their assumption that a legally valid contract of hire concerns only benefits, which are accidents, and not tangible things, which are bodies. We shall, Allah willing, explain how this misconception is dispelled.

Since these jurists believed that hiring a wet nurse was contrary to analogy, some sought contrived ways to bring it into conformity with the analogy they accepted. They said: “The subject of the contract is placing the breast in the infant’s mouth, putting the infant in her lap, or similar benefits that are preliminaries to breastfeeding.” Yet it is well known that these acts are merely means to the intended purpose of the contract of hire. In themselves, they are neither sought nor contracted for; indeed, they have no value at all on their own. They are merely like opening the door for someone who has rented a house or shop, or mounting an animal for someone who has hired it. The purpose in the former case is occupancy, and in the latter, riding. These acts are merely preliminaries and means to the purpose intended by the contract.

Those who regarded hiring a wet nurse as contrary to analogy then extended this reasoning to such things as water from wells and springs that flow from the ground. They said: “These are included in the contract implicitly and as ancillary matters.” Even when the contract concerns the water itself—as when someone contracts for a flowing spring to irrigate his orchard or channel its water to his premises to drink from it and benefit from its water—they say: “The subject of the contract is conveying the water through the land,” or offer similar contrived explanations. Thus they exclude the water, the very thing intended by these contracts, from being the subject of the contract.