a state of exemption from defects. The second view is that he may recover from him. This is the manifest position of the school and the view of Abu Hanifa and al-Shafi'i, because the contract of sale entails soundness from any defect that the buyer did not perceive. Thus, when it appears to be defective, the option (khiyar) is established for him. Furthermore, the seller is only entitled to the price of the defective item, not the sound one, because he did not own it as sound; therefore, there is no meaning in obligating the payment of the full price. That he was not negligent does not necessitate that he be entitled to the price of what he did not deliver, as evidenced by a defect in a slave that he did not know about.

Once this is established, if the sold item is of a type that has no value when broken, such as spoiled chicken eggs, black pomegranates, rotten walnuts, or damaged melons, he recovers the entire price; because by this, the corruption of the contract from its origin is made clear, as it occurred upon something that has no benefit, and it is not valid to sell what has no benefit, like insects and carcasses. He is not obligated to return the sold item to the seller, because there is no benefit in it.

Secondly, if it is of a type whose defective state has value, such as coconuts, ostrich eggs, watermelons that have some benefit, and the like, then when he breaks it, one must examine: if it is a breakage without which the sold item cannot be known, then the buyer has the option between returning it and returning the compensation (arsh) for the breaking and taking back the price, or taking the compensation for its defect, which is the proportional difference between its sound and defective state. This is the apparent position of al-Khiraqi. The Qadi said: In my view, he is not liable for compensation for his breaking it, because that occurred by way of investigating the defect, and the seller gave him authority over it, since he knew that its soundness from its corruption could not be known otherwise. This is the view of al-Shafi'i. The reasoning for al-Khiraqi’s view is that it is a deficiency that did not prevent the return, so he is obligated to return its compensation, like the milk of the musarrat (an animal whose milk has been withheld in the udder) when he milks it, or a virgin when he has intercourse with her. By these two principles, what he (the Qadi) mentioned is refuted, for it is for the sake of investigating the defect, and the seller gave him authority over it—nay, it is even more appropriate here because it is deception on the part of the seller, and the tasriya (withholding milk) occurred by his deception.

If it is a breakage without which the sold item could have been known, but it does not destroy the sold item entirely, the ruling is the same as the one before it according to al-Khiraqi, which is also the view of the Qadi. The buyer has the option between returning it and paying the compensation for the breaking and taking back the price, or taking the compensation for the defect. This is one of the two narrations from Ahmad. The second narration is that he does not have the right to return it, and he has the right to the compensation for the defect. This is the view of Abu Hanifa and al-Shafi'i, and we have mentioned this previously. If he breaks it in a way that leaves it with no value, he has only the compensation for the defect, because he destroyed it. The amount of the compensation for the defect is the proportional difference between the sound and defective state of the price. The sold item is valued as sound, then it is valued as defective without being broken, and the buyer is entitled to the difference between them from the price, according to what has already been explained.