With regard to acknowledgments, the jurists disagreed about whether an unrestricted power of attorney for litigation automatically authorizes the agent to confess a claim.
Mālik maintained that it does not.
Abū Ḥanīfah maintained that it does.

Pillar Four: The Agency Contract itself
Agency is a contract that becomes effective through offer and acceptance like any other contract. Yet it is not a binding contract; rather, it is revocable, as will be explained in the rulings that follow.

According to Mālik, agency is of two kinds: general and specific. A general agency arises when the principal issues an open-ended mandate in which no particular matter is singled out; once any matter is specified, the mandate is no longer general, and the benefit of general delegation is lost.

Al-Shāfiʿī, however, rules that a blanket mandate is invalid because it involves excessive uncertainty (gharar). Only what is expressly named, defined, and stipulated is valid—and this is the sounder view, for the basic rule concerning agency is prohibition except in those instances on which consensus has been reached.

Chapter Two
Legal Rulings of Agency

The rulings are of two sorts: those that relate to the contract itself and those that relate to the acts of the agent.

1. Rulings pertaining to the contract
   The agency contract is non-binding: the agent may relinquish the mandate whenever he wishes, according to all jurists. Abū Ḥanīfah, however, requires that the principal be present when the agent withdraws. Likewise, the principal may dismiss the agent at any time—unless the agency concerns litigation.
   Aṣbagh states that the principal may dismiss the agent so long as the judgment has not almost been issued, and the agent may not withdraw in any situation where the principal himself may not dismiss him.
   In the view of Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī, the presence of the opposing party is not a condition for the contract’s validity; Abū Ḥanīfah counts it as a condition. Nor, according to Mālik, is the adversary’s presence required when the agency is recorded before the judge, whereas al-Shāfiʿī considers it a condition.
   The Mālikīs differ on whether the agency is annulled by the principal’s death. If we say that death annuls it, just as dismissal does, when is the agent deemed dismissed and the agency void vis-à-vis the party who deals with him? Three opinions are reported:
   • First: it is annulled, for everyone, upon death or dismissal.
   • Second: it is annulled, for each individual, when knowledge reaches him; whoever knows is affected, and whoever does not know is not.
   • Third: it is annulled, for the party transacting with the agent, once the agent himself knows—even if that party does not—but it is not annulled, for the agent, by the other party’s knowledge alone if the agent himself is unaware. Nevertheless, anyone who pays the agent after learning of his dismissal is liable, because he has knowingly delivered property to someone who is no longer an agent.

2. Rulings pertaining to the agent’s acts
   Well-known questions arise in this regard, among them:
   If an agent is commissioned to sell an item, may he purchase it for himself?
   Mālik says that he may—though another report from him says he may not—while al-Shāfiʿī says that he may not.