one party speaks and the other acts—for example, one says, “Take this for Allah’s sake,” and the other takes it; or one says, “Give me a dirham’s worth of bread,” and the other gives it to him. Or neither party speaks: one simply sets down the price and takes a bunch of vegetables, some sweets, or something else, as most people commonly do. Alternatively, someone sets out goods for payment to be left in exchange; once the other party sets down a payment he finds acceptable, he takes it, as is customary with goods brought by merchants among some people in the East. Whatever people regard as a sale is therefore a sale.

The same applies to gifts, such as presents, or furnishing a bride with property to take with her to her husband’s home, when the prevailing custom is that this is a gift rather than a loan for use.

The same also applies to hiring arrangements: boarding a boat operated for hire, or riding an animal belonging to someone who hires out camels, donkeys, or mules, in a manner customarily understood as hiring. Other examples include entering a bathhouse that people use for a fee; handing a garment to a washer or tailor who works for payment; or giving food to a cook or someone who roasts food for others, whether the meat is sliced or unsliced.

Indeed, the scholars of his school even differed over whether a divorce in return for compensation can take effect through an exchange by conduct. For example, a woman might say, “Release me from marriage in return for this thousand or this garment,” and the husband accepts the compensation in the customary manner indicating his agreement to the exchange. The jurists of ʿUkbarā, such as Abū Hafs and Abū ʿAlī ibn Shihāb, held that this constitutes a valid divorce in return for compensation. They cited statements by Ahmad and by others