fall under the category of gratuitous loans for use. They likened this to a loan from which the borrower benefits and then returns an equivalent. An example is the statement of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him): “The loan of a milch animal, or a loan of silver.” Thus, leasing trees in order to tend them and take their fruit is analogous to hiring a wet nurse for her milk. The only lease expressly mentioned in the Quran is the hiring of a wet nurse, in His words, Glorified is He: “If they breastfeed for you, then give them their wages” [al-Talāq: 6] [al-Talāq: 6].

Some jurists believed that a lease can pertain only to a usufruct, not to tangible property. Yet, because they considered hiring a wet nurse permissible, they said: The subject matter of the contract is placing the child in her lap, while the milk is included only incidentally and as a subordinate element, like the water collected in a well. This flies in the face of reason and sensory experience, for we know necessarily that the milk is the intended object of the contract, as Allah indicated by saying: “If they breastfeed for you” [al-Talāq: 6]. Placing the child in her lap, if done, is merely a means to that end. Rather, the rationale is what I have stated: a product that is replenished while its source remains intact is treated like a usufruct. The transaction does not fall under sale in the narrower sense, for Allah called the compensation a wage, not a price. This differs from the case in which the milk has already been milked: an exchange for it is then called nothing but a sale, because the product is not obtained directly from its source as a usufruct is obtained from its source.

Since tangible products that can be separated from their sources have two states: