Section
As for uncertainty concerning the time for payment of the price or delivery of the goods, examples include selling someone goods for a price payable upon Zayd’s arrival or death, or paying him in advance for goods to be delivered at a similarly defined time, and comparable cases.
Section
When a sale involving uncertainty takes place, it must be rescinded so long as the goods remain returnable. If they can no longer be returned while in the buyer’s possession, the sale is regularized at their assessed value. According to Ibn al-Qāsim, the risk remains with the seller until the buyer takes possession, even if the buyer has paid the price or has been called upon to take delivery. Abū Zayd narrated from Ibn al-Qāsim that the risk remains with the seller even after the buyer takes possession, but this is an unlikely view. Ashhab said that the risk passes to the buyer, even while the goods remain with the seller, if the buyer has paid the price or has been called upon to take delivery, even without having paid the price.
Section
Those who hold that the risk does not pass to the buyer until he takes possession differ over whether his making a disposition concerning the goods—such as manumission, sale, charitable donation, gift or a similar transaction—constitutes taking possession and renders the goods no longer returnable. There are four views:
(First) None of these dispositions constitutes taking possession or renders the goods no longer returnable. This is Sahnūn’s view.
(Second) All of them constitute taking possession and render the goods no longer returnable. This is Ibn al-Qāsim’s view in the Book of Defects, for he regarded a charitable donation as rendering the goods no longer returnable; all the more, then, should this apply to the other dispositions.
(Third) None of these dispositions renders the goods no longer returnable except manumission, because of its inviolability. This is Ibn al-Qāsim’s view in the aforementioned book, in his statement concerning a sale: if the first buyer had taken possession of the goods.
(Fourth) Only manumission and sale constitute taking possession and render the goods no longer returnable.
Section
According to Mālik and all his followers, selling absent goods on the basis of a description falls outside the sales involving uncertainty prohibited by the Prophet ﷺ, contrary to al-Shāfi‘ī—may Allah Most High have mercy on him—who said: