and they also cite his—peace and blessings be upon him—prohibition of selling one animal for another on credit.
The principal evidence marshalled by those who permit salam in livestock is the report transmitted from Ibn ʿUmar:
“ The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, ordered him to equip an army. When the camels were exhausted, he instructed him to procure them against the young she-camels of the zakāt herd, so he took one camel in exchange for two to be repaid from the zakāt camels.”
They likewise invoke the ḥadīth of Abū Rāfiʿ:
“ The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, borrowed a young camel.”
They argue that all this proves that livestock may validly be established as a liability in one’s debt.
Their disagreement, then, rests on two considerations:
- The conflicting nature of the transmitted reports on the subject; and
- Whether livestock can, or cannot, be sufficiently fixed by detailed description.
Whoever focuses on the enormous variation among animals in build and attributes—especially behavioural traits—concludes that they cannot be precisely defined; whereas whoever looks to their general similarity maintains that they can.
A comparable difference appears with eggs, pearls, and other items: Abū Ḥanīfah did not permit salam in eggs, while Mālik allowed it when they are specified by number.
The same applies to meat: Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī deemed it permissible, whereas Abū Ḥanīfah forbade it.
So too with heads and trotters: Mālik allowed it, Abū Ḥanīfah disallowed it, and varying opinions are reported from both Abū Ḥanīfah and al-Shāfiʿī.
Likewise, with pearls and gem-settings: Mālik permitted it, while al-Shāfiʿī prohibited it.
Our purpose in raising these questions is merely to lay down the basic principles that govern the Sharīʿah, not to catalogue every subsidiary ruling, for such particulars are beyond count.
As for its conditions, some are unanimously accepted and others are controversial.
The points of agreement are six:
• That both the price and the commodity belong to categories in which deferment (nasāʾ) is lawful, and that salam is invalid where deferment is forbidden. This rests, according to Mālik (may Allah have mercy on him), on the homogeneity of benefits; according to Abū Ḥanīfah, on the sameness of genus; and according to al-Shāfiʿī, on the combination of genus and taste in the rationale of nasāʾ.
• That the commodity be precisely quantified—by volume, weight, or number when quantification is appropriate, or by an exact description when its value lies in its qualities.
• That it exist when the appointed term falls due.
• That the price not be deferred for a lengthy period, lest the transaction become the forbidden “a deferred consideration for a deferred consideration.”
Concerning a brief delay of two or three days in handing over the price, the jurists agreed that a lengthy or indefinite postponement is impermissible. Mālik nevertheless allowed stipulating a deferment of two or three days, and even regarded such a short delay as valid without prior stipulation. Abū Ḥanīfah, on the other hand, maintained that one of the conditions of salam is immediate mutual possession in the very session of contract, as in currency exchange.
These, then, are the six conditions upon which consensus has been recorded.