subject to them. Ahmad’s rulings on legal stratagems involving sales, leases, pledges, loans, and other transactions are based on this principle. Examples abound in his statements and those of the scholars of his school; this fatwa cannot accommodate a detailed enumeration of the individual cases. Many are well known to anyone with even a little familiarity with Ahmad’s principles and explicit rulings, and would not escape their notice. We have established the evidence for this from the Quran, the Sunnah, the consensus of the early generations, and the principles of Islamic law in “The Question of Tahlīl.”

Anyone who examines the agreements concluded between the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—and others, such as the pledge of allegiance between him and the Ansār on the night of al-ʿAqaba, the truce between him and Quraysh in the year of al-Hudaybiyya, and other agreements, will recognize that they first agreed upon the conditions and then concluded the agreement in unqualified terms. The same applies to the general texts of the Quran and Sunnah commanding the fulfilment of contracts, covenants, and stipulations, and forbidding treachery. All three terms encompass such arrangements equally: linguistic and customary usage agree on these designations, and their meanings in Islamic law accord with this.

Shaykh al-Islām—may Allah have mercy on him—was asked:

A man married a girl aged ten. Her family stipulated that he must live with them, not take her away from them, and not consummate the marriage until a year had passed. Yet he took her to his own home, broke that agreement, and consummated the marriage. The midwives stated that he moved her and then