As for disagreement over the amount, the basic principle is that profit in a profit-sharing partnership, and increase in tree-sharecropping and agricultural sharecropping, follows the principal asset. Therefore, the capital owner’s statement is accepted.

In every case where we say that one party’s statement is accepted, he must take an oath, because the Prophet ﷺ said: “The oath is upon the one who denies.” (1) Thus, if they say that the stipulated share is three quarters, and the worker says, “It is mine,” while the capital owner says, “It is mine,” and the customary practice is that such a share is given to the capital owner, then according to the stronger view it belongs to the capital owner—but only with his oath—because the worker is the claimant and the capital owner is the denier. The Prophet ﷺ said: “The oath is upon the one who denies.”

Issue: If a profit-sharing partnership is invalid, then all of the profit belongs to the capital owner, while the worker is entitled to the customary wage. For example, if the monthly wage of a worker like him is one thousand riyals, then he is entitled to one thousand riyals from the capital owner, even if this consumes all of the profit or amounts to only one thousandth of the profit. This is the well-known position of the school. The reasoning is that this profit-sharing partnership is invalid, so the worker is entitled to payment for his work.

The correct view in this matter is that the worker is entitled to the customary share. Thus, it is asked: if someone were to trade with this capital, what would he ordinarily be given? If they say, for example, that he would be given half of the profit, then he is entitled to half of the profit, and so on. This is because the worker undertook the work as a partner, not as an employee. Moreover, if we were to say that he is to receive a wage, the wage might consume all of the profit, in which case the capital owner would incur a loss, even though he did not give him the capital on the basis that he was an employee.