being underpaid by the buyer who intercepts him, that is permissible. Likewise, if he learns of this after the contract has been concluded, it is permissible if he consents; if he does not, he has the right to annul it. This shows that the contract is concluded as nonbinding, subject instead to ratification: the holder of the right may either approve or reject it.

This is agreed upon in cases such as the sale of defective goods, where consent is conditional upon freedom from defects. If that condition is unmet, the contract remains subject to ratification. Thus, it is binding under one set of circumstances and nonbinding under another. Where, however, a contract is nonbinding altogether and depends upon the consent of the person entitled to ratify it, there is disagreement. Most scholars recognize contracts whose effect is suspended pending ratification. This is the position of Mālik, Abū Hanīfa and others; it is also supported by most of Ahmad’s recorded statements and was adopted by his earlier followers, such as al-Khiraqī and others, as explained in detail elsewhere.

The point here is that some people consider this type to fall within the category of prohibited transactions. Then another group says, “Yet it is not invalid.” Prohibition must therefore entail invalidity.

Another group says, “Rather, this is invalid.” Some of them have therefore declared a sale involving artificial bidding invalid when the seller himself bids up the price or colludes in doing so. Others have declared invalid the marriage of a man who proposes after his brother has already proposed, as well as a sale in which he supplants his brother’s sale. Others have declared invalid the sale of defective goods whose defects have been concealed. Yet when confronted with the case of an animal whose milk has been allowed to accumulate in its udder, they suspended judgment. Others have upheld the validity of