Chapter on Musāqāt
Introduction
The term musāqāt (irrigation partnership) is derived from saqī (watering) because watering is its most essential task. Trees need water more than anything else, and since water in the Arabian Peninsula is scarce, people in earlier times could irrigate only by naḍḥ (drawing water with buckets from wells). The contract therefore took its name from the most important and arduous work involved.

Legally, musāqāt is defined as handing over trees to another person so that he waters them and performs all the other services they require, in return for a known, undivided share of their fruit.

Its permissibility rests on both the Sunnah and sound analogy.

1. Sunnah: The Prophet ﷺ—and after him the Rightly Guided Caliphs—concluded musāqāt agreements with the people of Khaybar, granting them half of whatever fruit the land produced.

2. Analogy: Musāqāt is closer to justice and lawfulness because the two parties share both profit and loss. By contrast, in a lease the owner of the trees receives the rent outright, whereas the lessee may or may not obtain any produce.

Musāqāt is one of the partnership contracts whose foundation is equity between the partners. The owner of the trees and land is like the owner of capital who gives money to a muḍārib in a muḍārabah, while the irrigation worker is like the muḍārib who conducts the trade. Both contracts, therefore, fall under the heading of partnerships: profit is shared between them and liability is borne by them both.

From this it is evident that musāqāt is more lawful than leasing and closer to sound analogy and fairness. It thus comes under the basic rule of permissibility, contrary to the claim of some who imagine it to be a form of lease—thinking that it requires precise knowledge of the work and the rent. Such a notion is mistaken.