al-Musayyab. Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr said, “It is invalid to claim a consensus of the people of Medina on this question, for Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyab and Ibn Shihāb—two of the city’s foremost jurists—are both explicitly reported to have acted upon the session-option. Ibn Abī Dhiʾb, another Medinan jurist and a contemporary of Mālik, also censured Mālik for abandoning it. How, then, can anyone allege a Medinan consensus in this matter? Such a claim cannot stand.” End quote.
Even if we were to concede that the Medinans had agreed, their agreement would still not constitute proof, because the only binding proof is the unanimous consensus of the entire Muslim community, whose infallibility is established. Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd said, “The unquestionable truth is that the practice and consensus of the people of Medina do not serve as evidence in matters that rest on juristic reasoning and inference, for the divine guarantee protecting the ummah from error in ijtihād does not extend to only some of its members, and there is no other ground for infallibility.” End quote.
Second: They argue that “the two contracting parties” (al-mutabāyiʿān) in the hadith refers merely to two people bargaining, and that the option (khiyār) is simply the buyer’s right to accept or reject the offer. The answer is that calling a bargainer a “seller” is figurative, whereas speech should be taken literally unless evidence dictates otherwise. Moreover, the hadith bases the ruling on “separation,” which cannot be applied to mere haggling. Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr said, “If the narration is understood to concern bargainers, the wording conveys no benefit, for everyone already knows that each party in a negotiation is free to walk away until a definite offer, acceptance, and mutual consent are reached. Why would revelation report something that carries no benefit? No intelligent person would ascribe that to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.”
Third: They interpret “separation” (tafarraq) as a divergence of statements—the seller’s offer and the buyer’s acceptance. This reading contradicts the apparent sense of the hadith and even the explicit wording of another report: “Whenever a man purchases something from another man, each of them retains the option until they part from the place where they transacted.” Furthermore, offer and acceptance do not create separation; they achieve agreement and union.
These samples of their objections—of which I have mentioned three—make it clear to the reader that their stance rests on no solid foundation. The objectors, as Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr states, are the Mālikīs and Hanafīs.
The scholars’ rebuttals have been forceful, to the extent that some spoke sternly to Mālik for rejecting an authentic hadith, even though he himself transmitted it. The report has reached us through numerous chains from several Companions. And even if the ruling derived from these two hadiths appears to conflict with other texts that deem a sale complete upon mere contract, without mentioning separation, the Revealed Law sometimes singles out particular cases from general principles—whether as an act of devotion or because of a specific benefit tied to them.