as when rainfall falls below its customary level, or flooding diminishes the crop, and similar cases. Here our jurists hold two views:

(The first is that he is entitled only to rescind the lease.

The second—which follows from the explicit rulings and the analogical principles of the school—is that he may choose between rescission and compensation for the diminution, as in a sale. Indeed, the grounds for this are even stronger in a lease: in a sale, he can return the item and demand repayment of the price, whereas here he cannot return the entire benefit, since he can return it only in an altered state.

If it were said here that he is entitled only to claim compensation—just as, according to one of the two transmitted opinions, we hold that a defect arising in the purchased item while in the buyer’s possession prevents its return for a pre-existing defect and instead entitles him to compensation—that would be more defensible and more consistent with analogy than the view that, upon finding fault with the benefit, he is entitled only to rescind, without claiming compensation.

This is an exceedingly weak view, far removed from the principles of the Sharia and the rules of the school, and contrary to the explicit statements of Ahmad and the leading scholars among his followers, even if al-Qādī expresses it in al-Mujarrad and Ibn ‘Aqīl or others follow him in it. Al-Qādī, may Allah be pleased with him, composed al-Mujarrad early on, after writing Sharh al-Madhhab and before bringing al-Ta‘līq and al-Jāmi‘ al-Kabīr to their finished form. He takes the cases that other scholars formulated and answered according to their own principles, and answers them on the basis of what Ahmad explicitly stated