circumambulation between al-Safā and al-Marwa. Yet at the same time, they would sometimes break covenants that they had concluded without specific revealed authorization. Allah—Glorified is He—therefore commanded them, in Surat al-Nahl and elsewhere, to fulfill those covenants, except where they entailed something prohibited.

It is thus known that covenants must be fulfilled when they are not prohibited, even if their lawfulness has not been established by a specific revelation. This is like the covenants they concluded in the Age of Ignorance and were commanded to fulfill. We have already drawn attention to this principle and explained that nothing may be instituted as religion except what Allah has instituted, and nothing may be declared prohibited except what Allah has prohibited. For Allah censured the polytheists who instituted as religion that for which He had given no authorization and prohibited what He had not prohibited. If, without revealed evidence, we prohibit the contracts and conditions people use in their ordinary dealings, we will have prohibited what Allah has not prohibited. This is unlike agreements that entail instituting as religion something for which Allah has given no authorization, for Allah has prohibited the institution of anything as religion without His authorization. Thus, no act of worship may be instituted unless Allah has prescribed it, and no customary practice may be prohibited unless Allah has prohibited it.

Contracts used in transactions belong to customary practices and are entered into by Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Although they may, from another perspective, be means of drawing near to Allah—as are manumission and charity—they are not acts of worship whose practice requires revealed authorization.

If it is said: “Contracts alter what the Law has established. If the legal right to marital intimacy or the ownership of property exists in a particular state, and someone concludes a contract that removes it from that state, he has altered what the Law established. This differs from tangible things that have not been prohibited, since their permissibility undergoes no change.”

The reply is: There is no distinction between the two. Tangible things are either owned by a person or not. If they are owned, their transfer by sale or otherwise does not