to repay with excellence, and by instructing the creditor to pursue his claim with equal courtesy.
2. When the creditor asks for what is owed, the debtor must pay; for a solvent person to procrastinate is unlawful, since preventing someone from his due without excuse is sheer injustice.
3. The term maṭl (procrastination) itself implies that the prohibition on delay applies only once the creditor demands payment or otherwise shows a wish to collect his right.
4. This prohibition concerns only the solvent debtor; as for one who is poor or genuinely unable because of some impediment, he is excused and therefore not blameworthy.
5. It is forbidden to press an insolvent person and obligatory to grant him respite until ease, as Allah says: “And if someone is in hardship, then let there be postponement until ease” (al-Baqarah).
6. The apparent sense of the ḥadith is that if a debtor refers his creditor to a solvent person, the creditor is obliged to accept the referral; the juristic disagreement on this will be discussed, Allah willing.
7. By implication, if he refers him to someone who is not solvent, the transferee is not obliged to accept.
8. The scholars define a malīʾ (solvent person) as one who combines three qualities:
– Capability to pay, so he is not poor;
– Truthfulness in keeping his promise, so he is not a procrastinator;
– Susceptibility to being brought before a court, so he is not a dignitary who can use his status to avoid it, nor the transferee’s own father whom the judge would bar him from suing.
9. On the face of it, the ḥadith indicates that the debt shifts from the transferor’s liability to that of the person to whom it is transferred. The sounder view is that if the creditor accepts the transfer knowingly and willingly despite the transferee’s bankruptcy, death, procrastination, or the like, and does not stipulate the right to revert should recovery become difficult, he may not revert. However, if he is unwilling to be referred to an insolvent person—or he is willing but unaware of that person’s condition—he retains the right to revert to the original debtor when collection proves impossible or unduly burdensome. And Allah knows best.