risk and the essence of gambling; and that the prohibition applied only to that customary form of land lease, not to one in which the rent was guaranteed as an obligation. Allah willing, I shall point out a similar principle regarding his prohibition against selling fruit before signs of its ripeness appear. Rāfi knew best what precisely the Prophet’s prohibition (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) concerned. This—and Allah knows best—is what Abdullah ibn Umar ceased doing. When Rāfi narrated the hadith to him, he said, “You know that we used to lease our fields in return for the crops along the irrigation channels and a quantity of straw.” He thus made clear that they had been leasing them in return for the crop from a specified place. Ibn Umar used to do this because it had been practiced during the lifetime of the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace), until the prohibition reached him.

This is demonstrated by the fact that Ibn Umar consistently narrated the hadith concerning the Khaybar sharecropping arrangement and issued rulings based upon it. He also issued rulings permitting sharecropping on land without trees, and his household did likewise even after Rāfi’s hadith. Harb al-Kirmānī related: Ishāq ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Rāhawayh narrated to us: Mu‘tamir ibn Sulaymān narrated to us: I heard Kulayb ibn Wā’il say, “I came to Ibn Umar and said, ‘A man who owns land and water but has neither seed nor oxen approached me. I took the land in return for half the produce, sowed my seed in it, worked it with my oxen, and then divided the yield equally with him?’ He replied, ‘That is good.’”

He also said: Ibn Akhī Hazm narrated to us: Yahyā ibn Sa‘īd narrated to us: Sa‘īd ibn Ubayd narrated to us: “I heard Sālim ibn Abdullah when a man came to him and said, ‘One of us goes to another man and says: I will bring my seed and oxen and work your land; of whatever Allah brings forth from it, you shall receive such-and-such, and I shall receive such-and-such?’ He replied, ‘There is no harm in that; we ourselves do it.’”

Rāfi’s relatives likewise reported the same. In al-Bukhārī, Rāfi said: “My two paternal uncles told me that, during the lifetime of the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace), they would lease land in return for what grew along the irrigation channels, or for a portion reserved by the landowner. The Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) therefore prohibited us from doing that. Rāfi was then asked, ‘What about leasing it for a dinar