506 – Salim ibn ʿAbd Allah narrates from his father—may Allah be pleased with them—that the Prophet ﷺ said: “On crops watered by rainfall and natural springs, or that drink directly from the ground, one-tenth is due; on those irrigated by bucket-drawing animals, half of one-tenth is due.” Reported by al-Bukhari.

Abu Dawud adds: “When the land is rain-fed (baʿl), the due is one-tenth; and on what is irrigated by the water-lifts (sawani) or by buckets, half of one-tenth is due.” (1)

Vocabulary of the ḥadith:
• “Watered by the sky”: rainfall, for everything above is called “sky.”
• “Springs”: plural of ʿayn; the underground sources that gush from the earth or mountain slopes.
• “ʿAthariyyan”—with a fatḥa on the ʿayn and thāʾ, a kasra on the rāʾ, and a shadda on the yāʾ—refers to crops whose roots drink without any deliberate irrigation. The term comes from ʿathara ʿalā (“to come upon”), as the plant finds water on its own without human effort.
• “One-tenth” (al-ʿushr): the word is the subject, and its predicate is implied in “on what the sky has watered,” i.e., one-tenth is obligatory on crops watered naturally.
• “Bucket irrigation” (al-naḍḥ): with a fatḥa on the nūn, sukūn on the ḍād, followed by ḥāʾ. The root means to sprinkle or spread water; here it signifies irrigating. An animal used for drawing water is called a nāḍiḥ, the female nāḍiḥah, plural nawāḍiḥ. It is so named because it quenches thirst—moistening the land with the water it carries; this is its original sense, then—