a commodity for 5 if paid in cash, or for 10 on deferred terms. Once the sale is deemed binding at one of the two prices while the seller still has the discretion to oblige the buyer at whichever price he wishes, the sale is unsound. If the matter is discovered in time it must be revoked, and if the buyer has already taken possession and the item has perished, he must return its value calculated on the day he received it, whatever that value may be.

If, however, the contract stipulates that the buyer has the choice with respect to both prices—either to take the item at whichever of the two prices he prefers or to cancel the transaction altogether—then the sale is valid and does not fall under the prohibition of “two sales in a single sale.” Here the contract takes effect with respect to a specific item that the buyer will choose from among two known items, having an option concerning one of them. In the first scenario, by contrast, the purchase attaches to no particular item, whether conclusively or by option; the contract is concluded while the party still does not know which of the two goods he will end up taking, yet one of them has already become due to him.

All of this represents the position of Mālik and his companions. In essence, what Mālik forbids is the combination of two different sales under a single price.

There is no objection to selling one of two identical items for one price. Among the forms of “two sales in one sale” is to sell two separate heaps of grain that differ in measure, each bushel for the same price—or for different prices—without specifying how much is to be taken from each heap. Likewise, it is impermissible to sell two heaps of the same commodity, or of mixed grain, by measure, each bushel at two differing prices. The ruling in every such case is rescission; and if, after the buyer has taken possession, the goods perish, he must return an equivalent measure in kind when the sale involved foodstuffs, and for non-food items their monetary value, however high it may be.

Some jurists of the Hijaz even regard every contract that combines two different prices as objectionable.