ten dinars in order to receive twenty at a later date; this is what is known as the stratagem of “sales of deferment” (buyūʿ al-ājāl). We shall present one problem under the heading of rescission (iqālah) and another under the heading of these deferred-sale devices, for the purpose of this book is not exhaustive detail but the establishment of foundational principles.

Case One. The jurists do not differ over the following: if someone sells an item—for example, a slave—for one hundred dinars payable at a set term, then the seller regrets the bargain and asks the purchaser to undo it, on condition that the purchaser return the merchandise and hand him, say, ten dinars either in cash or on credit, the rescission is valid and unobjectionable. In their view, once an iqālah involves either an increase or a reduction it counts as an entirely new sale, and there is nothing wrong with a person’s selling something for a price and then buying it back for more. In the present case the original seller is buying from the purchaser the very slave he had sold, paying with the hundred dinars owed to him plus the ten extra—whether those ten are paid immediately or deferred. Likewise, there is no disagreement among them even if the original sale price consisted of one hundred dinars on term plus ten dinars, whether those ten are paid in cash or on term.

If, however, the buyer is the one who regrets the deal and seeks rescission on condition that he give the seller ten dinars either in cash or deferred to a date later than the original maturity, the jurists divide:

Mālik: It is impermissible.

Al-Shāfiʿī: It is permissible.

Mālik objects because the arrangement is a means of arriving at a sale of gold for gold on credit, or a sale of gold together with a commodity for gold. The buyer, in effect, pays ten dinars plus the slave in return for the hundred dinars he owes, and the transaction also combines a sale with a loan—as though the buyer had sold the slave to him for ninety and advanced him a loan of ten, payable on the date he himself must receive it from himself.

Al-Shāfiʿī, on the other hand, allows all of this because it is simply a fresh purchase, and he sees no difference between this case and that of a man who owes another one hundred dinars deferred, then buys a slave from him for the ninety dinars of debt and pays him ten dinars in cash—a transaction permitted by consensus. He adds: “It is not lawful to judge people on the basis of suspicion.”

If the first sale was conducted for cash, there is no disagreement that the rescission described above is permissible, since no sale of gold for gold on deferment is involved. Nevertheless, Mālik dislikes it for those known to practice ʿīnah transactions—that is, those who regularly extend credit—for he considers it a device for obtaining a loan in excess of the amount lent, achieved through a sham sale that possesses no real substance.

As for the contracts called “sales of deferment,” they consist in a man’s selling a commodity for a deferred price, then buying it back for another price—either for cash or on a different term.

There are nine possible variations when no extra commodity is added. In two of them the jurists disagree and in the remaining seven they agree. The pattern is this: someone sells something on credit and later buys it back. He may repurchase it for the very same maturity date, before that date, or after it; and in each of these three situations he may buy it for the same price he first sold it for, or for a lower price—