The reply is:

This is invalid on several grounds.

First:

This position entails that if someone said, “For my children, then their children, then their children’s children, then their children’s children’s children, and their offspring and posterity; provided that whoever among them dies leaving a child, his share shall pass to his child, and whoever among them dies without leaving a child, his share shall pass to those of his generation,” this stipulation would apply only to the last generation. If someone in the first, second or third generation died, his share would not pass to his child, but rather to the members of his own generation, in accordance with the unqualified provision for succession by generation.

If the disputant accepts this consequence and says, “That is indeed my position,” his position would contradict the practice of Muslims, past and present, in every age and every land. Indeed, Allah Most High alone knows the number of endowments governed by such stipulations. Muslims—their judges and muftis, their elite and ordinary people—have always treated such a stipulation as applying to every generation, without objection or dispute. Anyone who maintains otherwise is thus known to have introduced a position contrary to the consensus of past generations. This is self-evidently known.

Even if disagreement on this matter were assumed to exist, it would be an anomalous disagreement, counted among scholarly errors. It is sufficient evidence of a position’s weakness that it rests on something like this.

Another consequence of this position is that if someone said, “An endowment for my children, then their children, then their children’s children, provided that whoever