hadith tradition. However, it does not hold under Abū Hanīfa’s principles, because he does not permit fruit to be purchased on condition that it remain on the tree. He does permit its purchase before its ripeness becomes evident, but the legal consequence of the contract is that it must be harvested immediately. If it is purchased together with the trees themselves, the purchaser is entitled to leave it only because the trees are his property. Allah willing, we shall discuss this principle.

Abū Ubayd stated that there is consensus prohibiting the lease of land containing many trees.

The third position is that land containing trees may be leased and that the trees may be included in the lease without qualification. This is the position of Ibn Aqīl, and Harb al-Kirmānī was inclined toward it. This position was almost a consensus among the early generations, even though the well-known position of the leading imams is contrary to it. Saīd ibn Mansūr related—as Harb al-Kirmānī also related from him in his Masāil—saying: Abbād ibn Abbād narrated to us from Hishām ibn Urwa, from his father: “Usayd ibn Hudayr died owing six thousand dirhams [as a debt]. Umar summoned his creditors and leased his land to them for a number of years; it contained date palms and other trees.”

Moreover, Umar ibn al-Khattāb imposed land tax on the Sawād and other lands. He left the lands containing date palms and grapevines in the hands of their inhabitants and assessed a fixed land tax on every jarīb, whether planted or bare. According to the well-known report, he assessed ten dirhams on each jarīb of grapevines, eight dirhams on each jarīb of date palms, six dirhams on each jarīb of green produce, and one dirham and one qafīz of grain on each jarīb of cropland.

The well-known position of Mālik, al-Shāfiī, and Ahmad is that this fixed land-tax arrangement