The third opinion is that the claimant assumes liability for the property, becomes entitled to its yield, and must have it sequestered upon the testimony of a single witness. This is reported by ʿĪsā from Ibn al-Qāsim in the Book of Claims and Amicable Settlement: the claimant swears an oath in support of his witness’s testimony and bears any loss. The same applies to his report from him in that book concerning someone who claims olive trees and produces a single witness: the fruit belongs to him, provided the passage is understood to mean that he established his ownership of the trees alone, not the fruit. If, however, it is understood to mean that he claimed both the trees and the fruit, and that the witness he produced testified to his ownership of both, then the report falls outside the present discussion and concerns a case on which there is agreement. The statement in Ibn Ziyād’s Ahkām (Rulings) that a house must be sequestered by locking it, and its yield impounded, upon the testimony of a single witness accords with this opinion.

The same disagreement also applies to maintenance expenses. In ʿĪsā’s report from Ibn al-Qāsim in the Book of Claims and Amicable Settlement, a distinction is drawn between expenses and liability, whereas ʿĪsā, expressing his own opinion, treats them alike, as analogy requires. The apparent meaning of al-Mudawwanah likewise distinguishes between them, but the correct understanding is that these are differing opinions.

Section

There is also disagreement over the stage at which fruit counts as yield when ownership of the underlying property is successfully claimed, thereby entitling the person from whom the property is recovered to the fruit if it has reached that stage at the relevant point—whether this is the judgment and ruling, the establishment of the claimant’s right through the testimony of two witnesses, or the testimony of a single witness in the claimant’s favour, according to the disagreement already mentioned.

Abū Zayd reports from Ibn al-Qāsim that the fruit belongs to the rightful claimant so long as it has not been harvested. Ibn al-Mawwāz’s book states: so long as it has not dried; the person from whom the property is recovered may reclaim from the claimant the costs of irrigation and tending. According to what he says in al-Mudawwanah concerning return on account of a defect, the fruit belongs to the claimant so long as it has not ripened, since he makes no distinction between the two cases.

This applies when the person from whom the property is recovered bought the trees before the fruit was pollinated. If he bought them after pollination, however, then according to Ibn al-Qāsim the fruit belongs to the rightful claimant even if it has been harvested, and the purchaser may reclaim from him the costs of irrigation and tending, as in the case of return on account of a defect. According to Ashhab, the fruit belongs to the rightful claimant so long as it has not been harvested; once harvested, it counts as yield belonging to the purchaser.

If, however, he bought the underlying property while the fruit was a gift, and stipulated its inclusion, Ibn al-Mawwāz’s book states that the fruit belongs to the rightful claimant regardless of its condition, whether it has dried or