Mālik allows a sale to be concluded on the strength of a prior viewing—meaning when the article is so near at hand that one can be confident it has not altered—so take note of this.

Issue. The jurists unanimously hold that corporeal goods may not be sold on credit and that one of the conditions of such a sale is immediate delivery of the object to the purchaser as soon as the contract is concluded. Mālik, Rabīʿah, and a number of the scholars of Madinah, however, made an exception: they permitted the sale of a valuable slave-girl with the stipulation of muwāḍaʿah, yet did not allow the price to be paid in cash—just as Mālik disallowed cash payment in the sale of an absent article. The majority prohibited the transaction because it amounts to exchanging one debt for another and because no delivery takes place. It would seem, then, that the ban on debt for debt belongs to this very category—namely, the gharar that results when neither side makes delivery—rather than to the chapter on usury. We have already discussed the rationale behind the prohibition of debt for debt.

Related to this is Ibn al-Qāsim’s view that it is impermissible for a creditor to accept from his debtor, in settlement of the debt, fruit that has begun to ripen; he considered this a case of debt for debt. Ashhab, by contrast, allowed it and said, “Debt for debt exists only when nothing of either counter-value has yet been taken into possession,” meaning that taking delivery of the first portion of the price stands in place of taking delivery of the remainder. This is the ruling by analogy adopted by many Mālikīs and is likewise the opinion of al-Shāfiʿī and Abū Ḥanīfah.

Issue. The jurists of the major centres agree that one may sell dates that ripen in a single crop even if some of the fruit has matured while the rest has not. They differed, however, about produce that comes in successive crops. Mālik’s doctrine may be summarised thus: successive crops are either contiguous or not. Where the unformed part is not contained within what has already formed—as with fig-trees that bear early and late figs together—then, when the crops are contiguous, they are either distinguishable or indistinguishable. An example of the distinguishable is successive cuttings of clover harvested at intervals; an example of the indistinguishable is melons, cucumbers, eggplants, and gourds. For what is distinguishable and separable there are two reports—one permitting the sale and the other prohibiting it. For what is contiguous yet cannot be distinguished there is a single opinion, namely, permissibility. The Kūfan jurists, together with Aḥmad, Isḥāq, and al-Shāfiʿī, disagreed, saying: It is not lawful to sell one crop on condition that another crop be included.

Mālik’s argument in the indistinguishable case is that the earlier produce cannot realistically be kept until the later produce is ready; therefore, permitting the sale of what is still unformed together with what has formed and become good is analogous to allowing the sale of unripe fruit together with ripe fruit. The uncertainty of description here he likened to uncertainty about the very existence of the thing sold. It is as though he regarded the concession in this matter as analogous to the concession granted in the sale of fruit—namely, selling the ripe together with the unripe—because of necessity. His principle is that some forms of gharar are tolerated in cases of need. Hence, on one of the two reports from him, he forbade the sale of clover for more than one forthcoming cutting, because there is no necessity when each cutting is distinct. Those who allow such a sale in the case of clover do so by likening it to what cannot be distinguished, an analogy he considered weak. The majority, for their part, view all of this as selling what has not yet come into existence and as falling under the Prophet’s prohibition of selling fruit by advance arrangement (muʿāwamah). As for turnips, carrots, and cabbages, Mālik allows their sale once they have begun to ripen—that is, once they are fit to be eaten,