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What is the ruling on buying good and cheap merchandise from an intoxicated seller, knowing his condition and smelling alcohol from him?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The seller is in one of two situations:

1. If drinking did not affect his mind in a way that deprived him of his legal capacity to act, then the sale is valid and enforceable, unless it involved fraud, deception, or excessive unfairness. The fact that the seller is immoral does not matter. 2. If drinking affected his mind in a way that deprived him of full legal capacity to act, then the jurists differed: The Hanafis and Shafi'is hold that his sale is valid as a deterrent to him. The Malikis hold that his sale is suspended; he may revoke it or ratify it upon regaining sobriety. The most preponderant view—which is one of the narrations from Imam Ahmad—is that the sale of an inebriated person is not valid because he has lost his intellect, which is the basis of legal accountability and a condition for the validity of transactions. He is like the insane person or one who has fainted, in terms of the loss of intellect.

Based on this, if the seller was deprived of his intellect due to intoxication or any other reason, then the contract is not valid, and you must return the item and buy it from him after he regains sobriety, especially if the price was cheap, which confirms the possibility of his negligence due to the loss of his intellect.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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