Not every contract involving uncertainty is to be judged by analogy with a sale involving uncertainty. This is because the financial considerations either are not required under these contracts or are not their principal object. If uncertainty attaches to something that is not the intended object, it does not lead to the harm identified in a sale. Rather, requiring precise specification in such a case would entail hardship and difficulty—which the Sacred Law precludes—greater than the harm caused by leaving it unspecified.

[Chapter: The Ruling on Leasing Land Containing Trees and Arable Ground]

Chapter.

Among the applications of this principle for which there is a pressing need, and among the issues concerning the sale of fruit before its ripeness becomes evident, is a matter that has become a widespread practical concern in many, if not most, Muslim lands—especially Damascus. A tract of land may contain trees and arable ground, and may also contain dwellings. Its owner wishes to lease it to someone who will irrigate and cultivate it, or who will also reside there. When the property includes both ground and trees, the jurists hold three views regarding it:

The first is that this is not permissible under any circumstances. This is the view of the Kufans and al-Shāfiʿī, and it is the well-known position in Ahmad’s school according to most of his followers.

The second view is that it is permissible if the trees are few and the unplanted ground constitutes two-thirds or more. The same applies when someone rents a house containing a few date palms, grapevines, or the like. This is Mālik’s view, and both views are also reported from Ahmad. Al-Kirmānī said: “Ahmad was asked, ‘What about a man who leases land containing palm trees?’ He replied, ‘I fear that he has leased trees that have not yet borne fruit.’ He appeared not to approve of it. I think he meant when the trees themselves were intended. I understood nothing more than this from Ahmad.”

The position previously related from Ahmad concerns the case where a commodity subject to ribā is sold for one of its own kind together with something of a different kind, when the principal object is the item of the different kind—as with a sheep bearing wool or milk