through the slightest of stratagems.” The two Sahīh collections also report that he said: “Allah cursed the Jews: animal fats were forbidden to them, so they rendered them down, sold them, and consumed the proceeds.” The Sunan collections report that he, peace and blessings be upon him, said: “Whoever enters one horse between two others when he cannot be sure that it will be beaten is not gambling; but whoever enters one horse between two others when he is sure that it will be beaten is gambling.” He, peace and blessings be upon him, also said, as narrated by the compilers of the Sunan in the hadith of Amr ibn Shuayb, from his father, from his grandfather: “The two parties to a sale retain the option to rescind so long as they have not separated. Neither may leave the other for fear that he will ask to cancel the sale.”

The proofs from the Quran, the Sunnah, consensus, and sound reasoning that stratagems are prohibited are numerous. In what we wrote on the subject, we cited approximately thirty such proofs. We also mentioned the arguments invoked by those who permit them—such as Abū Ayyūb’s oath, the hadith concerning the dates of Khaybar, and the equivocal expressions used by the early Muslims—and gave our response to them.

One of the means leading to this is the buy-back transaction: a person sells another a commodity on deferred payment and then buys it back from him for less. When done by prior agreement, this invalidates both sales because it is a stratagem. Ahmad and Abū Dāwūd narrated through two sound chains from Ibn Umar that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said: “When you engage in buy-back sales, cling to the tails of cattle, and abandon jihad in the path of Allah, Allah will subject you to humiliation and will not lift it from you until you return to your religion.” If the two parties did not arrange it beforehand, they invalidate the second sale as a means of blocking