and Muḥammad.
They said:
No explicit statement from Mālik on this point has come down to us, save that—according to him—selling an unmeasured bulk (juzāf) is permissible, except where the element of uncertainty (gharar) becomes great, as his school has already explained.

Know that in salam the quantity must be fixed by weight in commodities normally weighed, by volume in those measured by volume, by linear measure in what is sold by length, and by count in what is sold by number. If none of these modes applies, the transaction is regulated by specifying the desired qualities of the genus, naming the genus when it comprises various kinds and omitting the name when it is a single kind.

The jurists unanimously agree that salam is contracted only as a liability (dhimmah) and cannot attach to a specific, identified item. Mālik nevertheless allowed salam for produce drawn from a particular village, provided the village is secure, evidently treating such a specification as tantamount to a liability.

Second Chapter
On what the seller in salam may lawfully deliver in place of the commodity stipulated in the contract

This chapter discusses what the seller may hand over instead of the item for which the salam was concluded, together with the possibilities of rescission, acceleration, and deferment. It contains many subsidiary issues, but we shall mention the most prominent.

Issue
The scholars differed about a person who has made salam for a certain kind of fruit, and when the term falls due delivery proves impossible so that the fruit disappears from the market and its season ends.

The majority held that, in such a case, the buyer in salam may choose either to take back his money or to wait until the following year. This is the position of al-Shāfiʿī, Abū Ḥanīfah, and Ibn al-Qāsim. Their proof is that the contract concerns an item described in the seller’s liability; it therefore remains intact, and its validity is not conditioned on the produce being from the current year. The specification of the present year was merely a stipulation by the buyer, and with respect to that stipulation he has discretion.

Ashhab, one of Mālik’s companions, maintained that the salam is automatically dissolved and postponement is impermissible, evidently regarding the case as a form of “a debt for a debt.”

Sahnūn said the buyer may not reclaim his money; his only option is to wait until the next season. Mālik’s own statements on the matter are inconsistent.

The opinion to be relied on here is that of Abū Ḥanīfah, al-Shāfiʿī, and Ibn al-Qāsim; it is also the view selected by Abū Bakr al-Ṭurṭūshī. The “debt for a debt” that is forbidden refers only to a transaction sought deliberately, not to one that arises unavoidably.

Another Issue
The scholars also disagreed about the buyer’s selling the object of salam back to the seller when the term falls due but before taking possession. Some scholars disallowed this altogether, namely those who hold that nothing may be sold before it is possessed—among them Abū Ḥanīfah and Isḥāq.

Aḥmad and Isḥāq supported the prohibition with the ḥadīth of ʿAṭiyyah al-ʿAwfī, from Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī, who said that the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—said: “Whoever concludes salam for something must not dispose of it in anything else.”

As for Mālik, he forbade purchasing the subject of salam before possession in two situations: