arrangements.

It is authentically reported that the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—said:

“A loan combined with a sale is not lawful, nor are two conditions in a sale, nor profit on something for which one has not borne liability, nor selling what one does not have.”

He likewise “forbade two sales in a single transaction.”

This is because, when someone sells or leases something to another in conjunction with a loan, he gives him favourable terms on account of the loan. Yet a loan requires only the repayment of its equivalent; whenever an additional benefit is stipulated, this is impermissible by agreement.

Likewise, sales and partnerships are founded on fairness to both parties. Thus, it is impermissible to stipulate that either party alone receive the profit from a particular commodity, that either receive a fixed amount of the profit, or that either alone bear liability. Whenever someone enters into a sale with another on condition that they form a partnership, one gives the other favourable terms: either in the partnership, by undertaking all the work, or in the sale, by increasing the price, or in some similar way. The contracts thereby depart from the fairness on which they are founded.

Moreover, making the partnership a condition obliges the purchaser to use the property in a particular way and denies him the freedom afforded by an unrestricted contract. Some jurists prohibit such conditions categorically. Others allow them only in cases such as stipulating that a slave being sold be emancipated, or that the property sold be dedicated as an endowment—according to those who permit this—or other conditions involving a benefit unaccompanied by any overriding harm. This differs from a condition that entails abandoning fairness, which is impermissible by agreement.

Another ground is that, in a transaction of this kind, what the two parties ordinarily intend is