in which case no zakat is due. If the investment capital entrusted to him equals or exceeds the zakat threshold, he does not know whether it will be converted into cash before a full year has elapsed, so that no zakat is due, or only after a full year has elapsed, making zakat due. The uncertainty involved is therefore clear. The basis of the position in the Mudawwana is that it proceeds according to what usually happens: the funds are not converted into cash before a full year has elapsed, and even if the amount entrusted to him is below the zakat threshold, it reaches that threshold together with its profit. We have discussed the ruling on either party to an orchard-tending partnership stipulating that the other must bear the zakat on the orchard’s dates in al-Bayān wa-l-Tahsīl, in the Book of Crop Damage and Orchard-Tending Partnerships, in the section containing Ashhab’s transmission. Allah grants success.
Section
The conditions that either party to an investment partnership stipulates for the other fall into two categories. The first neither invalidates the partnership nor departs from its established rules. The second invalidates it and departs from its established rules.
Conditions that neither invalidate it nor depart from its established rules fall into two categories:
The first consists of conditions that may be stipulated at the outset without any disapproval, such as requiring the working partner not to buy livestock with the funds, take them by sea, or take them outside his town, and similar conditions.
The second consists of conditions whose stipulation at the outset is disapproved, but which are upheld once agreed upon. An example is when a travelling company stops at a place with merchandise, and one man entrusts another with investment funds on condition that he buy from them and then sell, and similar cases. Such conditions have no fixed limit and cannot be confined to a particular number. The cases discussed in this book cover most of them, each in its appropriate place, if Allah Most High wills.
Section
As for conditions that invalidate the partnership and depart from its established rules, the partnership must be dissolved and the funds returned to their owner, unless the working partner has already put them to use. If he has already put them to use, there are four opinions concerning what he is entitled to receive in return for his work: