holds that this is not permissible, because the worker has gained nothing. However, if it were held to be permissible, there would be grounds for that view, since the worker has volunteered his own labour to work in this orchard. Yet it may be said: if we deem it permissible here, then the cost of the necessary supplies must be borne by the owner, lest the worker be burdened with both financial and physical loss. Moreover, this is unknown, since it is not known what supplies the palm trees will require.
His statement, “It is stipulated that the share be known and undivided”: this has already preceded in the discussion of partnerships. The share must therefore be a known, undivided portion, such as a quarter, a half, a third, an eighth, or a tenth, according to whatever the two agree upon.
If it is unknown—for example, if he says, “I enter into a sharecropping contract with you concerning these trees in return for some of their fruit”—then this is not permissible, because it is unknown.
If he says, “I enter into a sharecropping contract with you concerning these trees in return for one hundred kilograms of their fruit,” this is not valid, because it is not an undivided share.
If he says, “I enter into a sharecropping contract with you concerning these trees: you will have two rows of palm trees, and I will have two rows,” the rows being lines of palm trees, this is not permissible, because it is not an undivided share.
If he says, “I enter into a sharecropping contract with you concerning these palm trees on the condition that the fruit of the first year is yours and that of the second year is mine,” this is not permissible, because it involves uncertainty and ignorance, leads to dispute, and may result in one of them alone bearing the loss or receiving the gain. The basic principle in a partnership is that the two partners share both gain and loss.
Rāfiʿ ibn Khadīj, may Allah be pleased with him, said: “In the time of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, people would lease out irrigation channels, the banks alongside watercourses, and certain crops