the derivative case bears the opposite ruling from the original case because the effective cause warranting the original ruling is absent. Thus, it may be said: The rationale requiring the consideration to be known is absent in sharecropping and analogous arrangements. That requirement is based on the fact that an unknown consideration involves prohibited uncertainty and thus resembles a sale involving prohibited uncertainty, which leads to consuming wealth wrongfully—or on similar arguments that may be advanced. These rationales are absent from the derivative case. Therefore, if nothing warrants prohibition except this—and it is absent—then there is no prohibition.

As for the hadiths—including the hadith of Rāfi ibn Khadīj and others—they explain and clarify the Prophet’s prohibition (may Allah bless him and grant him peace): it did not concern the practices followed by him and the Companions during his lifetime, or by the Companions after his death. Rather, what he permitted was different from what he prohibited.

Rāfi ibn Khadīj said: “We cultivated more land than anyone else in Medina. We used to lease land in exchange for the produce of a portion of it designated for the landowner.” He continued: “[Sometimes] that portion would be blighted while the rest of the land remained unharmed, and [sometimes] the rest of the land would be blighted while that portion remained unharmed. We were therefore forbidden to do so. As for gold and silver, they were not then used for leasing land.” This was reported by al-Bukhārī.

In another version narrated by him, Rāfi said: “We owned more fields than anyone else in Medina. One of us would lease his land and say, ‘This tract is mine, and this one is yours.’ Sometimes one tract yielded a crop while the other did not, so the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) forbade them from doing that.”

In another version: “Sometimes this tract would yield a certain amount while the other yielded nothing. We were forbidden to do that, but we were not forbidden to lease land for silver.”

In Sahīh Muslim, Rāfi said: “We possessed more farmland than the people of any other city. We used to lease land on condition that this portion would be ours and that portion theirs. Sometimes one portion yielded a crop while the other did not. He therefore forbade us to do that; but as for silver, he did not forbid us from using it as payment.” Muslim likewise narrates from Hanzalah ibn Qays