knowledge. These include stipulating a stage before the trees begin bearing fruit. There are two views concerning cases where the stipulated endpoint is fruit-bearing itself, a term of years ending before fruit-bearing, or where neither a stage nor a term is specified. If, however, the stipulated stage is beyond fruit-bearing, the arrangement is impermissible. It is likewise impermissible to stipulate that the trees or their yield be shared between them, but not the land itself.

Section

If a tree-planting contract is concluded on any of the terms we have described as impermissible by agreement, or according to the position that disallows it in the cases where we have mentioned disagreement, it falls into one of two categories:

The first is where the planter is not allotted a share of the land itself.

The second is where he is allotted a share of it.

Where he is not allotted a share of the land itself, but the arrangement merely provides for sharing the fruit, or the trees without the land on which they stand, there are two views:

The first is that it is governed by the rules of an invalid lease.

The second is that it is governed by the rules of an invalid contract of hire. This disagreement rests on whether the trees planted by the planter belong to him or to the landowner. Those who reason that the trees belong to the planter treat the arrangement as an invalid lease, since the planter has, in effect, leased the land from its owner for an unspecified period in return for half the fruit of the trees he plants there for himself, or a half-share in the trees themselves, to be handed over to the owner when they reach the stage stipulated by both parties. The ruling is then that the planter must pay the customary rent for the land from the day he took possession of it. This is Ibn al-Qāsim’s position in ‘Īsā’s transmitted reports from him. What this means is: if he took possession of it at a time