From this it follows that devising ruses to void the right of shufʿa flatly contradicts the very purpose for which the Lawgiver ordained it.

Shufʿa was already practiced by the Arabs before Islam. Whenever a man wished to sell his house or his garden, his neighbor, partner, or close associate would come to him and claim priority in purchasing it. The seller would then give that person precedence over everyone else. Because the claimant thus “paired” himself with the seller, the practice was called shufʿa and the claimant a shāfiʿ (pre-emptor).

In juristic usage, shufʿa is the partner’s entitlement to wrest his co-owner’s share from the one to whom it has been transferred for a monetary consideration. The pre-emptor takes the seller’s portion for exactly the price on which the original parties privately settled.

Accordingly, the buyer must hand over the disputed portion to the pre-emptor for the same price agreed upon, for Aḥmad and al-Bukhārī relate from Jābir (may Allah be pleased with him): “The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, ruled in favor of shufʿa for anything that has not yet been divided; but once the boundaries have been fixed and the access roads laid out, there is no shufʿa.”

This ḥadith proves that the right of pre-emption belongs to a co-owner and that it applies only to land and immovable property, not to movable goods, merchandise, livestock, and the like.

He, peace and blessings be upon him, also said: “It is not lawful for him to sell until he has first informed his partner,” which shows that a sale is impermissible until the property has been offered to one’s co-owner.

Ibn al-Qayyim said, “The Law has forbidden a partner to sell his share until he first notifies his fellow partner,”