756 – ʿAbd Allah ibn Masʿūd (may Allah be pleased with him) said, “ʿAmmār, Saʿd and I formed a partnership regarding whatever share we should receive on the Day of Badr ….” The hadith is reported by al-Nasāʾī. (1)

• Degree of authenticity:
  The isnād is broken between Ibn Masʿūd and his son Abū ʿUbayda. Al-Mundhirī states that Abū ʿUbayda did not hear anything directly from his father. Al-Shawkānī notes that Ibn al-Madīnī, al-Tirmidhī and al-Dāraqutnī do not authenticate what Abū ʿUbayda narrates from his father.

• Points derived from the hadith:
  1 – This narration is an essential proof for the permissibility of a labour partnership (shirkah al-abdan) between two or more partners concerning whatever they obtain or produce from lawful means, whatever they earn through their physical effort, or whatever spoils they acquire in battle.
  2 – Whatever livelihood Allah grants them is to be divided equally, even if one of them did all the earning, because the partnership contract requires that.
  3 – Each partner is obliged to work on any task accepted by the other, for the basis of this partnership is mutual liability and cooperation in work.
  4 – The jurists have said that a brokerage partnership (shirkah al-dallālīn) is invalid, because a Sharia-compliant partnership must fall under one of two categories: agency (wakālah) or suretyship (ḍamān). In the case of brokers, neither agency nor suretyship is present.