fruit until its soundness becomes apparent and the danger of blight has passed.” He also said:

“Its soundness becomes apparent when it turns red or yellow.”

These, then, are the hadiths containing the word “fruit.” The others explicitly mention date palms, such as the hadith of Ibn ‘Abbās recorded in both Sahīhs:

“The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, forbade selling date palms until one eats of their fruit—or, ‘until their fruit is eaten.’”

In a narration recorded by Muslim from Ibn ‘Umar:

“The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, forbade selling date palms until their fruit begins to ripen, and ears of grain until they turn white and are safe from blight. He forbade both the seller and the buyer.”

By agreement, “date palms” here means their fruit, because he, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, permitted buying pollinated date palms with the buyer stipulating that their fruit be included. Thus, the wording of these texts does not encompass every fruit on earth. Rather, their wording encompasses everything familiar to those addressed, while their meaning encompasses everything analogous to it. The cases we have described as not forbidden are neither expressly prohibited nor analogous to what is prohibited. The evidence establishing prohibition therefore does not encompass them, and they remain permissible.

This alone is evidence that they are not forbidden. It completes the point we made at the outset: the revealed evidence negating prohibition, together with the evidence based on the presumption that an established ruling continues, establishes this conclusion—but only once the absence of any evidence displacing and changing that ruling has been established. We have demonstrated its absence.

The second approach:

We say: Even if we concede the general scope of the wording, it is nevertheless not