Equivalence (mumathala) in exchange, retaliation, shares and inheritance

In the lexicon mumathala is resemblance, and it holds only between things that agree. Equality (musawat) may hold between things that differ. ^{1 2}

For a ribawi good to be sold for another of the same kind, with immediate exchange, the price and the thing sold must be certainly equal, on the saying: 'gold for gold, silver for silver ... salt for salt, like for like'. ²

For retaliation to be due, the offender and the victim must be alike in several respects; if the offender exceeds in one respect, no retaliation is taken, though the jurists differ on some details. ³

The owner of a right takes its thing if it exists, its like if it is a fungible good, or its value if it has no like. ³

In the arithmetic of shares, equality means one of two numbers equals the other. The Qur'anic fixed shares are six: two thirds, a third, a sixth, a half, a quarter and an eighth. ^{3 4}

The Sheikh gives the example of a grandfather who died fifty or a hundred years ago: had someone told him of video calls with colleagues in distant lands, he would not have believed it, and he says that this should not stop us from believing what we cannot yet grasp of the Hereafter (his view). ^{5 6} He gives the image of a fruit with the same look and shape but a different taste: eaten in this world it would make a person ill, just as the body keeps what benefits it and expels the rest (his view). ^{7 8} He says that eating beyond need causes indigestion in this world (his view). ⁹