He—may Allah have mercy on him—was also asked:

A man handed over his land to another man to cultivate, with the crop to be divided equally between them and the seed supplied by the cultivator, not the landowner. Is this permissible as a partnership between them, or is it not permissible?

He answered:

Praise be to Allah. This is permissible according to the more correct of the two scholarly views. It accords with the established practice of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, his Rightly Guided Caliphs, and his other Companions.

It is authentically reported that he made an agreement with the people of Khaybar for half its yield of crops and fruit, on condition that they cultivate it at their own expense. This was an arrangement for sharing the produce equally, implemented by the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, with the seed supplied by the cultivator rather than the landowner.

His Companions likewise followed this practice after him, including the families of Abū Bakr and Alī ibn Abī Tālib, as well as Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqās and Abdullāh ibn Masʿūd.

Those who opposed this relied on two weak grounds:

First, they assumed that sharecropping was like a contract of hire, whereas it does not fall within the category of