A shari’a approach (and one of the secondary sources of Shari’a) which is applied to prevent, on a pre-emptive basis, any thing that can open the door to the commitment of forbidden acts or violations (evil/haram). This principle is used to prevent misuse of legal means to illegal (impermissible) ends. Jurists, such as al-Qarafi, define it as: “prohibiting an act that itself if free from mafsada (potential damage or undesirable ends) whenever it becomes a means to mafsada”. From this perspective, scholars prohibited ba’i al-inah based on the possibility of unlawful consequences exemplified in paying and receiving riba through a fictitious transaction.

Elimination of pretexts, originally derived from Islamic shari’a principles, is known an Arabic as sadd addhara’i.