feeds and waters them in return for a share of their milk and offspring, then it is permissible to entrust them to someone who tends them for their milk and offspring in exchange for a guaranteed payment.

If it is asked, “Why, then, should leasing them for milking not be permissible, just as hiring a wet nurse is permissible?”

The reply is: Hiring a wet nurse is for her to provide suckling, with the work, in the case of sheep, being performed by their owner. For the wet nurse herself suckles the child. Since she herself provides the service, the analogous arrangement is one in which the lessor himself provides the service of suckling. In that case, analogy entails its permissibility. If a man owned sheep and hired another man’s sheep to suckle his own, there would be nothing impermissible about this.

If, however, the lessee himself milks them or takes possession of the milk, he is purchasing milk, rather than receiving a usufruct or obtaining the tangible product through his labour. This resembles purchasing fruit, and his milking resembles picking it. This is what the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) prohibited when he said:

“Milk still in an udder must not be sold.”

This differs from leasing the animals in order to tend them and milk them, which is analogous to leasing land and trees.