Threats of punishment, however, do not fall into this category. Not every threat attached to an act must be conveyed through mass-transmitted reports, just as mass transmission is not required for the ruling concerning that act. Thus, hadiths containing threats must be acted upon according to their import: one must believe that whoever commits the act is threatened with that punishment. Its actual infliction, however, depends upon certain conditions, and there are impediments that may prevent it.

This principle becomes clear through examples. It is authentically reported that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said:

“Allah has cursed the one who consumes ribā (usury), the one who pays it, its two witnesses, and its scribe.”

It is also authentically reported through several chains that he said to someone who exchanged two sāʿ for one, hand to hand:

“Alas! That is ribā itself!”

He also said:

“Wheat for wheat is ribā unless exchanged on the spot”—and the hadith continues.

This entails that both kinds of ribā—that involving an excess and that involving deferment—are included in the hadith.

Yet some people received the Prophet’s statement, peace and blessings be upon him:

“Ribā is only in deferment,”

and consequently regarded exchanging two sāʿ for one, hand to hand, as permissible. These included Ibn ʿAbbās, may Allah be pleased with him, and his companions: Abū al-Shaʿthāʾ, ʿAtāʾ, Tāwūs, Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, ʿIkrimah, and other eminent Meccans who were among the finest of this community in knowledge and practice. No Muslim may believe that the curse upon those who consume ribā befalls any one of them individually, or anyone who followed their opinion where such following was permissible. For they acted on an interpretation that was, in general, defensible.