– The seller says to the buyer, “Throw this pebble; whichever garment it lands on is yours for such-and-such a price.”
– Or the seller says, “If I strike this garment with the pebble, it is sold to you for such-and-such,” making the very act of throwing the pebble the sale itself.
– Or he blocks off a flock of sheep, for example, takes a pebble and says, “Whichever ewe the pebble hits is yours for such-and-such.”
– Or he says, “I sell to you on condition that you may choose (to finalize or cancel) until I throw this pebble; once I cast it, the sale becomes binding.”
– Or he sells him, from his land, the area that the pebble reaches when thrown.
These and their many variations are all pre-Islamic transactions riddled with gharār, risk, and ignorance; therefore Islam has forbidden them.
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The ḥadith conveys a prohibition of sales involving gharār; such a prohibition means the transaction is unlawful and, consequently, invalid.
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Gharār is any risk whose outcome is unknown to you—something whose reality is concealed and whose result is hidden.
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The ban on gharār occurs in many ḥadiths.
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Al-Nawawī said: “The prohibition of gharār sales is a fundamental principle in the Book of Transactions; it embraces countless issues, such as selling a runaway slave, something non-existent, something unknown, something the seller cannot deliver, something not yet fully owned by the seller, fish still in abundant water, milk still in the udder, the unborn foetus, one garment out of several, one sheep out of a flock, and similar cases. All of these are void because they involve significant gharār without any necessity.”
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Shaykh al-Islām said: “As for gharār, the basic ruling is that Allah has forbidden in His Book the devouring …”