churches; but as for food sold in the open market, there is no problem—even if one’s aim is to stock up on it and refine it on account of them.”

This wording is open to interpretation. On one reading, he allows attending the market without restriction, whether as seller or buyer, for he said, “If they do not enter their churches but only attend the market, there is no harm,” which includes both sellers and purchasers—especially if the pronoun in “they bring” refers to the Muslims, thereby explicitly permitting them to bring goods to the market.

The stronger likelihood, however, is that the concession pertains only to being present at the market and buying from the unbelievers, without addressing selling to them. The reason is that the questioner had asked solely about attending the marketplace the unbelievers set up for their festival, and concluded his query with, “They buy and do not enter their stalls.” The questioner was Mahnā b. Yaḥyā al-Shāmī, a scholar and jurist—God knows best—who had presumably heard the reports forbidding attendance at their festivals. He therefore asked Aḥmad whether attending their markets was tantamount to attending their festivals, and Aḥmad granted a dispensation.