Chapter: Conditions in Sales

He—may Allah have mercy on him—was asked:

A Muslim man purchased a slave woman from the People of the Book, and the seller stipulated that she was a good cook and could make wine and nabīdh. Is this valid?

He replied:

The stipulation that she can make wine and nabīdh is a void condition by Muslim consensus, and the contract containing it is also invalid.

This is clear according to those who hold that an invalid condition invalidates the contract, which is the well-known position in the schools of Abū Hanīfa, Mālik and al-Shāfi‘ī, and one of the two views reported from Ahmad. According to the other view, even if the seller sold her without stipulating this condition, it would not be permissible to purchase the slave woman because she makes wine. Likewise, it is not permissible to purchase anything in order to disobey Allah with it, such as buying juice to make wine or buying weapons to fight Muslims. This is the more correct of the two scholarly views, and it is the position of Mālik and Ahmad