their vegetables have not yet come into existence.

All these cases may be answered in two ways.

The first is to say that the wording of the prohibition does not encompass this case. The Prophet’s prohibition—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—against selling fruit referred to the sale familiar to those addressed and to similar transactions, because the definite article refers to what the audience knows. If a particular individual or category is already understood, the words refer to it. Thus, the wording refers to a particular Messenger in Allah’s words:

“Do not treat the Messenger’s summons to you like your summons to one another.”

And in His words:

“But Pharaoh disobeyed the Messenger.”

Or it refers to a particular category, as in his prohibition against selling fruit. There is no disagreement among Muslims that “fruit” here means fresh dates, not grapes or other fruit. If neither a particular individual nor a particular category is understood, the wording has general application. Thus, the sale of fruit mentioned is the sale of fruit familiar to them; its inclusion is like the inclusion of the second and third generations in the words the Messenger addressed to his Companions.

A parallel to this is Ahmad’s discussion of “the Prophet’s prohibition—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—against a man urinating in stagnant water that does not flow, then bathing in it.” He understood this to refer to the standing bodies of water familiar during the Prophet’s lifetime, such as the wells and pools between Mecca and Medina. As for the large reservoirs constructed after his time, which cannot be drained, he did not include them within the prohibition’s general scope, because of the substantive distinction and the absence of