Validity of a conditional prize offer to a group where the prize goes to the first achiever(s)
General Chapter
Al-Mughni
Book of Racing and Archery
Primary text
The offer made to ten people, stating that whoever among them precedes the others receives ten, is valid. If they all reach the goal simultaneously, none receive the prize because the condition for awarding it to a single entity was not met. If one person precedes the others, that person receives the entire ten. If two precede others, they share the ten. If nine precede the last one, the ten is divided among the nine because the condition was met by them. This is analogous to saying, 'Whoever returns my runaway slave receives ten,' and nine return him; the prize is shared among them.
Supporting text
There is a potential view that each preceding individual should receive the full prize amount, drawing an analogy to the case where one says, 'Whoever returns my slave receives ten,' and each of them returns a slave individually, thus each earning the full prize. This differs from the case where nine return one slave collectively, as in that instance, no single person fulfilled the condition alone.