Shaykh al-Islām—may Allah sanctify his soul—also said:

Section

As for exchanging silver for copper coins in circulation, must payment be immediately due and both parties take possession, as when exchanging dirhams for dinars?

There are two views, transmitted in two reports from Ahmad.

According to the first, payment must be immediately due and both parties must take possession, since this is a form of currency exchange. Copper coins in circulation resemble money, so exchanging them for a monetary commodity constitutes currency exchange.

According to the second, neither immediate payment nor mutual taking possession is required. These requirements apply to gold and silver, whether used as money, in currency exchange, or in broken pieces, unlike copper coins. Moreover, copper coins originally belong to “the category of merchandise”; their monetary status is incidental.

This also rests on another underlying question: is it permissible to exchange copper for copper in unequal amounts? There are two well-known views concerning this and all other commodities sold by weight, such as iron for iron, lead for lead, cotton for cotton, flax for flax