give him priority over the other creditors in recovering his specific property. Rather, they treated him as one creditor among the rest, even though his actual property was mingled with other assets. Wrongdoing consists both in neglecting an obligation and in committing a prohibited act. Thus, a custodian’s failure to fulfil his duty to keep the deposit separate constitutes wrongdoing on his part. Although we do not support this view—that the owner’s claim to the specific property lapses—our purpose is to explain the basis of this issue according to the scholars’ legal principles. Hence, those Mālikī scholars who addressed this issue based their treatment on the premise that the wronged party’s claim was a debt owed by the wrongdoer, rather than a claim to the specific property.

The second principle:

The wrongdoer ordinarily purchases by undertaking a personal obligation to pay, then makes payment with the specific property. Scholars hold two well-known views on the validity of such a transaction.

The third principle:

Let us concede that the wronged party’s claim attaches to the wrongdoer’s specific property, even when the original property is no longer available, because this property replaces his own. This is the view he put forward: the wronged party is given a choice between claiming half of his entitlement and having his claim attach to the property itself, thereby entitling him to claim any increase in that property through growth, profit, or otherwise.

However, it may be objected that the wronged party is entitled only to the amount originally due to him. As for the subsequent increase resulting from the wrongdoer’s dealings, its treatment depends on whether contracts may remain pending approval.

Those who hold that contracts cannot remain pending approval say that the wrongful seller did not acquire ownership of what he received from the purchaser, because he received it under an invalid contract. The price he paid, which he had usurped, is