fruit before signs of its ripeness appear, unlike the case in which he leases him the land and trees to tend them. That—as you have established—does not fall within the general wording, because it is a lease to one who will do the work, not a sale of a specified item. This, however, is a sale of the fruit and therefore falls under the prohibition. How, then, can you contravene the prohibition?”

We reply: The answer to this is the same as the answer concerning what the Sunnah and consensus permit: purchasing trees together with their fruit before signs of its ripeness appear; purchasing land together with crops whose grain has not yet hardened; and what we defended concerning the purchase of cucumber patches, even though some of their produce has not yet come into existence. The answer proceeds in two ways:

The first is to say that the wording of the prohibition does not encompass this case. The Prophet’s prohibition—peace and blessings be upon him—against selling fruit was understood as referring to the form of sale familiar to those addressed and to comparable transactions, because the definite article refers to what the audience recognizes. If a particular individual or a particular kind is conventionally understood, the wording refers to it. Thus, “the Messenger” refers to the particular messenger intended in the words of the Exalted: “Do not make your calling of the Messenger among yourselves like your calling of one another” [al-Nūr: 63] [al-Nūr: 63], and in His words: “But Pharaoh disobeyed the messenger” [al-Muzzammil: 16]. Likewise, the wording referred to a particular kind in his prohibition against selling fruit [for fruit], for Muslims do not disagree that “fruit” here means fresh dates, not grapes or anything else. If the conventionally understood referent is neither a particular individual nor a particular kind, the wording refers to [generality] [and the definiteness of the genitive complement]. Thus, the sale involving fruit mentioned here is the sale of the fruit familiar to them; it was included just as the second and third generations were included in what the Messenger addressed to his Companions.

A parallel is what Ahmad mentioned regarding “the Prophet’s prohibition—peace and blessings be upon him—against a man urinating