Ibn al-Mundhir stated that such a sale was deemed permissible by Mālik and the people of Medina, Ubayd Allah [ibn al-Hasan] and the people of Basra, the hadith scholars, and the jurists of reasoned opinion. Al-Shāfiī once held that it was impermissible, but when the hadith of Ibn Umar reached him, he retracted that position and adopted the view of permissibility. Ibn al-Mundhir said, “I know of no one who rejects this view.”

Nevertheless, some of al-Shāfiī’s followers attributed two positions to him and maintained that permissibility was his earlier position. He went so far as to prohibit the sale of specific property that was not present, whether or not it had been described, construing the sale of absent property as gharar even when it was described. With respect to obligations owed—such as a debt arising from a prepaid forward sale—he required a degree of descriptive detail and precision that no one else required. Consequently, under such a view, it becomes impossible or extremely difficult for people to conduct transactions involving either specific property or obligations.

By analogy with sales involving gharar, he extended this ruling to all contracts, whether gratuitous or for consideration. He therefore required the wages of a hired worker, the compensation paid in a wife-initiated divorce, payments under a manumission contract, settlements with people under truce, and the jizya imposed on protected non-Muslim subjects to satisfy the same conditions that he required in sales, whether involving specific property or an obligation. Regarding their kind, quantity, and quality, he permitted only what would likewise be permissible in a sale, even though such contracts may not be invalidated by defects in their countervalues or may be governed by other conditions.

Abū Hanīfa, on the other hand, permits broad beans and similar produce to be sold while still enclosed in both layers of husk. He permits a laborer to be hired in return for his food and clothing, and allows uncertainty in a dowry to the same extent as the uncertainty inherent in the customary dowry payable to a comparable woman. He also permits specific property that is not present to be sold without a description, provided the purchaser retains the option to rescind, because he recognizes contracts whose legal effect remains suspended. Nevertheless, he absolutely prohibits produce-sharing contracts for tending orchards or cultivating fields, as well as similar transactions. Al-Shāfiī permits the sale of some of these things, but he too prohibits many conditions in sales, leases, marriages, and other contracts when they depart from the contract’s unrestricted terms.