in which case he receives the customary remuneration for exchanging it or having it minted, and is then awarded the customary partnership share on the resulting proceeds, exactly as with an investment partnership established with merchandise.
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The grounds for permitting investment partnerships with unminted gold and silver are that these need not be sold. This was the argument Mālik—may Allah have mercy on him—advanced in Ashhab’s report from him: “People entered into investment partnerships before dinars and dirhams were minted.” Moreover, minting has no bearing on either permissibility or prohibition. The proof is that every ruling applicable to coined gold and silver also applies to them when unminted: unequal exchanges are prohibited within either metal, and deferred exchange is prohibited between the two.
The grounds for prohibiting investment partnerships with them are their similarity to merchandise: people do not use them in buying and selling or otherwise transact with them until they have undergone processing and craftsmanship. This is therefore equivalent to selling merchandise. Ibn Sha‘bān said in al-Zāhī that this is impermissible only because the quality of their gold cannot be precisely determined. This is the stronger argument by analogy. On this reasoning, investment partnerships with unminted gold and silver would also be disapproved of, whether or not unminted metal circulates in the locality.
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There is likewise disagreement over investment partnerships established with copper coins: they have been both permitted and disapproved of. Those who permit them liken these coins to gold and silver currency, since they can be used in transactions; those who prohibit them liken them to merchandise. A distinction should be drawn between small and large amounts when determining whether such partnerships are permissible, in keeping with Ibn al-Qāsim’s statement in the second book on advance-payment sales in al-Mudawwana, concerning someone instructed to sell another person’s merchandise who sells it for copper coins. Accordingly, there are three positions on investment partnerships with copper coins: permission; unqualified disapproval, without distinction; and a distinction between small and large amounts. The reasoning behind this last position is clear.
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A man should enter into an investment partnership only with someone who knows what is lawful and what is unlawful, and it is not permissible for him