a hire contract in the narrower sense. Even if it is classified as hire, it falls within hire in the broader sense, which includes contracts offering a reward for completing a task, as well as racing and archery contests.

On either understanding, the seed may be supplied by both parties. This is because seed in sharecropping is not among the assets returned to their owner, as invested money is in a profit-sharing partnership. Rather, seed is consumed, just as usufructs are consumed; what remains is the land, and the bodies of the ox and the worker. If seed were like invested capital, an equivalent quantity would have to be returned to its supplier before the two parties divided the surplus. But that is not how the arrangement works: they share the entire crop. Thus, the enduring assets contributed by one party or the other are the land, with its water and air, the worker’s body, and the cattle. Most of the cultivation effort and seed are expended, just as usufructs are consumed, and just as portions of water, air, and soil are consumed and transformed into crops.

Allah, glorified is He, creates crops from the grain itself, soil, water, and air, just as He creates an animal from the fluids of its two parents. Indeed, more of the crop is formed from transformed particles of earth than from the grain. The grain itself is transformed and does not remain intact; rather, Allah splits it open and transforms it, just as He transforms particles of water and air, and just as He transforms semen and His other creations among animals, minerals, and plants.

Yet many jurists came to hold the view that grain and fruit stones are the primary elements in crops and trees, while everything else is merely subsidiary. They even ruled in certain cases that the crops and trees belong to the owner of the fruit stones and grain, despite their small value, while the owner of