exchanges gold for gold, but one of the two piles turns out to weigh less than the other. The party whose gold is deficient then proposes to make up the shortfall with silver dirhams or with some other merchandise. Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, and al-Layth ruled that such a transaction is impermissible and that the murāṭalah is void, whereas Abū Ḥanīfah and the jurists of Kūfah declared it wholly permissible.

The Hanafis argue that one may simply assume full equivalence between the two amounts of gold and regard any excess as being exchanged for the non-gold item. Mālik’s rationale is the suspicion that the parties are really selling gold for gold with an unlawful surplus. Al-Shāfiʿī’s basis is the absence of parity in measure, weight, or count wherever an excess exists. A comparable disagreement arises when the exchange is conducted by count rather than by weight.

The Sixth Issue
They also disagreed about two men, one of whom is owed dinars by his companion while the other is owed dirhams by him: may they offset these debts and convert them while both sums remain mere liabilities? Mālik held that this is permissible provided both debts have already fallen due; Abū Ḥanīfah maintained that it is permissible whether they are due or not; al-Shāfiʿī and al-Layth said it is impermissible in either case. Those who forbid it argue that it is an exchange of an absent item for another absent item, and if absent-for-present is unlawful, absent-for-absent is even more so. Mālik, by contrast, treats the simultaneous maturity of the two debts as equivalent to hand-to-hand exchange, stipulating their joint maturity so that the deal does not become a sale of debt for debt. Ibn Wahb and Ibn Kinānah—both students of Mālik—adopted the view of al-Shāfiʿī.

A related dispute concerns two parties who wish to exchange a currency that neither of them currently possesses, on the condition that one of them hands it over before they separate. For example, they might both borrow the required sums during the session and then each take possession before parting. Al-Shāfiʿī and Abū Ḥanīfah allowed this; Ibn al-Qāsim deemed it objectionable when both parties were borrowers but treated it lightly when only one of them had borrowed. Zufar held that it is impermissible unless the borrowing is from one side only.

In the same vein they disagreed about a man to whom dirhams are owed until a set term: when that term falls due, may he take gold instead—or vice versa? Mālik judged it permissible provided possession is taken before the parties disperse, and Abū Ḥanīfah concurred, adding that it is also permissible even if the term has not yet fallen due. A number of scholars, however, disallowed it whether or not the term had arrived; this is the position of Ibn ʿAbbās and Ibn Masʿūd.

Those who allow it cite the ḥadīth of Ibn ʿUmar: “I used to sell camels in the Baqīʿ. I would sell for dinars and take dirhams, and sell for dirhams and take dinars. I asked the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—about that, and he said: ‘There is no harm in it so long as it is at the market price of the day.’”