that are leased out; indeed, such properties make up the greater part of the wealth of town-dwellers. We know that not all the early Muslims cultivated their lands themselves—not even most of them. We also know that orchard and crop sharecropping may not always be feasible, since they require a trustworthy worker. Not everyone is willing to enter into orchard sharecropping, nor is everyone who takes land willing to share its produce. They must, therefore, have leased out tree-covered land.

It is well known that resorting to a gratuitous grant as a legal device was uncommon, and was not practised by the early Muslims among the Companions and Successors. The only remaining possibility is that they acted as Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, did with the property of Usayd ibn al-Hudayr, and as most Muslims have done from those times down to the present day. Since no report has been transmitted that the early Muslims prohibited this lease, or that they were instructed to resort to the device of a gratuitous grant—despite the existing need for this transaction—we know with certainty that Muslims engaged in it without objection from the Companions and Successors. Its practice thus constituted a consensus among them.

Perhaps those who differed over leasing bare land and practising crop sharecropping on it did not differ over leasing tree-covered land or practising orchard sharecropping, because the benefit derived from the land does not amount to much compared with the benefit derived from the trees.

If it is objected:

Harb al-Kirmānī said: Ahmad was asked about the meaning of