As for those who regarded that earning as permissible, they argued on the basis of the report from Ibn ʿAbbās who said:

“The Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—had himself cupped and paid the cupper his wage.”

They say: had the wage been unlawful, he would not have paid it. They also cite the ḥadīth of Jābir:

“The Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—sent for Abū Ṭaybah, who cupped him. The Prophet then asked him, ‘What is your fee?’ He replied, ‘Three sāʿs.’ So the Prophet reduced it for him by one sāʿ.”

Jābir also narrates:

“The Prophet ordered that the cupper be given a sāʿ of food and instructed his household to lighten the burden on him.”

Those who deemed it merely disliked relied on the report that Rifāʿah ibn Rāfiʿ—or Rāfiʿ ibn Rifāʿah—came to the gathering of the Anṣār and said:

“The Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—forbade the earnings of the cupper and commanded us to feed him from our draught camel.”

They also cite the narration:

“A man of Banū Ḥārithah had a cupper. He asked the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—about it, and the Prophet forbade him. He returned and was again forbidden; he persisted until the Prophet said to him, ‘Feed the earnings to your camel and give them to your servants.’ ”

Under the same heading falls their disagreement over leasing one house in return for residence in another. Mālik permits it, whereas Abū Ḥanīfah forbids it—apparently viewing it as ‘a debt for a debt,’ an argument that is weak. These, then, are the well-known questions that concern the type of price and the type of benefit.

As for matters that relate to their qualities, we shall likewise mention the most famous of them. The majority of the jurists of the major centres—Mālik, Abū Ḥanīfah, and al-Shāfiʿī—agree in principle that a lease is valid only when both the rent and the benefit are precisely known. That may be by fixing the benefit’s endpoint, as with sewing a garment or making a door, or—when the benefit has no natural endpoint—by stipulating a set term, as with the service of a hired worker. Such a term may be set by time when the benefit is continuous, as in renting houses or shops, or by place when it is measured by distance, as in hiring riding animals.

The Ẓāhirīs and a group from the early generations, however, allow leases with undefined benefits, such as a man giving his donkey to someone to irrigate land or collect firewood in return for half of whatever results.

The majority’s main proof is that leasing is a form of sale, so the ignorance barred in sales—because it invites inequity—is likewise barred in leases. The other party draws an analogy with muḍārabah (profit-sharing partnership) and musāqāt (share-cropping). The majority reply that those two contracts are exceptions established by the Sunnah and therefore cannot serve as bases for analogy, since they depart from the general rules.

Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī further agree that when a benefit lacking a natural endpoint is given a fixed period of time, its commencement is also specified, and that commencement follows immediately after the contract, the lease is valid.