dirhams.” Or the two of them bring in someone to appraise it at one thousand dirhams, after which he sells it for more than that on deferred payment. This is among the transactions prohibited according to the sound view.

Whatever wealth a person has acquired through transactions over which the Muslim community has differed—such as those asked about here and others—he is not required to relinquish if he acted on an interpretation, believing them permissible on the basis of his own legal reasoning, following another’s scholarly authority, taking certain scholars as his example, receiving a ruling from one of them, or something similar. They need not relinquish the wealth they earned and received, even if it later becomes clear to them that they were mistaken and that the scholar who gave them the ruling was mistaken. They received it on the basis of an interpretation, so they are in no worse a position than unbelievers who acquired wealth on the basis of a false interpretation.

If unbelievers trade wine or pork among themselves, believing this permissible, and both parties receive what is due to them, or engage in explicit usury that they believe permissible and both parties receive what is due to them, then embrace Islam and bring their dispute before us, we allow them to retain what is in their possession. After embracing Islam, they may benefit from it. As Allah Most High says:

“O you who believe, fear Allah and give up what remains of usury, if you are believers.”

He commanded them to forgo what was still owed to them, but did not command them to return what they had already received. One of ‘Umar’s deputies in Iraq used to collect the jizya from non-Muslims under Muslim protection in the form of wine, then sell it to them. ‘Umar wrote to him forbidding this, saying:

“Indeed, the Messenger of