A merchant selling a commodity he does not have in his possession
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
Honorable Shaykh, a man in the market, when a customer comes to him asking for a commodity, tells him, "I will provide you with the goods from the warehouse," but the goods are not there. Then he goes to the market and buys them for him at an increased price. What is the ruling?
Answer:
The ruling on this is that it is an invalid sale, because he sold something before he owned it. One of the conditions for the validity of a sale is that the seller must own the item being sold at the time of the contract. Since this person does not own the item, this is an invalid sale. However, the contract should be delayed until he obtains the commodity. Once he has obtained it, he can conclude the sale with him. As for concluding the contract with him before he obtains the commodity, this is an invalid sale because it is selling what one does not own. Yes.
Honorable Shaykh, a man in the market, when a customer comes to him asking for a commodity, tells him, "I will provide you with the goods from the warehouse," but the goods are not there. Then he goes to the market and buys them for him at an increased price. What is the ruling?
Answer:
The ruling on this is that it is an invalid sale, because he sold something before he owned it. One of the conditions for the validity of a sale is that the seller must own the item being sold at the time of the contract. Since this person does not own the item, this is an invalid sale. However, the contract should be delayed until he obtains the commodity. Once he has obtained it, he can conclude the sale with him. As for concluding the contract with him before he obtains the commodity, this is an invalid sale because it is selling what one does not own. Yes.
Source
شرح بلوغ المرام من أدلة الأحكام [ صالح الفوزان ]، بداية من باب الربا — islamhouse.com (45:19)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.