Islamic Fiqh > Financial transactions > Gharar: forbidden uncertain sales > Invalid conditions in sale
Updated on 26 September 2026 at 7:12 PM
This sheet classifies the conditions (shurut) inserted into a contract of sale and sets out how they are treated by the four schools, with a detailed exposition from the Hanbali school. A valid condition does not require, in order to be honored, the creation of a future event: it therefore does not fall under the prohibition of a sale combined with a condition, even if it is loosely called a condition, since a condition by nature concerns only the future, and the name alone suffices for a stipulated quality. If the condition is not fulfilled, the buyer holds the option. The sale of a fetus on its own is not valid, nor the sale of a pregnant animal without the fetus, nor the pregnant animal together with a free person; if a pregnant animal is sold without qualification, the fetus enters the sale as an accessory (Rawdat al-Talibin 3/62, 67; al-Majmu' 9/349, 935; Mughni al-Muhtaj 2/463, 466; al-Dibaj 2/42, 45; Nihayat al-Muhtaj 3/517, 522; al-Najm al-Wahhaj 4/80, 85).
The Hanbalis say: a condition is the obligation laid upon one of the two contracting parties, by effect of the contract, to what brings him a benefit; what counts in it belongs to the very core of the contract, and it falls into two categories. The first is the sound and binding condition, such as the condition of deferring payment of the price, in whole or in part, by the word of Allah:
"O you who believe, when you contract a debt for a fixed term, write it down"
Surah Al-Baqarah, 282
Likewise the condition of a pledge or a specified guarantor, because that serves the interest of the contract; or the condition of a quality in the item sold: the slave being a scribe, a craftsman or a Muslim, the slave girl a virgin or menstruating, the beast pregnant, milking or carrying its young, the cheetah or falcon a hunter. If the stipulated quality is found to exist, the sale becomes binding by reason of the validity of the condition.
Otherwise the buyer is entitled to cancel for the loss of the condition, or to take the arsh as compensation for the loss of the stipulated quality. The arsh consists in appraising the item sold in its sound state, then in its defective state, and taking from the price the difference between the two appraisals (see al-Sharh al-Kabir 4/87). If he does not cancel, he takes the arsh for a defect that appeared in the item; if return is impossible, the arsh becomes obligatory, as with a defect whose return is impossible. If a quality was stipulated and the item turns out to be above it, there is no option.
The seller may validly stipulate upon the buyer the benefit of what he sold him for a known period, such as dwelling in the house for a month, or riding the animal to a specific place, as in the hadith of Jabir (may Allah be pleased with him): he sold a camel to the Prophet (peace be upon him) and stipulated its back for transport to Medina (narrated by al-Bukhari 2967 and Muslim 715). Likewise the buyer may validly stipulate upon the seller the carriage of what he bought to a known place; if the place is not known, the condition is not valid: if he stipulates carriage to his house when the seller does not know it, the condition is invalid.
The buyer may also stipulate upon the seller the grinding of what he bought, its sewing or its tailoring, for that amounts to sale and hire; but two conditions of that kind may not be combined. If two conditions not belonging to those two first types are combined, such as carrying firewood and grinding it, or sewing a garment and tailoring it, the sale is void.
The second category is the invalid condition: that which contradicts the requirement of the contract. It is of three types.
The first type voids the sale from its very root: stipulating upon one of the contracting parties another contract. This includes stipulating another sale, as in "I sold you this house on condition that you sell me this horse"; a salaf (advance-payment sale), as in "I sold you my slave on condition that you lend me such and such"; a loan (qard), as in "on condition that you lend me such an amount"; a lease, as in "on condition that you rent me your house for such a price"; a partnership, as in "on condition that you share with me in such an undertaking"; the exchange of the price, as in "I sold you the slave girl for ten dinars on condition that you exchange them for me into one hundred dirhams"; or the exchange of something else, that is, of the price, as in "I sold you the garment on condition that you exchange these dinars for me into dirhams". This follows what came earlier: the Prophet (peace be upon him) said:
"A salaf (advance-payment sale) combined with a sale is not lawful, nor are two conditions in a sale."Hasan hadith, narrated by Abu Dawud (3503), al-Tirmidhi (1234), al-Nasa'i (4611) and Ibn Majah (2188)
He (peace be upon him) also forbade two sales in a single sale, and this type is precisely the "two sales in one sale" that is forbidden. Ahmad said: the prohibition implies invalidity. Ibn Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him) said: "Two bargains in one bargain: that is riba." The stipulation of a contract within a contract is likewise not valid, as in the shighar marriage (exchanging daughters in marriage without a dowry).
