and more widely known. It corresponds exactly to what is today known as installment sales. What, then, is the ruling on it? Scholars, both early and later, have differed over it, holding three views:
The first is that it is invalid in all cases. This was the position of Ibn Ḥazm.
The second is that it is not permissible unless the two parties part having settled upon one of the two alternatives. The same applies if only the installment price is stated.
The third is that it is not permissible, but if it does occur and the lower of the two prices is paid, it is valid.
-
The foremost evidence for this view is the apparent meaning of the prohibition in the previously cited hadiths, since the basic presumption is that it entails invalidity. This is nearer to what is correct, were it not for what will be mentioned when discussing the evidence for the third view.
-
Those who held this view maintained that the prohibition is due to the price being unknown. Al-Khaṭṭābī said: “When the price is unknown, the sale is invalid. But if he finalizes it upon one of the two alternatives during the contract session, it is valid.”
I say: Their explanation of the prohibition of two sales in one sale as being due to the price’s being unknown is untenable, for it is merely an opinion set against the explicit text in the hadith of Abū Hurayrah and Ibn Masʿūd that it is ribā. This is so from one perspective.
From another perspective, this reasoning is founded upon the view that offer and acceptance are obligatory in sales, yet there is no evidence for this in the Book of Allah or the sunnah of His Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him. Rather, all that is required is mutual consent and willing satisfaction; whatever conveys and indicates these is a legally valid sale. Some refer to this as bayʿ al-muʿāṭāh (sale concluded by mutual exchange). Al-Shawkānī said in al-Sayl al-Jarrār (3/126): “This mutual exchange, in which mutual consent and willing satisfaction are realized, is the legally valid sale that Allah has permitted. Anything added to it is the imposition of something that the Sacred Law has not imposed.” Shaykh al-Islām explained this in al-Fatāwā (29/5–21) in a manner beyond which nothing further can be added,