the buyer had already been charged an inflated price on account of the salam advance; equity, therefore, does not demand that he refund anything above that amount. If, on the other hand, it was the buyer who advanced the price to the seller, then the seller had reduced the price for him because of the salam, and when the buyer becomes liable to pay the item’s value he must return it—so long as that value is not less than the price originally agreed upon. The only reason these transactions were prohibited in the first place is that an additional consideration was introduced in exchange for the advance, whereas the very purpose of a salam is to enable people to help one another. On this point Mālik shows greater juristic insight than anyone else.

The jurists disagreed over a different matter: if the salam condition is dropped before the buyer takes possession, is the contract valid or not? Abū Ḥanīfah, al-Shāfiʿī, and the rest of the scholars hold that the sale is null and void. Mālik and his companions maintain that it is not void—except for Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, who sides with the majority. Indeed, another report from Mālik concurs with the majority position.

The majority argue that a prohibition implies the invalidity of the act prohibited. Hence, if a sale is concluded in a corrupt form, removing the very clause that occasioned the corruption does not thereafter validate it—just as eliminating the physical cause of decay in a perishable object after it has spoiled does not restore it to its former state. Take note of this.

It is related that Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Sahl al-Barmakī put this question to the Mālikī scholar Ismāʿīl ibn Isḥāq: “What distinction is there between a salam sale and the following case? A man sells a slave for one hundred dinars and a cask of wine; once the contract is concluded, he says, ‘I waive the cask.’ The scholars unanimously declare such a sale void, so why should a salam sale be treated differently?” Ismāʿīl replied with an answer that carries no probative weight, and we have already discussed the matter.

Now that we have finished examining the fundamental principles governing invalid and valid sales alike—together with the primary rulings for sound transactions and the general shared rulings for corrupt ones—let us turn to what is specific to each of the four categories, setting out for each the issues that function as basic principles.