This produced confusion in both wording and chain of transmission and led to doubt, so much so that Imām Aḥmad said, “Rāfiʿ’s ḥadith appears in many disparate versions. The Companions themselves rejected it, and ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿUmar only came to know of it during the caliphate of Muʿāwiyah. How could a ruling of such consequence have eluded them while they were actively practising share-cropping? We shall soon cite another instance of this inconsistency.”
Even if we were to assume that Rāfiʿ’s narrations are sound, the scholars have provided convincing replies to them and to Jābir’s report.
The best of these responses reconciles Rāfiʿ’s narrations with the ḥadiths of Khaybar, interpreting the prohibition mentioned by Rāfiʿ as applying only to a corrupt form of share-cropping—one tainted by ambiguity and ignorance, closely resembling games of chance, gambling, and other forbidden contests.
This is a cogent interpretation, and in some transmission routes Rāfiʿ himself states it plainly.
Al-Layth ibn Saʿd said, “What the Messenger of Allah ﷺ forbade is something that any discerning person versed in what is lawful and unlawful will recognise as prohibited because of the risk it contains.”
Ibn al-Mundhir said, “Rāfiʿ’s reports come with explicit causes showing that the prohibition is tied to those very causes.”
Al-Khaṭṭābī said, “Rāfiʿ has informed you that what is forbidden is the unknown, not the known. Their custom was to stipulate invalid conditions and to reserve for the landowner whatever grew along the canals and water-courses. At times that portion would survive while the remainder of the crop perished, leaving the share-cropper with nothing whatsoever. Such an arrangement involves clear hazard and risk.
Share-cropping is a partnership, and a partner’s share may not be left undefined.”
Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah said, “The intent is that the Prophet ﷺ prohibited that form of partnership which, in broad terms, amounts to leasing land when the landowner stipulates that the produce of a specific plot is exclusively his. The matter, as al-Layth ibn Saʿd stated, is that what the Prophet forbade—"