Section
Leasing is of two kinds:

1. A lease that relates to a tangible item (ʿayn).
   • If the item is identified only by description,1 it is required to detail all the specifications demanded in a salam contract and to state the animal’s gait—whether it moves with a smooth amble (himlāj) or otherwise—while specifying its sex or breed is unnecessary.
   • If the item is a particular, named individual,2 the following are required: that it be known to the parties, that delivery is possible, that the lessor owns its usufruct, that its sale would be valid (with the exception of a free person, waqf property, or an umm walad),3 and that it actually possesses the benefit for which it is being hired. Hence one may not lease a crippled animal for carrying loads, nor saline wasteland for cultivation.

2. A lease that concerns a benefit owed in the liability (dhimmah). The benefit must be fixed in a manner that does not admit variation, such as sewing a garment of specified characteristics4 or constructing a wall whose length, width, thickness,5 and the tools to be used are all stated. One may not combine a time limit and the work itself, as in saying, “He shall sew it6 within one day.”

Because the performance of certain acts requires the doer to be a Muslim, a hiring contract is invalid for the call to prayer (adhān), the iqāmah, teaching the Quran, jurisprudence, ḥadīth, acting as a proxy in the Hajj, or adjudicating cases; these actions are undertaken solely as devotional acts by the person performing them. Receiving a wage for them is therefore forbidden, although offering a reward by way of juʿālah is permissible.