that it is permissible. This is the recognized position among the followers of al-Shāfiʿī.

Yet this stratagem is unworkable even on the principles of those who uphold the validity of legal stratagems. It is invalid on several grounds:

One is that, among the many properties concerned, some are endowments or belong to an orphan or someone else whose assets are administered under legal guardianship. Entering into a tree-tending contract for such property in return for a very small share of its fruit is impermissible, and making either contract conditional upon the other is invalid.

Another is that the harm underlying the prohibition against selling fruit before it has begun to ripen—such as its involving uncertainty akin to gambling, and its leading to disputes and enmity, among the very harms for which gambling was prohibited—is present in these transactions to an even greater extent than in the simple sale of fruit before it has begun to ripen. It is well known that the party undertaking such an arrangement pays his money only in return for the benefit he will derive from the land and trees, especially where the benefit from the trees predominates, as in gardens and orchards mostly occupied by trees or containing little open ground. Here, if Allah withholds the fruit and the party liable for the rent is required to pay it in full, the resulting wrongful consumption of wealth, disputes, and evil are plain to see.

Another is that renting for a thousand dirhams land whose rental value is one hundred dirhams is the conduct of financially irresponsible people who deserve to be placed under legal interdiction. The same applies to a tree-tending contract for a share