3. Where the debtor is able to hand over the counter-value and is legally bound to do so—meaning that the counter-value is a specific asset—two views are reported:
   – One opinion holds that he must include its full amount in the pro-rata distribution owed to all the creditors and actually deliver the asset.
   – The second states that he himself has the stronger title to the asset; on that view he is not obliged to hand it over.

4. Where he can hand over the counter-value but is not obliged to do so—again, because the counter-value is a specific asset—he is free either to join the pro-rata distribution or to keep the asset for himself.

5. Where he has no right to accelerate payment of the counter-value—for example, when the seller in a salām contract is declared bankrupt before receiving the capital sum and before the delivery date falls due—then:
   • If the seller is willing to deliver the goods early and to share pro rata with the other creditors in the capital of the salām, that is permissible, provided all the creditors concur.
   • If any creditor objects, the creditors take their pro-rata share of the capital sum owed to him out of whatever property of the bankrupt can be found, and out of the goods that will become due when the term matures, for those goods form part of the bankrupt estate. Should they wish to sell those goods for cash and divide the proceeds, they are entitled to do so.

Rights owed without a counter-value
If the right is not imposed by the Sacred Law but only by personal commitment—such as gifts and voluntary charity—no pro-rata distribution is made. Where the right is imposed by the Law, like the maintenance of parents and children, there are two opinions:

1. No pro-rata distribution is required; this is the view of Ibn al-Qāsim.
2. Pro-rata distribution is required if the obligation has been confirmed by a judicial decree; this is the view of Ashhab.

The Fifth Inquiry (how the sharing is to be effected)
The ruling is that the debtor’s assets of a given genus are applied to debts of that same genus, whether the creditors’ claims are all of one genus or of different genera, for in settling debts one may exact only what is of the same genus as the debt—unless the creditors mutually agree on an alternative that is legally permissible.

A subsidiary issue: if the property of the sequestrated debtor perishes after sequestration but before the creditors take possession, who bears the loss?
– Ashhab: the loss falls on the bankrupt himself.
– Ibn al-Mājishūn: the loss falls on the creditors once the judge has immobilised the debtor.
– Ibn al-Qāsim: whatever must be sold, its risk is borne by the debtor because it is sold while still in his ownership; whatever need not be sold, its risk is borne by the creditors—for example, when both the property and the debt are in kind. All of them transmit their statements from Mālik.
– Asbagh differentiates between death and insolvency, saying: in the case of death the loss is on the creditors, whereas in insolvency it is on the bankrupt.

Such, then, are the foundational rulings concerning an insolvent who owns assets insufficient to meet his liabilities.

As for the bankrupt who possesses no property whatsoever, the jurists of the major centres agree that his lack of means suspends the debt until he becomes solvent, with the sole exception of what is reported from ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz: that the creditors may defer him, and he said—