to enter into an investment partnership with a Muslim who regards the unlawful as lawful and engages in usury. Likewise, a man may not give capital to a non-Muslim for an investment partnership. Nor may he give such capital to his own non-Muslim slave or entrust him with buying and selling, because Allah Almighty says:

“and for their taking usury, although they had been forbidden to do so” [al-Nisā’: 161].

However, in ‘Abd al-Malik ibn al-Hasan’s account of what he heard from Ibn Wahb, it is reported that there is nothing wrong with a Muslim entering into an investment partnership with a Christian. This is an untenable position. As for a Muslim accepting capital from a Christian for an investment partnership, this is disapproved of, because it falls under a Muslim hiring himself out to a Christian.

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An investment partnership is a revocable contract: merely concluding it does not bind either party. It becomes binding only when work begins or the capital is committed. Once work has begun and the capital has been committed, the capital provider may not withdraw it until it has been converted back into cash, nor may the working partner return it before then. Success comes through Allah alone.

Summary of the Discussion on a Working Partner’s Purchase of Someone Who Becomes Free upon Entering His Ownership or That of the Capital Provider

This chapter and the following one cover four issues:

First: the working partner purchases someone who becomes free upon entering his ownership.

Second: he purchases someone who becomes free upon entering the capital provider’s ownership.

Third: the working partner emancipates a male or female slave forming part of the partnership capital.

Fourth: a partner has intercourse with a slave woman forming part of the partnership capital, and she becomes pregnant.

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If the working partner purchases someone who becomes free upon entering his ownership, there are two possibilities:

The first is that he is aware of this.