and on another occasion he said, “He should neither buy for him nor buy on his account.”

Mālik and his companions likewise disagreed over whether a sale concluded by a townsman on behalf of a Bedouin must be rescinded. Some said it must be annulled; others said it need not be annulled; some held that it is rescinded so long as the goods have not yet been disposed of; others maintained that it is never rescinded, whether disposal has taken place or not. Yet another view was that the one who habitually engages in this practice should be disciplined, while still another held that no disciplinary action is required. All these opinions are attributed to Mālik.

What I judge to be correct is to let the sale stand and not to rescind it, because it embodies sincere counsel to a fellow Muslim—Allah knows best—and because the benefit accrues to the townsman and entails nothing the Law disapproves of. It is akin to talqī al-silʿa (intercepting caravans before they reach the market), and the jurists are unanimously agreed that the sale in that case is not invalid, as we clarified in Kitāb al-Tamhīd, apart from an isolated opinion reported from a few of our Mālikī colleagues.

Among the transactions the Prophet also forbade is najsh (bidding up a price without any intention to buy), whereby a man raises his offer for a commodity so that others will follow his lead, even though he does not want the item, thus deceiving the purchaser. Mālik regards this as a defect: if the buyer learns of it and the fact is established, he may, at his discretion, return the najsh-affected item or keep it.

He likewise forbade “two sales in a single sale,” which is for a man to sell