as we ruled in our fatwa. In the answer I gave at that time, following the answer of the jurist Ibn ʿAttāb—may Allah have mercy on him—I presented arguments supporting this interpretation of the transmitted report and establishing its soundness. My answer reads:

“I have carefully examined and considered your question—may Allah have mercy on us and on you. The answer given by the jurist Abū Muhammad—may Allah honour him—that someone who purchases an undivided sowing area of two zawj within a village has no right of pre-emption over any part of it subsequently sold is correct, and this is the view I hold. For the position of Mālik—may Allah have mercy on him—and all his followers is that pre-emption in immovable property applies only between co-owners, in accordance with the established report of ‘the Messenger of Allah’s ruling, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, that pre-emption applies between co-owners so long as boundaries have not been established.’

“By the consensus of the scholars, a co-owner is someone who shares ownership of the property itself with another person through a known, undivided share; neither bears alone, to the exclusion of the other, liability for any destruction, usurpation or successful claim of superior title affecting it. The purchaser of the two-zawj sowing area within the village, in the manner described in your question, is not a co-owner of the village with the seller, nor with anyone to whom it passes through purchase from the seller or his heirs. He has merely purchased a known area of its land. This is comparable to purchasing one garment from among several without specifying which one or stipulating a right to choose.

“Nevertheless, if a dispute arises over the purchase of the two-zawj sowing area, the legal ruling requires that all the village land be measured, that the proportion represented by the two-zawj sowing area be determined, and that the purchaser take it wherever it falls to him by lot, according to the rules of co-ownership. This applies when the parties have not specified in their sale the location from which he is to take that area. Whether they expressly described the purchase as undivided or said nothing about this, the ruling is the same. For if any part of the village land is subject to a successful claim of superior title, usurpation or destruction, the purchaser of the two zawj bears none of that loss unless the village land has been measured and both parties have formally acknowledged their consent to co-ownership in the proportion that the measured area of the two zawj bears to the measured area of the entire village. I know of no disagreement on this among any of the scholars.

“Once this has been established as we have explained, it follows that he has no right of pre-emption against the purchaser of the two-zawj sowing area. When scholars say of such a sale that it is permissible and that the two parties are co-owners, they mean only that, in the event of a dispute, the legal ruling requires partition between them according to the rules of co-ownership. They do not mean that the parties become co-owners immediately upon concluding the sale. Their words cannot validly be interpreted in that way under any circumstances.

“If, however, they concluded the sale of the two-zawj sowing area on this basis, stipulating that its purchaser would be a co-owner with the seller in the village in whatever proportion its measured area proved to bear to the measured area of all the village land once they had measured it, so that both would bear, in that proportion, any loss affecting the village after the sale through usurpation or