and high prices, prosperity and hardship, and also with winter, summer, and other factors. If the amount required by Abū Hanīfa is calculated in terms of bread, it comes to one and one-third Damascene ratls, for he requires half a sā', reckoning a sā' as eight ratls. As for dates and barley, he requires one sā', or eight ratls. This is six times the amount required by al-Shāfi'ī and three times that required by Ahmad ibn Hanbal. The preferred view is to refer this matter to people’s customary practice and habits. Thus, in one locality the amount required by Abū Hanīfa may suffice, in another that required by Ahmad, and in another an amount between the two, according to local custom, in keeping with the words of the Most High:

“From the average of that which you feed your families.”

If someone gathers ten needy people and serves them an evening meal of bread with an accompaniment, according to the average standard of what he feeds his family, this suffices according to most of the early generations. This is the position of Abū Hanīfa, Mālik, Ahmad—according to one of the two reports from him—and others. It is the better-supported of the two views, for Allah Most High commanded feeding; He did not require a transfer of ownership, and this is feeding in the true sense.

Those who require “transfer of ownership” advance two arguments. “The first” is that the amount of food required is prescribed by the Sharia, and when the recipients eat, it cannot be known whether each consumes the amount to which he is entitled. “The second” is that transferring ownership enables the recipient to dispose of the food in ways unavailable to him when he is merely given a meal.

The answer to the first is that we do not concede that the amount is prescribed by the Sharia. Even supposing that it is so prescribed, the discussion concerns