benefit to him in it, the cultivator may not uproot it, because the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said:
“There must be neither harm nor reciprocating harm.”
It remains with the landowner, because the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said:
“A wrongfully planted root confers no right.”
In the second case, the cultivator acknowledges that he did not lease the land from its owner, but claims that he cultivated it with the owner’s knowledge and that the latter neither intervened nor objected. If the cultivator has no evidence of this, the landowner must swear that he was unaware of the cultivation. If the landowner swears to this, he may reclaim his land, and the crop is subject to the ruling already explained. If he declines to swear, the cultivator must swear to his claim; his crop is then left standing, and he owes the fair rental value of the land. The same applies if the cultivator has evidence that he cultivated it with the landowner’s knowledge and awareness.
In the third case, the cultivator claims that the landowner leased the land to him. The landowner’s statement is accepted upon his oath that he did not lease it to him. If he swears to this, he is entitled to reclaim his land, and the crop is subject to the ruling already explained. If he declines to swear, the cultivator must swear that the landowner did indeed lease it to him for such-and-such an amount, whether the rent he claims is implausibly low or is high, exceeding the fair rental value. His statement is accepted even if the rent he claims is implausible, because the landowner, by declining to swear, has enabled him to establish his claim in this way.
This is the well-known position in the school, contrary to what appears in the Book of Qirād in al-Mudawwana concerning a capital owner who claims that he entrusted money to someone to trade with all profits belonging to himself, while the trader claims that it was entrusted to him under a profit-sharing arrangement. If the capital owner declines to swear, it states that the trader may swear if someone of his standing would ordinarily be engaged in such a profit-sharing arrangement. The sole reason he was required