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This applies to fruit. As for vegetables, different rulings have been transmitted from Mālik, may Allah have mercy on him. On one occasion, he said that a price reduction is granted for both minor and substantial losses; on another, he said that vegetables follow the same rule as fruit: no reduction is granted for calamity damage unless it amounts to one third or more.
The basis for his view that both minor and substantial losses warrant a reduction is the general wording of the report:
“The Prophet, peace be upon him, ordered that price reductions be granted for calamity damage.”
This encompasses both fruit and vegetables. Fruit was excluded from this general rule by the evidence indicating that exception, while vegetables remain subject to the original, general rule. Moreover, some loss of fruit is customary because it needs to be left on the palm trees, and the buyer enters the transaction accepting this. Vegetables are different: it is not customary for them to perish, either wholly or in part; rather, they ordinarily remain entirely intact. Accordingly, a reduction must be granted for both minor and substantial losses.
The basis for his view that a reduction is granted only for losses of one third or more is an analogy with other fruit, the shared rationale being that the reduction compensates for calamity damage to growing produce. It has also been related from Mālik that no reduction whatsoever is granted for calamity damage to vegetables. Another reported view distinguishes between vegetables for which musāqāh (crop tending in return for a share of the yield) is permissible in cases of incapacity—such as radishes, carrots, and turnips—and those for which it is not. For the former, no reduction is granted unless the loss reaches one third; for the latter, a reduction is granted for both minor and substantial losses. This is Sahnūn’s transmission from Ibn al-Qāsim in al-ʿUtbiyyah, and the same appears in Ibn al-Mawwāz’s book. It differs from what is stated in al-Mudawwanah.
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As for determining which produce qualifies for a reduction on account of calamity damage and which does not, the governing principle concerns anything that the buyer cannot remove without spoiling it. An example is fruit purchased when it first shows signs of ripeness: the buyer cannot harvest it before it has fully ripened without spoiling it. Such fruit qualifies for a reduction for calamity damage until it has fully ripened, by agreement among those who hold such reductions to be obligatory. This is because the buyer has a right against the seller to have the fruit left on its plants so that it may develop properly and fully ripen. The seller therefore still owes him full performance in this respect. Do you not