This, then, entails that both forms of riba—riba al-fadl (surplus usury) and riba al-nasiʾa (deferred usury)—are covered by the Prophet’s statement.

Next, the Companions and Followers to whom the Prophet ﷺ’s words “Riba exists only in deferment” (1) reached, and who therefore regarded the spot-sale of two measures for one as permissible—such as Ibn ʿAbbās and his pupils Abū Shaʿthāʾ, ʿAṭāʾ, Ṭāwūs, Saʿīd b. Jubayr, ʿIkrimah, and other foremost Meccan authorities who were the elite of the ummah in knowledge and practice—may not, under any circumstance, be thought by a Muslim to fall under the curse pronounced upon the consumer of riba. The same applies to anyone entitled to follow their legal view, for they acted on an interpretation that is, in principle, admissible.

Likewise, a number of eminent Medinan scholars are reported to have permitted intercourse in the posterior, despite the narration transmitted by Abū Dāwūd in which the Prophet ﷺ said, “Whoever approaches a woman from her backside is a disbeliever in what was revealed to Muhammad!” (2). Would any Muslim dare claim that those specific scholars were therefore disbelievers in what was revealed to Muhammad?

It is also rigorously established that the Prophet ﷺ “cursed ten categories of people in connection with wine: the one who presses it, the one for whom it is pressed, the one who drinks it, …”