A type of sale (bay’) that was particularly popular in the days of early Islam and pre-Islam, where the buyer or the seller of a piece of folded cloth used, in order to execute a sale transaction, to touch that cloth as a sign of finalizing the sale, without ever seeing it. Such act of touching gave rise to the nomenclature “mulamasah”. Bay’ al-mulamasah is forbidden by shari’a due to the amount of gharar associated therewith (the sale is completed without its underlying object being seen by the buyer).
Bay’ al-mulamasah is known in English as touch sale.