The same kind of invalidity applies to "I sold you such a thing for one hundred, on condition that you pledge your house, for example, for it, together with the hundred you owe"; or to "I sold you my garment for ten dirhams, for example, on condition that I take the dinar from you for a certain number of dirhams, five for instance".
The same applies to everything of that meaning, such as "I sold you my house for such a price on condition that you give me your daughter in marriage, or that I give you my daughter"; likewise on condition of supporting my slave, or my mount, or my share of it, whether as a loan or gratuitously.
This is a condition in the contract that contradicts the requirement of the sale: the buyer stipulates that he will not suffer a loss when reselling, or that if the item sold perishes he will return it to his seller; the seller stipulates upon the buyer that he will neither lend nor resell the item, or that he will resell it, or not give it away, or not free it, or that if he frees it the seller will have the clientage (wala'). Or he is stipulated to do that, that is, to lend the item or give it away: the condition is invalid and the sale valid, because the condition falls upon other than the one concluding the contract, as in "I sell it to you on condition that your brother, or Zayd, derive no benefit from it". This is per the hadith of Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her):
Barira came to me and said: "I have contracted with my family for my emancipation for nine uqiyya, one uqiyya per year; help me." I said: "If your family wish, I will pay it to them in one sum, and your clientage will be mine." I did so, and Barira went to her family and spoke to them; they refused. She came back while the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was seated and said: "I offered them that, but they would accept nothing unless the clientage were theirs." The Prophet (peace be upon him) heard of it, and Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) told him; he said: "Take her and stipulate for them the clientage, for the clientage belongs only to the one who frees." Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) did so. Then the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) stood up among the people, praised Allah and glorified Him, and then said: "What is the matter with men who stipulate conditions not found in the Book of Allah? Any condition not found in the Book of Allah is void, even if it were one hundred conditions; the decree of Allah is truer, the bond of Allah is firmer; and the clientage belongs only to the one who frees."Narrated by al-Bukhari and Muslim
He therefore voided the condition without voiding the contract. As for his words (peace be upon him), "and stipulate for them the clientage", they cannot be read as "impose the clientage upon them", for he commanded her with it and does not command what is corrupt: the clientage was hers of itself through the freeing, with no need of a stipulation; moreover her family had refused the emancipation unless the condition were stipulated in their favor, so how would he command her with what he knew they would not accept? His command is therefore not, strictly speaking, a command: it is a command in form conveying equivalence between two options, like the word of Allah:
"So be patient, or do not be patient"
Surah Ta-Ha, 16
meaning: stipulate for them the clientage, or do not stipulate it. Hence he said immediately after: "the clientage belongs only to the one who frees". Excepted is the condition of emancipation, which binds the buyer when the seller stipulates it upon him, per the hadith of Barira: the buyer upon whom it is laid is compelled to it if he refuses, for it is a right owed to Allah, being a devotional act the buyer committed himself to; it is therefore enforced upon him, like a vow. If he persists in refusing, the judge carries out the freeing, as he pronounces divorce on behalf of the one bound to grant it.
Likewise invalid is the condition of an unsound pledge, such as an unknown pledge or the like, the condition of an unspecified guarantor or surety, the condition of an option or a term attached to two unknown prices, the condition of deferring delivery of the item sold without the seller benefiting from it, or the seller's condition upon the buyer that, if he resells it, the seller, that is, the first seller, shall have greater right to the item for an equivalent price. The sale is then valid and these conditions void, by analogy with the stipulation of the clientage for the middleman.
Whoever's purpose was defeated by the invalidity of the condition, whether seller or stipulating party, may cancel in all the invalid conditions listed, even if he knew the condition to be invalid; for he did not consent to what the condition imposed upon him.
