and sows it and waters it until the crop is ready: he is selling nothing but a crop, even if the buyer is the one who picks the fruit and reaps the crop. This is like selling produce on the land, leaving the buyer to move it and carry it away. Hence the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, coupled the two in prohibiting the sale of grain before it hardens and the sale of fruit before its ripeness becomes apparent, for these are simply sales of fruit and crops.

But if the owner hands the tree over to a lessee to water it, pollinate it, and protect it from harm, this is comparable to handing land over to someone to till, sow, and water it. Hence he treated the two alike in fruit-sharing and crop-sharing arrangements. Just as leasing land is not a sale of its crops, leasing a tree is not a sale of its fruit. Rather, leasing trees stands in the same relation to leasing land as fruit-sharing does to crop-sharing. The sharing arrangement is a transaction in return for a portion of the yield, whereas the lease is for a specified payment.

Since these yields are treated on a par with usufructs when their sources are endowed, when the yields themselves are donated, when a partnership is formed for a share of their increase, and when they are exchanged for compensation once ripe, they should likewise be treated on a par with usufructs in contracts for obtaining and procuring them.

If someone were to distinguish between the two on the grounds that crops are produced only through work, whereas fruit is produced without work, this distinction would have no bearing on the ruling, as fruit-sharing and crop-sharing arrangements demonstrate. Nor is it correct, for work affects the production of fruit just as it affects the growth of crops. Without tending the trees, the fruit may fail altogether or be diminished, for