in detail in Sahīh Muslim and elsewhere, on the authority of Rāfi‘ ibn Khadīj: they used to lease out land, stipulating that the landowner would receive the crops from a particular plot, such as those growing along large waterways and irrigation channels. Sometimes the crops in one area would survive while those in another would not.

For this reason, al-Layth ibn Sa‘d said:
“The form of sharecropping that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, prohibited is something that anyone knowledgeable about the lawful and unlawful would, upon examining it, recognize as impermissible.”

This reflects the juristic understanding of al-Layth, of whom al-Shāfi‘ī said:
“Al-Layth had a deeper understanding of jurisprudence than Mālik.”

For he explained that what the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, prohibited accords with analogical reasoning from established principles, since it involves stipulating a particular portion of the profit for one of the two partners. A partnership requires fairness between the partners in the gains they receive and the losses they bear. If it departs from this, it becomes an unlawful injustice. What a difference there is between someone who regards what the Sunnah teaches as consistent with established principles and someone who regards it as contrary to them!

Anyone who gives the matter due consideration will recognize that the Sunnah’s prohibition of this form of sharecropping, its account of the agreement with the people of Khaybar for half of the fruit and crops produced there without this stipulation, and the Companions’ practice of profit-sharing investment all accord with analogical reasoning. These transactions belong to the category of partnerships, not contracts of hire.

That being so, we say: it is well known that if someone contracts with another to tend trees in return for a share of their fruit, this is like entering into a sharecropping agreement with him