even if the lease terminates upon his death or for some other reason—all the more so.

Second, if the lender permits the property to be leased, the lease is valid. The same applies to leasing allotted land: the ruler permits allotment-holders to lease it, and he allotted it to them precisely so that they could benefit from it, whether through agricultural sharecropping or leasing. Whoever prohibits benefiting from it through leasing and sharecropping undermines the Muslims’ religious and worldly affairs. For the allotment-holder can benefit from premises such as shops, houses, and the like only by leasing them out. As for farmland and orchards, the usual ways of benefiting from them are leasing, agricultural sharecropping, and arrangements in which orchards are tended in return for a share of their produce. The murāba'a arrangement is a form of agricultural sharecropping. The only alternative to these arrangements is for him to hire someone to work the land for him at a fixed wage. Very few people do this, because he may lose his money and receive nothing in return. A partnership, by contrast, allows both parties to share in gain and loss, and is therefore closer to justice. This is why sound human dispositions prefer it. These matters can be discussed in greater detail elsewhere.

The point here is that if the ruler compels those engaged in trades to provide the work people need, such as farming, weaving, and building, he is to set their wages at the rate paid for comparable work. He must not allow the employer to reduce the worker’s wage below that rate, nor allow the worker to demand more than it when he is personally obliged to perform the work. This is a form of obligatory price regulation.

Likewise, if people need someone to make equipment for jihad, such as weapons, bridges for warfare, and the like, those workers are to be employed at the rate paid for comparable work; neither