and of Mālik and Ahmad, according to the latter’s explicitly stated position, is that this is not permissible. Whoever sells a commodity subject to the rules of ribā, such as wheat, barley or the like, on deferred payment may not accept, in place of its price, wheat, barley or any other commodity that may not be exchanged for the original commodity with deferred delivery. Since the price has not been received, it is as though he had sold wheat or barley for wheat or barley in unequal quantities with deferred delivery. This is impermissible by the consensus of the Muslims.

Abū Hanīfa and al-Shāfiʿī held that this is permissible. This is also the position preferred by Abū Muhammad al-Maqdisī, one of Ahmad’s followers, because the seller is entitled only to the price owed by the buyer, and he uses that sum to make the purchase. This resembles receiving payment and then buying from someone else. If, however, he sells the wheat or barley held by the buyer and recovers what he is owed from the proceeds, that is undoubtedly permissible. If the seller has accepted the wheat or barley at less than its value, that is less objectionable. And Allah knows best.

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

A man bought four ardebs of wheat for one hundred dirhams, payable at a specified time. When the hundred dirhams fell due, he found him selling wheat at ten dirhams per ardeb. Is it permissible for him to take ten ardebs of grain—wheat, broad beans or barley—in settlement of the hundred dirhams?