Is the item taken for the purpose of a trial sale subject to guarantee?

Question : Now, the important point: do you know what is meant by an item taken for the purpose of a trial sale? It means you tried the item from him and said, "I will not sell it to you unless I cut the price." So you took it to your wife and her family; if they are pleased, you praise it, otherwise not. But this item fell from my hand and broke and was damaged. Is it guaranteed or not? Yes.

Answer : There are two narrations from Ahmad on this matter: one that it is guaranteed, and one that it is not guaranteed. The correct view is that it is not guaranteed, provided there was no transgression or negligence. We have previously established a rule on this: anything taken by the permission of the Shari'ah or by the permission of its owner is not guaranteed, because it is not guaranteed. Based on this, we say that an item accepted under a defective contract, where the owner gave permission but the Shari'ah did not, is not guaranteed according to the stronger view, unless there was transgression or negligence. We say: it is true that ownership is invalid in the hands of the possessor, but there is no guarantee on him. As for the issue of rent, if the buyer rented it out under the defective contract, the rent belongs to the owner, because it is an increase of his property. If he did not rent it out but benefited from it, there is no rent due on him, because he benefited from it with the owner's permission, so there is no guarantee on him. This is the rule that puts the mind at ease. However, if a person took it under a defective contract and kept it for a period, and then the seller came and said, "By Allah, the contract is defective; give me my house, for example," and the seller says, "Give it to me," and the buyer guarantees the loss, this is troubling. Perhaps many people do this to deceive others. Perhaps they deceive others: one comes as a poor guest just after the Friday call to prayer, and the other says, "Sell me your house, so-and-so." He says, "Yes, the seller is buying my house?" He says, "It is a firm sale, a merchant's sale." He says, "It is firm." That poor man was happy, took the house, delivered the fish, and he and his family moved in. After a year, this man came and said, "By Allah, I investigated and asked, and they said that a sale after the Friday call to prayer is not valid and is not permissible, and that the house is my house." He says it is like that. It is not a problem, he says, "Yesterday you were in need." He says, "I do not dispute the house." And today this is a problem for some people who do not care about this matter.