Shaykh al-Islam said: Leasing the trees of orchards is like leasing their land. Just as you lease this land from its owner and cultivate it—where your crop may be worth more than the rent, or less—the same applies to date palms. The date palms are treated as the principal asset, just as the land is treated as the principal asset in sharecropping.

He further said: This is established from Umar, when he leased out the orchard of Usayd ibn Hudayr, who had incurred debts. He leased his orchard to someone for a specified number of years, taking the rent in advance in order to settle the debt. Umar did this while the Companions were present in large numbers. Moreover, there is no difference between leasing date palms and leasing land. It is also more effective in preventing disputes between the lessee and the landowner. For the owner of date palms may enter into a sharecropping arrangement with a worker in return for a portion of the fruit, and this may lead to disputes. But when the rent is fixed, the owner of the date palms knows his share and has received it, while the lessee knows that all the fruit belongs to him, with no one disputing his right to it; he may dispose of it in full.

This is the practice people follow today: it is valid to lease date palms for a known rent and a specified term, according to whatever the two parties agree upon.

Shaykh al-Islam also answered their citation of the hadith—the Prophet’s prohibition of selling fruit before it shows signs of ripeness—by stating that what is permitted incidentally is not necessarily permitted independently. For this reason, they permitted the sale of the date-palm trees themselves when fruit was growing on them before it showed signs of ripeness, and the sale of a pregnant animal, despite the prohibition of selling the unborn offspring.

Thus, if we say that leasing date palms is invalid, then the author’s statement is to be understood as referring to