He replied:

Praise be to Allah. The validity of this arrangement is disputed. The apparent position of our school is that it is valid, whether it is called a lease or sharecropping. Ahmad upheld its validity in most of his recorded statements and called it a lease. Abū al-Khattāb and others said that it is sharecropping in which the cultivator supplies the seed. Al-Qādī and others, however, upheld its validity while declaring sharecropping in which the cultivator supplies the seed invalid.

If the arrangement is valid, compensation is due according to its validly stipulated terms. Here, however, the agreed consideration is not a debt owed independently of the yield. The average yield is therefore assessed, and the stipulated share of it becomes due. If we classify the arrangement as sharecropping and uphold its validity, compensation should be assessed in the same way, because the substance of the arrangement is the same.

If, however, we declare it invalid and classify it as a lease, there are two views concerning what is due. The first is the customary rent for comparable land; this is the apparent position of our fellow scholars and others. The second is the customary share, and this is the sound conclusion.

Some have answered that this is an invalid lease and that taking possession therefore makes the customary rent for comparable land payable.