al-Sawād; calling it kharāj indicates that it is payment for the benefit they derive from the land and its trees. Likewise, people today call the rent paid by someone who plants trees on land kharāj when a specified amount is due for each tree. The same usage occurs in His words:

“Or do you ask them for payment? But the reward of your Lord is best.”

Another example is the kharāj paid by a slave: a fixed sum he pays his master from his own funds. Whoever regards it as rent must accept the permissibility of such an arrangement, since it is established by the consensus of the Companions. Whoever regards it as a purchase price or an independent form of payment acknowledges that it is unlike other payments. The Companions permitted it—despite its having no parallel—only because of the need for it. That same need exists in every tract of land containing trees, just as it does in conquered lands.

If it is said, “Orchard sharecropping or crop sharecropping is possible,” the reply is: Umar, too, could have used orchard or crop sharecropping, as was done during the Abbasid era, either during al-Mansūr’s caliphate or afterwards. They converted the system applied to the lands of al-Sawād from a land tax to produce-sharing, which is orchard and crop sharecropping.

If it is said, “The rent could be charged for the land alone, while use of the trees is granted free of charge or on preferential terms,” the reply is: Umar could also have done that. The common basis between the two cases is therefore clear.

Furthermore, we know with certainty that Muslims have always owned lands containing trees