and the date palms cannot be watered without watering it. If the unplanted ground is extensive and the date palms few, his followers hold two opinions on the matter. This applies when both arrangements are combined in a single contract and the stipulated share is the same in each, such as one third or one quarter. If the two shares differ, his followers hold two opinions. Likewise, if he concludes two separate contracts, beginning with the fruit-sharing agreement, there are two opinions. If, however, he begins with the sharecropping contract, that contract is invalid according to the sole opinion on the matter. Thus, he permits sharecropping—which both of them otherwise disallow—as an adjunct to a fruit-sharing agreement. By the same reasoning, he can permit the leasing of trees as an adjunct to leasing the land. Ibn ʿAqīl’s position undoubtedly follows by analogy from one of the two opinions held by al-Shāfiʿī’s followers.

A further reason is that those who prohibit this either resort to a stratagem to make it permissible, engage in what they believe to be unlawful, or cause harm and suffer harm themselves.

The Kufan jurists have resorted to stratagems to make it permissible. Sometimes the owner leases only the land and grants the tenant permission to take the fruit of the trees. This resembles their position on selling fruit before its ripeness becomes apparent: he sells it to the buyer, either without qualification or on condition that it be picked, for the full amount of the rent, and then permits him to leave it on the trees. This stratagem is reported from Abū Hanīfa, al-Thawrī, and others.

At other times, he leases the land to him for the full rent and concludes a fruit-sharing agreement concerning the trees on preferential terms—for example, stipulating that the owner receive only one thousandth of the fruit. This stratagem is permitted only by those who permit fruit-sharing agreements, such as Abū Yūsuf and Muhammad