Musannaf Ibn Abi Shaybah 21747 — Selling with uncertainty (gharar)

Sa'id bin al-Musayyib said: The people said: If only we could see a sale between Sayyiduna Abd al-Rahman bin Awf and Sayyiduna Uthman bin Affan (may Allah be pleased with them both), so that we might know which of the two strives the harder in trade. Then Sayyiduna Abd al-Rahman bin Awf (may Allah be pleased with him) bought some horses from Sayyiduna Uthman (may Allah be pleased with him) for forty thousand, and stipulated that when the transaction was completed, all the horses should be alive, gathered with the shepherd and not strayed. When the sale had been settled and Sayyiduna Abd al-Rahman (may Allah be pleased with him) had gone a little way on, he said to himself: What have you done? He then went back to Sayyiduna Uthman (may Allah be pleased with him) and said to him: I will give you six thousand more on condition that, if the messenger reaches them while they are alive, they are my liability. When the messenger reached them, they had died; and so Sayyiduna Abd al-Rahman (may Allah be pleased with him) came out of the liability by the second condition.