one state in which they resemble pure usufructs—namely, while they remain attached to their sources and their benefit is obtained—and another state in which they resemble pure tangible property—namely, once they have been detached and taken into possession as tangible property is taken into possession. If the owner of the trees waters and tends them until the fruit becomes fit for sale, he is selling the fruit alone. Likewise, if the landowner tills, sows, and waters the land until the crop becomes fit for sale, he is selling the crop alone. This remains so even if the purchaser is the one who picks the fruit and harvests the crop, just as goods may be sold while still on the land, leaving the purchaser to remove and transport them. This is why the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) treated the two alike by prohibiting the sale of grain until it hardens and the sale of fruit until its ripeness becomes evident. Such a transaction is purely a sale of the fruit or crop.

By contrast, if the owner hands the trees over to the [lessee] to water and pollinate them and protect them from harm, this is equivalent to handing land over to someone to till, sow, and water it. This is why the two cases are treated alike in orchard sharecropping and field sharecropping. Just as leasing land is not a sale of its crops, leasing trees is not a sale of their fruit. Rather, leasing trees stands in relation to leasing land as orchard sharecropping stands in relation to field sharecropping. The latter are yield-sharing transactions, whereas the former are leases for a known consideration.

If these tangible products have already been treated in the same manner as usufructs when their sources are made endowments, when they are given gratuitously, when arrangements are made for a share of their yield, and when they are exchanged for consideration after becoming fit for sale, then they should likewise be treated in the same manner when consideration is exchanged for the right to derive and obtain them. If a distinction were drawn between crops and fruit on the grounds that crops emerge only through labor whereas fruit emerges without labor, that distinction would have no legal effect, as demonstrated by orchard sharecropping and field sharecropping. Nor is the claim itself correct, for labor affects the production of fruit just as it affects germination, and when