alone? Or should they give it in charity? Or should it be shared between them, as it would be if the property were used under a profit-sharing investment partnership, an orchard-tending agreement for a share of the yield, or a sharecropping agreement, or if livestock were entrusted to someone to tend in return for a share of their milk and offspring? Or should the worker receive the customary wage for such work, if that is their established practice?

Such was the course followed by Umar ibn al-Khattāb when Abū Mūsā al-Ash'arī lent Umar’s two sons 200,000 dirhams from the public revenues, singling them out from among all the Muslims. Umar ibn al-Khattāb considered this impermissible favouritism towards them. The money had yielded a considerable profit, bringing the total to 800,000 dirhams. He therefore ordered them to pay both the principal and its profit into the public treasury, ruling that they were entitled to none of the profit because they had received the money without right.

His son Abdullāh said to him: “This is not lawful for you. Had the money suffered a loss or been destroyed, we would have been liable for it. Why, then, do you hold us liable but deny us the profit?” Umar withheld judgment.

One of the Companions then said to him: “Let us treat it as a profit-sharing investment partnership between them and the Muslims: the two sons receive half the profit, and the Muslims receive the other half.” Umar acted accordingly.

This is one of the precedents on which the jurists have relied concerning profit-sharing investment partnerships. It was the ruling on which Umar ibn al-Khattāb ultimately settled, and the Companions of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, agreed with him. This is justice: the increase resulted from one party’s capital and the other’s labour, so neither is entitled to all the profit. Nor are they obliged to give the increase in charity, for the right belongs to them alone; no one else has a claim to it. Rather, the profit is divided between them as though they had entered into a profit-sharing investment partnership.