The correct view, however, is that such arrangements have an independent legal basis: they belong to the category of partnerships, not exclusive hiring contracts, and conform to the legal analogy governing partnerships. Since partnerships rest on this principle, the jurists disagreed over partnerships for acquiring unowned resources, depending on whether acting as an agent in such matters is permissible. Ahmad permitted this, whereas Abū Hanīfah prohibited it. Ahmad cited the hadith of Saʿd, ʿAmmār, and Ibn Masʿūd as evidence.

It may be said that this belongs to the second type when the two partners jointly hire out their labor and their two animals under exclusive hiring contracts. Two views have been transmitted concerning such hiring. The view that it is invalid is the position of Abū Hanīfah and a group of Ahmad’s followers, including Abū al-Khattāb and al-Qādī in one of his two opinions. Al-Qādī stated that this follows by analogy from the school’s principles. This rests on the view that liability is not a condition of a labor partnership, as illustrated by partnerships for acquiring unowned resources, such as hunting and gathering firewood. Neither partner is obliged to perform any of the work incumbent upon the other; rather, their arrangement is comparable to sharing in the offspring of their livestock, the inheritance of their orchards, and the like.

Those who permit it say that it resembles a partnership for acquiring unowned resources. In that case, neither partner has an existing obligation to perform work, but the partnership makes whatever either partner does an act on behalf of both himself and his partner. Likewise, here, whatever wages either partner stipulates, or whatever reward is stipulated for him, belongs to both him and his partner. The work is performed on behalf of