al-ʿUtbiyya. One appears in ʿĪsā’s transmission in the Book of Marriage: combining sharecropping and a sale in a single transaction.

The second appears in ʿĪsā’s transmission in the Book of Crop Losses and Sharecropping: engaging someone to tend an orchard for a year in return for one-third of its yield, or for a year in return for one-half. He ruled that in both cases the worker receives the customary share under a comparable sharecropping contract. The same ruling must consequently apply when someone engages a worker to tend two orchards, one for one-third of its yield and the other for one-half, and to similar arrangements. A similar case is engaging someone to tend an orchard on condition that he also undertake the upkeep of another orchard. He ruled that the worker receives the customary wage for comparable work in the orchard whose upkeep was stipulated as an additional obligation, and the customary share under a comparable sharecropping contract in the other.

The fourth opinion is that the worker receives the customary share under a comparable sharecropping contract, provided that it does not exceed the stipulated share if the condition was in the orchard owner’s favour, or fall below it if the condition was in the worker’s favour. The view taught to us by the scholars we knew was that, according to Ibn al-Qāsim, the worker receives the customary share under a comparable sharecropping contract only in these four expressly recorded cases of invalid sharecropping. In all other cases, according to his position, the worker receives the customary wage for comparable work. On their interpretation of Ibn al-Qāsim’s position, this would constitute a fifth opinion on the issue. The correct view, however, is that Ibn Habīb’s position, based on the principle we have mentioned, explains Ibn al-Qāsim’s position rather than differing from it.

Section

In cases where the worker is entitled to the customary wage for comparable work, the contract is annulled whenever its irregularity is discovered, whether before or after work has begun. He receives the customary wage for comparable work for whatever he has done up to the time of discovery. In cases where he is entitled to the customary share under a comparable sharecropping contract, however, the contract is annulled only if the work has not progressed so far as to preclude annulment. Once it has, the sharecropping contract is not annulled before its term expires, and the worker receives the customary share under a comparable sharecropping contract for the remaining years. Success comes from Allah Most High.