Moreover, according to most of them, kharāj is rent for the land, and ‘Umar did not fix the duration of the lease because of the general benefit it served. Kharāj is a levy on both land bearing trees and treeless land. He imposed a specified amount on each jarīb (a unit of land area) of date palms, and a specified amount on each jarīb of vines. This is precisely a lease of land together with its trees. If permitting this accords with legal analogy, that establishes our point. If, however, it is permitted because of a compelling need, then people own orchards containing dwellings that command substantial rents. If they entrust these properties to someone to cultivate under fruit-sharing and crop-sharing agreements, the benefit of the dwellings on them is lost, as happens in the countryside around Damascus and similar places.

Furthermore, the property may be an endowment, belong to an orphan, or the like. How, then, can it be permissible to forgo the benefit of the dwellings built in those gardens? The dwelling may provide most of the benefit, with the trees and land being merely ancillary. They therefore need to lease those dwellings, yet cannot lease them separately from the use of the land and trees.

For if the cultivator is someone other than the resident, both suffer harm: there is harm from the construction of the dwellings, and the resident and his dependants remain barred from benefiting from the fruit and crops, despite their being right there with them. They are also inconvenienced by the cultivator entering their home. The cultivator, too, cannot remain confident that his fruit and crops are safe; rather, he fears for them during his absence. Not every resident is trustworthy, and even if he is trustworthy, his guests, children, and womenfolk cannot be relied upon. All this is well known.

Thus, if the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—forbade muzābanah, which is the sale of