rather, it remains vulnerable to adverse eventualities, both legally and physically. Selling it before taking possession therefore falls within the category of sales involving uncertainty. Hence the prohibition on selling spoils before taking possession. For the same reason, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, prohibited selling what one does not have, because one is unable to effect the transfer of possession required by the contract.

Some understand the hadith to cover both debts and specifically identified property, and regard delivery as an exception to it. Others restrict it to specifically identified property, interpreting it as prohibiting the sale of a particular item that one does not own. They understand “what you do not have” to mean “what you do not own.”

Others understand it to require both ownership and possession, or stipulate that the property sold must be owned and possessed. Thus, one may not sell property that one owns but cannot deliver, since this constitutes a sale involving uncertainty, such as selling a runaway slave or a horse that has strayed. This is the argument of those who prohibit selling a debt to someone other than the debtor. They argue: “It involves uncertainty and has not been taken into possession.” Those who permit it say: “Selling it is like referring someone to the debtor for payment, or selling property held on deposit or lent for use: it is constructively possessed. For this reason, we permit the sale of fruit.”

The apparent position of Ahmad’s school is that, when fruit whose ripeness has become apparent is purchased and its price has been received, it remains at the seller’s risk. This is because he remains responsible for delivering possession until harvesting is complete, while the purchaser has not yet been able to harvest it. Nevertheless, the purchaser may be given control of it when the seller grants him free access to it: free access is treated as possession for the purposes of disposal, whereas, for the purposes of liability, possession is understood as the ability to obtain the benefit intended by the contract.

Because the underlying grounds of these questions are obscure, jurists have disputed them extensively, and no analogy has proved consistently applicable to them, even conjecturally, as you can see.