already present as well as future pickings, until the melon patch dries up—even though those future pickings do not yet exist. This is because there is a need for such sales, and they can only be conducted in this manner. Selling the produce one picking at a time is impossible or unduly difficult, because the pickings cannot be distinguished; Islamic law rules out imposing either impossibility or undue difficulty. It is an established principle of Islamic law that whatever people need to sell may be sold even if it does not yet exist, as with usufructs and payment for fruit whose ripeness has not yet become apparent when sold together with its rootstock, and fruit whose ripeness has become apparent without that restriction.

They also maintain that this produce is sufficiently known through customary practice, just as fruit is known. Its subsequent loss is comparable to the loss of fruit through a calamity, and the loss of benefits under a lease is of the same kind. Explicit textual evidence establishes that allowance must be made for losses caused by calamities, so there is nothing objectionable in this at all. Rather, prohibiting such sales causes harm, and Allah does not love harm. Even if selling such produce may lead to some harm, the harm resulting from prohibiting it is greater. The greater of two harms must therefore be averted by tolerating the lesser: this is an established principle of Islamic law.

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

A man has irrigated plots in which he grows turnips, carrots, radishes, cane and taro. Is it permissible to sell these while they are still in the ground?

He replied:

As for selling cane and similar crops, whether sold on the condition that they be uprooted or cut at the customary point, even if they are covered by their leaves, this covering