akin to usurpation, since Abū Mūsā had lent the money to the two of them but not to other Muslims, even though the fund was held in common. When one partner trades with jointly owned property without the other’s permission, he is like a usurper with respect to his partner’s share. His son Abd Allah said to him, “We bore the liability, so the profit should be ours.” One of the Companions then advised him to treat the arrangement as a profit-sharing partnership.

These three views concerning such a case are found among the jurists; indeed, they are the three views in the school of Ahmad and elsewhere. Does the profit earned by someone who trades with another person’s property without permission belong to the property owner, the trader, or both? There are three views. The best and soundest by analogy is that it should be shared between them, as Umar ruled, because the increase is generated by both contributing sources.

In the foundational model of profit-sharing on which they rely, they take into account the partnership we have described: receiving equivalent dirhams is treated like receiving those very coins. This is why the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—and the Muslims after him called a loan a manīhah (a temporary grant for use), as in the expression, “a manīhah of silver.” People likewise say, “Lend me your dirhams,” treating the return of equivalent dirhams like the return of the very object lent for use: the borrower benefits from them and returns them. They also called profit-sharing qirād, because among exchange transactions it corresponds to qard (a loan) among gratuitous transactions.

It may also be said: Had the distinction they cited been legally consequential, it would more readily entail permitting sharecropping rather than profit-sharing than the reverse. An increase that arises while both productive bases remain intact has a stronger claim to validity than one arising when one of them passes away. If it is argued, “The crop is generated by the land, not by the worker’s body,” it could equally be said, “The profit is generated by the worker, not by the dirhams”—or the reverse. All of this is false. Rather, the crop is produced through the productive capacity of the land—with its soil, water, and air—and through that of the worker’s body, the oxen, and the iron implements.