The price and the counter-value are returned if nothing is lost by canceling the condition; otherwise, if something is lost, the arsh of the price reduction is owed to the seller if he was the stipulating party. If he sold below the true price while attaching an invalid condition, he has the choice between canceling and taking the arsh of the reduction, for he sold at a reduction only for the purpose he stipulated; if that purpose is not achieved, he reverts to the reduction. Likewise the stipulating buyer may recover the excess, that is, the price, having bought above the true price with an invalid condition: he then has the choice between canceling and taking the excess, the purpose of each of them having failed.
The same applies to any invalid condition: the condition of the milk of a sold animal for a known period, a month for instance, because the quantity of milk produced over that period is unknown; or the condition of enjoying a sold mount on the basis that the seller benefits from it as he wishes and then hands it over to the buyer: that condition is invalid because the benefit is unknown, and the buyer then has the option.
If someone says to his creditor, "Sell me this item on condition that I discharge your debt with it", and he sells it to him, the sale is valid, not the condition; for he stipulated that the creditor would not dispose of it otherwise than by settlement, whereas the requirement of sale is that the buyer dispose of it as he chooses. The seller has the option to cancel or to take the arsh of the price reduction, as set out above.
If the debtor says, "Discharge my debt and I will sell you such a thing", and he discharges it, the discharge is valid: he received his debt only, without a conditioned sale, for the sale was suspended upon the discharge, and a sale cannot be suspended.
If the debtor says, "Pay me the surplus (ajwad) you owe me and I will sell you such a thing", and they act accordingly, the rightful amount being paid and the promised item sold, both the sale and the discharge are void: the surplus is returned by the one who took it, and he is demanded for the like of his debt; for the debtor agreed to pay the surplus only in the hope of obtaining the sale, which he did not obtain because of the invalidity of the sale, it being two sales in one sale.
This is the sale suspended upon a condition, as in "I sold you such a thing if you come to me", "if Zayd is content with it for such a price", "I bought such a thing from you for such a price if you come to me", "if Zayd agrees", or "if the head of the month arrives", for instance; for it is a contract of exchange that requires the transfer of ownership at the moment of the contract, and the condition prevents that.
Likewise if one says to the pledgee, "If I bring your due to its place, otherwise the pledge is yours", the sale is not valid, by the word of the Prophet (peace be upon him):
"The pledge does not bar its owner (from it)."Mursal hadith, narrated by al-Shafi'i (324)
The same applies to any sale suspended upon a future condition, apart from "if Allah wills", and apart from the earnest-money ('urbun) sale, when something is paid after the contract with the words: "If I take the item I will complete the price; otherwise what I paid is yours": that is valid, per the practice of Umar (may Allah be pleased with him); what was paid to the seller belongs to him if the sale is not completed, and hire follows the same rule.
If one sold an item stipulating in the sale exoneration from every unknown defect, or from a specific defect, when the seller was not in fact free of it: if the buyer finds a defect in the item he has the option; for the defect becomes established only after the sale, and so it does not fall away by an exoneration declared before it. If the seller named the defect precisely, or if the buyer exonerated him after the contract, the seller is exonerated.
Whoever sells an article to be measured on the basis that it is ten, and it turns out to contain more or less: the sale is valid, the increase belongs to the seller and the shortfall is upon him.
Each of the two may cancel, because of the harm arising from shared ownership, unless the seller gives the increase to the buyer gratuitously in the first case, or the buyer agrees to take it for the whole price in the second: there is then no cancellation, the purpose not being lost. Even if the item sold is, for example, a jar (sabra) stated to contain ten full measures (awfya): if it turns out to contain less or more, the sale is valid, with no option; the increase belongs to the seller and the shortfall is upon him, there being no harm (al-Mughni 4/156, 157; Kashshaf al-Qina' 3/217, 226; Sharh Muntaha al-Iradat 3/168, 181; al-Rawd al-Murbi' 1/555, 559; al-Mubdi' 4/54; Matalib Uli al-Nuha 3/75, 77).