The chief argument of those who place liability on the seller in every circumstance is that the contract remains non-binding; ownership therefore has not yet left the seller—just as if he had said, “I have sold this to you,” while the buyer had not yet replied, “I accept.”

Those who shift liability to the buyer do so by likening the case to a binding sale; but that analogy is weak, for it equates the disputed case with one on which all are agreed.

As for the jurists who make liability follow the party who alone stipulated the option, their reasoning is as follows: if the seller stipulated it, the option allows him to keep the goods within his estate; whereas if only the buyer stipulated it, the seller has already divested himself of ownership, so by virtue of the buyer’s stipulation the goods must enter the buyer’s estate.

They say: the goods have left the seller’s ownership, since he stipulated no option; yet they are not necessarily the buyer’s, for he reserved the right to return them. Still, the statement clashes with the operative ruling, for the loss must inevitably fall on one of the two parties.

The real dispute thus reduces to this: is the option a condition enabling the sale to be dissolved, or one required for the sale’s completion? If it is for dissolution, the goods leave the seller’s liability; if it is for completion, they remain under it.

The fifth issue—namely, does the option in a sale pass to the heirs or not?—is as follows. Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, and their disciples say that it is inherited: when the holder of the option dies, his heirs enjoy the very same right. Abū Ḥanīfah and his associates maintain that the option lapses on the holder’s death and the sale becomes final; the same, in their view, applies to the option of pre-emption (shufʿah), the option of accepting a bequest, and the option of rescission (iqālah).

Abū Ḥanīfah does, however, concede that the option of rejecting goods for defect is inheritable, as are the option to claim spoils before distribution, the option of retaliation (qiṣāṣ), and the option connected with pledges.

Mālik, for his part, concedes that the father’s right to retract what he has gifted to his son is not transmitted to the heirs—that is, the heirs of a deceased father may not exercise the right the Law granted solely to him—and he likewise excludes the options attached to contractual manumission (kitābah), divorce, and liʿān.

The “option in divorce” means that a man says to another, “Divorce my wife whenever you wish.” Should the person so empowered die, his heirs do not take his place, according to Mālik.

Al-Shāfiʿī accepts the concessions the Mālikīs have made to the Hanafīs concerning these options and, in addition, rules that the options of rescission and acceptance are also not inheritable.

The Mālikīs and Shāfiʿīs ground their view on the principle that both property and rights are inherited unless there is evidence showing that a given right differs from property in this respect. The Hanafīs, by contrast, begin with the principle that only property is inherited, not mere rights, except where evidence explicitly attaches a particular right to property.

Hence the crux of the debate is whether the default presumption of inheritance extends to rights as it does to property. Each side analogizes the items its opponent concedes to the items still in dispute and presents that analogy as proof against the other.

Thus the Mālikīs and Shāfiʿīs argue against Abū Ḥanīfah on the basis of his own admission that the option of defect is inherited, likening all the other options they inherit to it. The Hanafīs, in turn, argue against the Mālikīs and Shāfiʿīs from the very options those two schools exclude. Each camp strives to draw a distinction where its own opinion diverges and an analogy where it agrees, and seeks, in its opponent’s words