of Ruwayfiʿ ibn Thābit al-Anṣārī, may Allah be pleased with him, who said: “In the time of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ one of us would take his brother’s worn-out mount on the condition that half of whatever spoils he obtained would be his and the other half ours.” Included also is what al-Dāraquṭnī related (3/63)—a chain that al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar judged sound—that Ḥakīm ibn Ḥizām, when giving a man money as a silent-partnership investment, used to stipulate: “Do not place my money in any creature with a moist liver, do not carry it by sea, and do not descend with it into a flood-bed. Should you do any of that, you are liable for my capital.” Similar reports abound.
Ibn Ḥajar said in al-Talkhīṣ: “There are narrations on muḍāraba from many Companions, among them ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, Ibn Masʿūd, Ibn ʿAbbās, and Ḥakīm ibn Ḥizām—may Allah be pleased with them all.”
Consensus: Ibn al-Mundhir stated, “The scholars are unanimously agreed that muḍāraba is, in principle, permissible.”
Al-Ṣanʿānī observed: “Qirāḍ was practiced in the pre-Islamic period and Islam ratified it. Muḍāraba meets a genuine need and contains no prohibited element, so sound analogy affirms its permissibility—especially in our own day, when many people possess liquid funds but lack the time to invest or trade with them.”
Thus muḍāraba is a form of partnership in which one contracting party supplies a specified sum of his wealth and is called the capital owner, while the other deploys that money through his own effort, labor, and judgment and is called the muḍārib, or worker.
The worker in this arrangement is deemed a trustee in his dealings, and his statements regarding what he has bought, sold, or otherwise transacted are accepted—except when he returns the capital to its owner or the owner’s heirs; in that case his word is not accepted without evidence, because he has a personal interest in retaining the money.
Any loss or diminution of the principal or of the profit that occurs without his misconduct or negligence is not his responsibility; but if it results from misconduct or negligence, he must make restitution.