and in equal weight and number, paid over immediately. If any postponement is introduced, the operation turns into an exchange of one debt for another. When the subject-matter is food, it incurs—along with the ban on debt for debt—the additional prohibition of selling food before taking possession. In fact, no foodstuff may be sold before it is received, save that an iqāla (mutual rescission), a partnership, or a tawliyah (assignment at cost) for the exact amount of the original capital is allowed prior to delivery; this is the position of Mālik and a group of the early scholars of Madinah.

Should the seller, while both parties are still in the session and before the one who owes delivery departs, ask the buyer in a salam contract to rescind it and offer an additional amount, and the salam goods are neither edible nor drinkable, and the capital consists of dinars or dirhams, the arrangement is permissible. Because they have not yet separated, suspicion is lifted, and any gain produced by the increase is unobjectionable—so long as the rescission does not pertain to something that can be eaten or drunk. If it does relate to what is eaten or drunk, no increase is lawful for either party, whether they separate or not.

Always scrutinise an iqāla: if the one who first paid out the dinars or dirhams now stands to lose and not to gain, there is no harm—apart from cases involving food and drink. But if, by retrieving his dirhams, he secures a benefit that returns to him as an increment, it is forbidden according to Mālik, falling under the heading of an unlawful increase in salam. The jurists illustrate this with the man who pays ten dinars in advance for goods, then sells those goods back to the obligor for nine dinars or a similar shortfall; that is acceptable, for he is taking a loss and therefore arouses no suspicion. Suspicion arises only if he receives more than he originally paid.

Likewise, if the buyer seeks rescission in a commodity other than food or drink and offers an increase, the iqāla is valid provided the increase differs from the original capital in both kind and quality. Thus, if the increase is in silver while the capital was in gold, the rescission is not lawful unless the exchange is hand-to-hand. If the increase is neither gold nor silver, deferment and the like are permissible.

But if the capital