The first is that a lease or hiring contract is concluded through whatever people customarily regard as such. Thus, if someone hands his food to a cook who cooks for payment, or his clothes to a washer who washes for payment, or entrusts work to a weaver, tailor, or similar craftsman who customarily works for payment, they are entitled to fair remuneration. Likewise, if someone enters a bathhouse, boards a boat, or rides an animal, as is customary with mounts and conveyances made available for hire, the provider is entitled to the fair customary charge.

How much more so, then, if someone says, “Lease it to me for such-and-such an amount,” and the other replies, “Go and draw up a lease,” whereupon he draws it up and the premises are handed over to him? According to these jurists, this is a valid lease under Islamic law. This is the view of most jurists, including Mālik, Abū Hanīfah, Imam Ahmad, and others.

The second view is that a particular form is indispensable, just as a similar requirement has been stipulated for sales. This is the position of those among al-Shāfiʿī’s followers who hold this view. Anyone who believes this must not impose a rental obligation except in this manner. If someone believes that rent can be validly stipulated only in this manner, yet leases the premises in the customary way, hands them over, and demands the stipulated rent, then, when an increase is in question, claims that no lease exists, his claim is not to be accepted. This is injustice: if he adheres to a legal school, he must adhere to it both when it serves his interests and when it works against them.

As for holding the lease to be valid when it serves his interests, but invalid when it works against them, this is neither acceptable nor permissible, by the consensus of the Muslims. Whoever persists in such conduct is unjust by the agreement of the Muslims. Indeed, he is a sinful person, disqualified from giving testimony or exercising such authority.