requires the conclusion that what had already been received was not prohibited. For this reason, during the Farewell Pilgrimage, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) annulled the outstanding usury that remained owed, but did not order them to return what had already been received. He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “Any apportionment made in the Age of Ignorance shall stand as apportioned, while any apportionment still pending when Islam came shall be made according to Islam’s rules of apportionment.”

He also recognized the marriages people had contracted during the Age of Ignorance and did not ask [anyone] for details: Had it been contracted while the woman was observing a waiting period or not? With a guardian or without one? With witnesses or without them? Nor did he order anyone to renew his marriage contract or separate from his wife, unless the circumstance rendering the marriage unlawful was still present when they embraced Islam. Thus, he “ordered Ghaylān ibn Salama al-Thaqafī, who embraced Islam while married to ten women, to retain four and separate from the rest”; he likewise “ordered Fayrūz al-Daylamī, who embraced Islam while married to two sisters, to choose one of them and separate from the other”; and the Companions similarly “ordered those Magians who embraced Islam to separate from women within the prohibited degrees of kinship.”

Muslims have therefore unanimously agreed that contracts concluded by unbelievers are deemed valid after they embrace Islam, provided that those contracts are not prohibited for Muslims—even though the unbelievers did not conclude them with authorization from the Lawgiver. If contracts, in their view, were like acts of worship and could be valid only when prescribed by revealed law, they would have ruled them invalid, or at least ruled invalid those whose parties had not adhered to any revealed law in concluding them.

If it is objected: The hadith jurists and the scholars of the Hijaz have unanimously agreed that when such contracts were concluded in a manner forbidden in Islam, but those concerned embraced Islam only after the forbidden circumstance had ceased, the contracts remain in force and they are not instructed to renew them, because Islam effaces all that preceded it. Accordingly, what they had contracted