He—may Allah have mercy on him—was asked:

Some people owe the owners of a village sums of money and seed grain. They sowed all the seed grain in that village, but a cold spell destroyed the crop after it had begun to flourish. Are these farmers required to repay all the seed grain they received, or not?

He replied:

If the landowners provided the seed grain to be sown on the land under a valid or invalid farming agreement, the farmers bear no liability, provided they used it as instructed—even if the arrangement was termed an invalid loan. Its intended substance is a sharecropping agreement. And if the landowner sows seed there, he is entitled to recover it.

If, however, it was an unrestricted loan for which the borrower was personally liable, free to use it in various ways, it remains a debt owed by the borrower, even if his crop and money are lost.