need, since prohibiting them causes greater harm than the uncertainty they involve. Examples include selling a property as a whole, even though the interiors of its walls and its foundations are unknown; and selling a pregnant or lactating animal, even though the extent of the pregnancy or the quantity of milk is unknown. This is permissible even though selling the unborn offspring separately is prohibited, as is selling the milk separately according to most scholars. The same applies to selling fruit once it has begun to ripen: the sale is valid, with the right to leave the fruit on the tree, as the Sunnah indicates and as the majority—including Mālik, al-Shāfi‘ī, and Ahmad—hold, even though the further growth needed for full ripeness has not yet come into existence.

The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, also permitted the purchaser of date palms that had been pollinated to stipulate that their fruit be included. The purchaser would thus have bought fruit before it began to ripen, but the sale is directed primarily at the trees themselves. It is therefore clear that a small degree of contractual uncertainty is permissible when incidental and subordinate to a sale, though it would not otherwise be permissible.

When people needed arāyā transactions, he granted a concession allowing their sale on the basis of estimation. He did not permit a definite disparity between the exchanged quantities; rather, he allowed equality to be determined by estimation for the small quantity required to meet that need. This is either the minimum zakāh threshold—five wasqs—or an amount below that threshold, according to the two differing positions reported from al-Shāfi‘ī and Ahmad, although Ahmad’s well-known position limits it to less than the threshold.

With this established, Mālik’s principles governing sales are sounder than those of others;