for permitting sharecropping but not profit-sharing partnerships would be stronger than for the reverse; for an increase produced while both original resources remain intact has a stronger claim to validity than one produced while one of them is consumed.

If it is said, “The crop is an increase arising from the land, not the worker’s body,” one may reply, “Profit is an increase arising from the worker, not the dirhams—or vice versa.” All such claims are false. Rather, the crop is produced through the benefit provided by the land, with its soil, water and air, and through the benefit provided by the worker’s body, the cattle and the iron tools.

Even if a distinction between sharecropping and profit-sharing partnerships were conceded, sharecropping undoubtedly resembles a profit-sharing partnership more closely than a hire contract. In a hire contract, the intended object is the work itself, which must be specified, and the remuneration is either guaranteed as a liability or consists of a specifically identified asset. Here, however, the intended object is solely the increase; the work need not be specified, and the remuneration is neither an identified asset nor a liability owed, but a share of whatever increase is produced. Thus, whenever a particular item is stipulated as remuneration, the contract becomes invalid, just as a profit-sharing partnership becomes invalid if the parties stipulate for either of them a specified profit or a known remuneration owed as a liability.

This is perfectly clear. Since sharecropping resembles a profit-sharing partnership far more closely than a hire contract, since its distinction from a profit-sharing partnership is slight, while the differences between it and a hire contract have no bearing in Islamic law or reason, and since it must be assimilated to one of these two established types of contract, it is more appropriate to assimilate it to the one it more closely resembles. This is too obvious to require lengthy elaboration.

The third argument:

We say: The term ijārah (leasing or hiring) has both a broad and a restricted sense.