One who prefers Mālik’s opinion may argue as follows: since the two parties own the right to amend the contract or even rescind it altogether, and thereafter turn the pledge into security for both debts, they likewise own the right to keep the contract intact while making the pledge secure them both (1). What benefit or advantage could they possibly gain by dissolving the agreement, breaking it off, and thereby endangering the claim through the annulment of the pledge?

It is well-known that the Lawgiver does not legislate anything futile or devoid of benefit (2). He would never instruct the parties, “If you wish to enlarge the debt, first cancel the pledge contract and void it, then add the increase,” when simply modifying its description is easier for them, less costly, and manifestly more beneficial.

Your assertion that “every part of the debt is attached to the whole of the collateral” (3) is not unanimously accepted among the jurists. Abū Ḥanīfa, in one of the two reported opinions, held: “If a man pledges two items for a single claim and one of them is lost, the remaining item stands pledged only for the portion of the claim that corresponds to it, not for the whole.”

Even if we concede that the pledge covers every portion of the claim, that still would not prevent the same item from becoming security for another claim by mutual agreement—just as would be allowed if they altered (4) the contract, if the pledge were still optional and not yet binding, or if something occurred that exposed its binding force to removal.

Nor is your analogy (5) between adding to the debt and pledging the item to a different creditor sound.