However, Imam al-Shāfiʿī treated these very forms as the foundation of muzābanah and attached to them every sale in which an unknown quantity is exchanged for another unknown quantity, or for a known quantity that falls under the rules of ribā. His reasoning is that the explanatory statements on muzābanah found in its hadiths are all marfūʿ, traced back to the Prophet ﷺ. Even if we were to assume that those explanations came from the Companions themselves, they knew best what they reported, and their statement takes precedence over anyone else’s.

As for Imam Mālik, in his view muzābanah is the sale of anything whose measure, weight, or count is unknown for something of the same genus, whether or not that genus is subject to ribā, because the prohibition is rooted in the element of risk (mukhāṭarah). In formulating this definition he returned to the original linguistic sense of the term, as was noted earlier under “Unfamiliar Terms.”

In my judgment, Mālik’s interpretation is preferable, for it gathers a large number of prohibited transactions under one comprehensive principle. The specific explanations cited above do not contradict this, for it was the practice of the early scholars to clarify a rule by offering an illustrative example—only one part of the whole. They never meant to confine the ruling to that single form; they intended it as an example.

Points derived from the ḥadīth

1. The prohibition of muzābanah.
2. Its definition through concrete examples that illuminate its essence.
3. Transactions that fall under muzābanah are invalid, for a direct prohibition entails invalidity.
4. The wisdom behind the prohibition lies in the element of risk and gambling: it is the sale of a known quantity for an unknown one, and it involves exchanging two unspecified, ribā-generating items. Validity requires certainty that the two are equal; when that equality is unknown, the likelihood of ribā predominates, so it is forbidden.
5. The ḥadīth also proves the unlawfulness of selling fresh dates for dried dates when their equality is unknown, even if one strives to estimate parity. More generally, it prohibits selling any two ribā-liable commodities whose equality is unknown—whether the difference is moisture versus dryness, grain versus flour, cooked versus raw, or any other case in which parity cannot be ascertained.

Fourth Ḥadīth
On the authority of Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh, may Allah be pleased with him: “The Prophet ﷺ forbade mukhābarah, muḥāqalah, muzābanah, and the sale of fruit until its soundness becomes evident; and he forbade that it be sold except for dinars and dirhams—save in the case of ʿarāyā.”

Muḥāqalah: selling wheat while it is still in its husk.