give you any of it, then enjoy it with pleasure and satisfaction.” The former verse concerns transactions involving an exchange, while the latter concerns gratuitous transfers. He stipulates neither particular words nor a particular act to indicate mutual consent and willingness. We know directly from people’s customary words and actions that they recognise mutual consent and willingness in many different ways. In most customary contracts, these are known immediately; in some, they are apparent. Whenever they are present, the legal ruling follows from them, as the Quran indicates.
Some people’s contentious insistence on defending a particular position may lead them to deny what people recognise as mutual consent and willingness. Such denial carries no weight. Self-evident truths are often denied through collusion and indoctrination concerning reports and doctrines. What counts, therefore, is sound human nature, unaltered by any corrupting influence.
For this reason, we have said that mass-transmitted reports yield knowledge where there is no collusion to lie, because sound human natures do not concur in falsehood. Where there is collusion and agreement, however, groups may indeed agree to lie.
The second point:
These terms occur in Allah’s Book and the Sunnah of His Messenger with rulings of the revealed law attached to them. Every term must have a definition. Some definitions are known through language, as with the sun, the moon, land, sea, heaven and earth. Others are known through revealed law, as with the believer, the disbeliever and the hypocrite, and with prayer and zakat