The ruling on a seller’s ignorance of the ruling on selling dates when the palm trees have been pollinated

The questioner : Yes, most people today do not know or are ignorant of the rulings on sales.

The Shaykh : Yes.

The questioner : If the people in a specific country have a custom, meaning they do not know the ruling, and a man sells a garden with date palms, for example, then whether the date palms have been pollinated or not, they belong to the buyer.

The Shaykh : They belong to the buyer. All right.

The questioner : He learned about it later, or the seller was a student of knowledge and knew this hadith, so he said to the buyer after he had read it: “I made a mistake.” They disputed, and then he came to ask the student of knowledge.

The Shaykh : All right, is the custom inconsistent or not?

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : That the pollinated dates follow the tree is a consistent ruling.

The questioner : There are.

The Shaykh : All right, if it is consistent, then the custom is stipulated just as the wording is stipulated. The Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said If the Messenger says “unless the buyer stipulates,” it means that if he stipulates it, it is for him. But there remains a problem for us: if stipulating it makes it his, then he sold the fruit before its ripening began. What do we say? We say this was established as a secondary matter.
It is established as a secondary matter, and what is not established independently is established as a secondary matter. For this reason, the jurists said that selling the fruit before its ripening is not a problem if it is sold to the owner of the tree, even though their statement is weak. Let us say the fruit became a secondary matter, but their statement is weak and will be considered, if Allah wills. Now, the student of knowledge who studied in Saudi Arabia cannot compare himself to the one who sold in Algeria, is that right? Yes.