and this doubtful element has become mixed with his wealth, rendering it doubtful in this respect. This is why those who disapproved of dealing with such people did so.

This is the approach of the scrupulously pious who refrain from eating roast meat sold under such concessions and the like. Their scruples concern precisely such an arrangement: only the concession holder may roast meat or sell it, at whatever price he chooses; likewise, only he may sell salt, at whatever price he chooses.

Salt, however, differs from other commodities. It is originally among the freely available resources in which Muslims share, like fish and other such resources. If only one person is permitted to obtain these resources in return for undertaking to pay a levy, it is not unlawful for someone to purchase them from him with his own money, for the buyer has wronged no one in doing so. Indeed, he would have been entitled to take them directly from their source. Had he hired this person or someone else to collect them for him from their common source, that too would have been permissible. Had they remained available to Muslims in common, they would have been cheaper, and the buyer would have obtained them for less than the concession holder supplied them for. Thus, the concession holder wrongs both the buyer and others.

Those who purchase from him, however, wrong no one. Nor have they purchased from him something that he acquired with his own money. What is forbidden to him is the injustice; whoever relinquishes his ownership does not lose it and has wronged no one in the matter, since these resources are originally freely available. The Muslims who purchase them are the ones being wronged: were it not for this injustice, they could obtain them without paying the price. If, then, they are wronged and charged more than they owe, that would not render unlawful for them what had been