and is not a form of specific hire. Even if it is treated as hire, it belongs to the broad category of hire that encompasses reward contracts and racing and archery competitions. Under either classification, the seed may be supplied by either party. This is because the seed in sharecropping is not one of the capital assets returned to its owner, as invested capital is in a profit-sharing partnership. Rather, the seed is consumed just as benefits are consumed; only the land, or the ox and laborer themselves, remain.

If the seed were equivalent to capital, an equal quantity would have to be returned to the party who supplied it, after which the two parties would divide the surplus. But that is not what occurs; instead, they share the entire crop. It is thus evident that the enduring assets involved are, on one side, the land with its water and air and, on the other, the laborer and oxen themselves. [The greater part of the tillage and the seed], however, is expended just as benefits are expended, and just as portions of the water, air, and soil are expended and transformed into crops.

Allah—Glorified is He—creates the crop from the very substance of the grain, soil, water, and air, just as He creates an animal from the reproductive fluids of its parents. Indeed, more of the earth’s constituent parts are transformed into the crop than of the grain. The grain itself is transformed and does not remain; rather, Allah causes it to split and transforms it, just as He transforms the constituent parts of water and air, and just as He transforms semen and His other creations in the animal, mineral, and plant kingdoms.

[When] many jurists came to adopt the view they did, they believed that the grain and fruit stone were the foundational substance of the crop and tree respectively, while everything else was merely ancillary. They consequently ruled in certain cases that the crop and tree belonged to the owner of the fruit stone and grain, despite their low value, while the landowner was entitled to rent for his land.

The Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace), however, ruled precisely the opposite when he said: “Whoever sows on land belonging to