seller. Is this option to rescind established unconditionally, or only if he has been shortchanged? Scholars hold two views, both reported from Ahmad. The stronger view is that he has this option only if he has been shortchanged. The second is that he has it unconditionally, which is the apparent position of al-Shāfiʿī’s school.

Another group held that the prohibition was instead due to the harm caused to the buyer when someone intercepts the trader, purchases his goods, and then resells them. In sum, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, prohibited forms of buying and selling that are lawful in principle until the seller knows the price—that is, the fair market price—and the buyer knows the goods.

Someone employing faulty analogical reasoning says: “The buyer may buy wherever he wishes, and he has bought from the seller,” just as he says: “The desert-dweller may appoint a town-dweller as his agent.” Yet the Lawgiver took the public interest into account. When a trader bringing goods to market does not know the prevailing price, he is ignorant of the fair market price, and the buyer thus deceives him. For this reason, Mālik and Ahmad extended the same ruling to every trusting party to a transaction.

A trusting party is someone who does not haggle, or someone who does not know the value of the item sold. Such a person is in the same position as traders bringing goods to market who do not know the prevailing price. It thus becomes clear that one must sell to such people only at the prevailing price, namely the fair market price—even if they have no need to buy from that particular seller. This is because they do not know the value, or because they place their trust in the seller without haggling with him. Consent is essential to a sale, and consent depends on knowledge. Someone who does not know that he is being overcharged may consent, or he may not