stipulate that either party receive the crops from a particular plot or a fixed quantity of the crop’s yield. Likewise, one may not stipulate that either party receive the profit from a particular commodity or a fixed amount of profit. As for stipulating the return of an amount equivalent to the original capital, this is like stipulating the return of the trees and land. The stipulation that an equivalent quantity of seed be returned raises questions that I have discussed elsewhere.

If this is the ruling on assigning either party a particular portion or fixed quantity of the yield—which must instead be shared between them in undivided shares—then the prohibition applies all the more to reserving for either party something outside that yield. Examples include one party stipulating that the other cultivate another piece of land for him, undertake trade in which the profits belong exclusively to the owner of the goods, or irrigate another tree for him, and similar practices common among many people.

Because the worker is in need, the owner may stipulate that he provide some benefit under another arrangement. Thus, he may enter into a profit-sharing investment partnership with him while also entrusting him with goods to trade solely for the owner’s profit; or contract with him to tend trees and cultivate land while also employing him on another piece of land or to help tend his livestock; or stipulate that he be allowed to borrow the worker’s animals, or something similar. Making such stipulations is impermissible, with no disagreement among the scholars that I know of.

This amounts to stipulating an entitlement to a particular portion or fixed amount of the profit. For when one party stipulates the use of the other’s labour or property, he alone receives that benefit, even though there may be no yield, or less than was expected. He will then have wrongfully obtained the benefit provided by the other party and dealt with him on a basis of gambling and usury, for this involves both usury and gambling.