the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—said: “Do not purchase dates until their ripeness becomes apparent and the danger of blight has passed.” He also said: “Their ripeness becomes apparent when they turn red or yellow.” These, then, are the hadiths in which the term [fruit] occurs.

The other reports explicitly concern date palms, such as the hadith of Ibn Abbās, reported in both Sahih collections: “The Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—forbade the sale of date palms until he ate some of their fruit or some of it was eaten.” In another version narrated by Muslim from Ibn Umar: “The Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—forbade the sale of date palms until their fruit began to color, and the sale of ears of grain until they turned white and were safe from blight. He forbade both the seller and the purchaser.” By “date palms,” their fruit is meant by consensus, for the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—permitted pollinated date palms to be purchased with the buyer stipulating that their fruit be included.

Thus, these texts are not verbally general so as to encompass every fruit on earth. Rather, their wording applies generally to everything familiar to those being addressed, while their meaning applies generally to everything analogous to it. As for what we have said is not prohibited, there is no explicit text prohibiting it, nor is it analogous to what those texts prohibit. Therefore, no evidence of prohibition encompasses it, and it remains permissible. This alone is evidence that it is not prohibited. It completes what we indicated at the outset: evidence negating prohibition—whether supplied by the revealed law or by the presumption that the existing ruling continues—establishes this conclusion, provided that no contrary evidence exists to displace and alter that ruling. We have already shown that no such evidence exists.

The second approach is to say: Even if we concede that the wording is general, such generality is not intended. Rather, it is restricted by the evidence we have mentioned—the kind of evidence by which general formulations such as this are restricted. Indeed, this general formulation is restricted by the Sunnah and consensus with respect to