Narrational Documents of Article 453 of the Iranian Civil Code and its Criticism from the Perspective of Fiqh al-Hadith (Jurisprudential Hadith Studies)

The rule “During the time of having the option or right to withdraw from a contract of sale, the buyer who does not have the right to withdraw from a transaction is responsible for any damage to what is sold / bought” is one of the most definite rules in Islamic jurisprudence. One of the important issues related to this rule is its scope and extent of coverage in comparison to other options, whose jurisprudential outcomes, similar to other jurisprudential rules, are influenced by various perspectives about its extent of coverage. The findings of the present study reveal that there are three important theories on this issue: 1) the theory of limiting the rule to ‘the option of condition’ and ‘the option of animals’, which is the basis of Article 453 of the Iranian Civil Code; 2) the theory of limiting the rule to ‘the option of meeting place’; and 3) the theory of generalizing the rule to all kinds of ‘options’. Examining these theories critically, the present article has favored the third theory as the criterion for the liability for any damage to or defect on what is sold / bought is expiry and non-expiry of the condition intended for the contract of sale such that if the stipulated time extends, the surety resulting from the unwanted occurrence of any defect on what is sold / bought will be passed to the seller and in case of the establishment and stability of the contract of sale for the customer, it will be passed to the customer in all options .