Conversely—by which I mean that each side tries to provide a distinction where its opponent claims uniformity, and to establish uniformity where its opponent claims difference—the Mālikīs, for example, say: “We maintain that a father’s option to revoke the gift he has given his child is not inherited, because this option depends on a quality found in the father alone—namely, fatherhood—and is therefore inseparable from him; it is not rooted in any feature of the contract itself, and so it cannot be transmitted.”

This is the very cause of their disagreement over each individual option: whoever is convinced that a given option is an attribute of the contract declares it inheritable, whereas whoever views it as a quality peculiar to the option-holder denies its inheritance.

The sixth question—Who may validly hold an option?—runs as follows. All scholars agree that an option stipulated for the two contracting parties is sound, but they differ over the validity of an option stipulated for a third party.

Mālik says: It is permissible, and the sale remains valid.

Al-Shāfiʿī, in one of his two opinions, says: It is not permissible unless the person for whom the option is set is appointed as an agent by the one who granted it to him; on this view, an option may not be vested in anyone other than a contracting party. Aḥmad adopts the same position. Al-Shāfiʿī’s second opinion agrees with Mālik’s, and Abū Ḥanīfah likewise concurs with Mālik.

All schools concur that, when both buyer and seller grant a third party the option, the option belongs to that third party and his word prevails over theirs.

They disagree, however, when only one of the two confers the option and a dispute then arises between the seller and the person to whom the seller granted it, or between the buyer and the person to whom the buyer granted it:

• One view holds that, in either ratification or rescission, the decisive word is the third party’s, whether the option was stipulated by the seller or by the buyer. Those who regard the option here as nothing more than a consultation take the opposite view.

• A second view distinguishes between seller and buyer: the word in ratification or rescission is the seller’s, not the third party’s, but it is the third party’s, not the buyer’s, when the buyer was the one who stipulated the option.

• A third view gives authority to whichever of the two contracting parties wishes to ratify the sale. Thus, if the third party who holds the option wants rescission and the buyer concurs, the seller’s word prevails in enforcing the sale; but if the seller wants rescission while the third party insists on ratification and the buyer agrees, the buyer’s word prevails. The same reasoning applies when the buyer stipulates the option for a third party: among the three, decisive authority rests with whoever seeks ratification—and likewise in the buyer’s own case.

• A fourth view again differentiates between seller and buyer: if the seller stipulated the option, the decisive word belongs to whichever of the two contracting parties seeks ratification; but if the buyer stipulated it, the decisive word is the third party’s. This appears to be the view of the Mudawwanah, yet all of these opinions are weak.

They also disagree about a sale in which an impermissible option is stipulated—for example, an unknown time-limit, an option extending beyond three days according to those who do not allow more than three, or the option of a specific person who is far away, i.e., a third party. Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī rule that the sale is invalid even if the corrupt condition is later removed; Abū Ḥanīfah holds that the sale is valid once the corrupt condition is cancelled.

The root of the dispute is this: does the corruption introduced into the sale by way of the condition spread to the contract itself, or is it confined to the condition alone? Whoever says that it spreads invalidates the sale even after the condition is dropped, whereas whoever says that it does not spread rules that the sale stands once the defective condition is eliminated, for the contract itself remains sound.