meaning, when their debts are payable in cash or in goods different from those held. If, however, their debts are payable in goods of the same kind, the loss falls on the creditors, because those goods can be divided proportionately among them without needing to be sold. His position, in sum, is that the debtor bears the risk of loss for whatever needs to be sold, since it is sold while still his property, whereas the creditors bear the risk for whatever does not need to be sold. Asbagh said: in the event of death, the loss falls on the creditors; in the event of insolvency, it falls on the insolvent debtor.
Section
As for the fourth topic—determining how proportional distribution is to be made—the ruling is that the debtor’s assets should be converted into the kind of property in which the creditors’ debts are payable: dinars if their debts are payable in dinars; dirhams if in dirhams; food if in food of uniform specifications; or goods if in goods of uniform specifications. If their debts differ—some payable in dinars and others in dirhams, or in dinars and goods, or in dirhams and food, and so forth—the debtor’s assets should be converted into cash, either dinars or dirhams, with a choice between the two if both currencies circulate in the locality. Debts owed to him are sold unless the creditors agree to leave them until they can be collected when due.
The total of their debts is then calculated if they are of uniform specifications, or their value if they differ, whether or not they have fallen due. This is because insolvency undermines the debtor’s capacity to discharge his obligations and therefore makes his debts immediately due, just as death does. Allah, Almighty and Majestic, says:
“After the fulfilment of any bequest he makes or the payment of any debt.” [al-Nisā: 11]
This is Ibn al-Qāsim’s position. Sahnūn said that goods owed for deferred delivery are valued on the day insolvency is declared, on the basis that they will be received at the stipulated time. This is far-fetched, because if the assets were sufficient, the creditor would receive his entire entitlement immediately. And if he maintains this regarding